A PERSONAL QUEST TO CURE BRAIN CANCER True Bench to Bedside: UCLA Innovation Now in Phase III Clinical Trials hile completing her residency at UCLA, Dr. Linda M. Liau lost her mother to metastatic cancer. That pivotal moment changed the course of her life and many others. As a physician-scientist, she is in a unique position to translate her pre-clinical findings in the laboratory to the clinic. She received early recognition and seed funding from most notably the Kimmel Translational Science Award, given by the Sidney Kimmel Foundation dedicated to cancer research. This led to the development of the first personalized brain cancer vaccine in the UCLA laboratory. This novel immunotherapy involves surgically removing a patient’s tumor and then drawing blood to extract immune cells from the
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patient’s body. In the lab, Dr. Liau isolated a specific type of immune cell, called a dendritic cell, and activated it to train the patient’s immune cells to recognize, hunt down, and eliminate the tumor cells. The custom-made vaccine is developed from the patient’s activated dendritic cells (DCs), which when injected back into the body, jumpstart the patient’s immune system to train “killer T cells” to seek out the tumor and strike it dead on the spot in the brain. Today, the DCVax-L® vaccine is in Phase III, randomized, multi-center clinical trials for glioblastoma in 46 hospitals in the United States, and has entered multiple centers internationally in Europe. The UK Health System has just adopted DCVax as a national priority trial.
Dr. Liau’s dream is to secure FDA approval for this immunotherapy as a standard treatment—in conjunction with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy—for patients with glioblastoma multiforme. The hope is to work toward curing brain cancer once and for all.
DENDRITIC CELL (RED) ENGULFING A BRAIN TUMOR CELL (BLUE)
GENETIC PROFILING & PREDICTIVE MEDICINE UCLA brain cancer researchers have banked more than 5,000 brain tumor specimens. With molecular diagnostics, gene expression analysis, next generation genetic sequencing, and advanced medical bioinformatics, we have a robust database of patient profiles to help develop predictive, individualized treatment plans for new patients that increase survival.
UCLA BRAIN TUMOR BOARD MEETING
TIM CLOUGHESY, DIR. UCLA NEURO-ONCOLOGY PROG.
BRAIN TUMOR BOARD MEETING Multidisciplinary Collaboration
ROBERT M. PRINS, PHD, ASSOCIATE PROF. IN RESIDENCE
20 | BRAIN TUMOR PROGRAM
UCLA Brain Tumor experts meet once a week at the UCLA Brain Tumor Board meeting to discuss patient cases and devise the optimal treatment plan for each individual patient, based on weighing all medical and surgical options. This relieves the patient from the need to visit multiple offices. The UCLA Brain Tumor Board is a resource for other clinics and doctors. Local, national and international physicians send in brain tumor cases to receive expert consultation on how to treat the challenging ones.
UCLA NEUROSURGERY: INTO THE BRAIN AND BEYOND