Q1FY24 Board Quarterly Report

QUARTERLY REPORT

Q1FY24

PREPARED BY: Strategic Communication, Education and Outreach

The Strategic Communication, Education, and Outreach team curates stories for press releases using scientific impact and institutional strategic alignment as central criteria. The stories featured represent an esteemed fraction of discovery and accomplishment across the St. Jude research and clinical enterprise. Additional media engagement is pursued for each release, accompanied by promotion across our channels and platforms. Work published in Q1FY24 showcased the breadth and depth of the St. Jude research enterprise. Investigators from more than half of the institution’s academic departments authored news-worthy discoveries in hematology, infectious disease, global medicine, and cancer resistance. Once again, we celebrated faculty awards and new executive hires – demonstrating the growth and impact of the St. Jude workforce.

Million engagements with research-related press coverage

120

St. Jude faculty and staff contributed as authors to papers featured in Q1 press releases.

Academic departments represented in Q1 releases.

Q1FY24: SELECT SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES

NATURE

Immune and tumor cell ‘tug-of-war’ controls anti-cancer activity

• Researchers at St. Jude discovered that glutamine, the body’s most abundant protein building block, is a vital nutrient for both tumor cells and immune cells. This competition for glutamine within the cellular environment becomes a battle between these cells.

• Increasing the amount of glutamine can boost the immune cells’ ability to combat tumors, as researchers observed that immune cells utilize glutamine to activate a cancer-killing response.

• St. Jude scientists are the first to uncover that glutamine is a crucial signal between cancer cells and dendritic cells in the tumor environment.

• In combination with other known therapies, researchers found that glutamine significantly enhanced anti-cancer activity in their research model.

Hongbo Chi, PhD

Asya

THE LANCET ONCOLOGY

Pediatric Early Warning Systems save lives in Latin American hospitals

• Pediatric cancer patients who are hospitalized can experience a sudden change in their health status and require transfer to intensive care units.

• Researchers from St. Jude, in partnership with colleagues in Latin America, have discovered that identifying early signs of clinical deterioration in hospitalized patients significantly increases the chances of saving lives, particularly in hospitals facing urgent healthcare demands.

• Researchers leverage a quality improvement tool called Pediatric Early Warning Systems (PEWS) to help identify when a patient is at risk of a decline, enabling timely care before the decline in their health occurs.

• St. Jude Global, working with Latin American hospitals, introduced PEWS to improve childhood cancer care in Latin America. After implementation, researchers found an 18% reduction in the rate of clinical deterioration event mortality and a reduction in the percentage of events that resulted in mortality.

MD, MPH

Agulnik,

NATURE IMMUNOLOGY

Immune cells present long before infection predict flu symptoms

• St. Jude researchers, along with collaborators, discovered that immune cells that exist in an individual before flu infection are a better predictor of symptom development than conventional antibody measurements.

• Researchers found specific immune cells are linked to protection, while others increase the risk of symptoms post-infection.

• Researchers discovered that a functionally diverse array of immune cells, including T helper cells (important for long term immune response), is a strong predictor of protection compared to evaluating antibodies alone. This study has a great implication for public health strategies to mitigate flu season fatalities.

Richard Webby, PhD Paul Thomas, PhD

NATURE IMMUNOLOGY

Specialized T cells in the brain slow progression of Alzheimer’s disease

• Alzheimer’s disease is a serious progressive brain condition affecting 5.8 million Americans.

• In patients with Alzheimer’s, proteins like beta-amyloid gather in the brain. The resulting beta-amyloid plaques are a significant factor in the pathogenesis of the disease.

• Scientists at St. Jude found that an immune cell called CD8+ T cells plays an important role in helping to reduce the amount of plaques in the brain. These cells interact with microglia, the brain’s cleanup crew, to preserve memory and slow the disease’s progression.

• The immune system’s involvement in Alzheimer’s is quite complex. While some immune cells may worsen the disease, CD8+ T cells seem to protect against it. This complexity makes understanding the immune system’s role in Alzheimer’s essential to St. Jude researchers.

Hongbo Chi, PhD

NATURE GENETICS

Base editing shows potential superiority for curing sickle cell disease

• Sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia are severe blood-related conditions that impact millions of individuals. These disorders arise from mutations in the genes responsible for producing oxygencarrying proteins in the blood.

• Researchers at St. Jude used a unique gene editing approach called base editing to correct diseasecausing mutations and restore oxygen-carrying capacity in red blood cells.

• This base editing technique is a powerful broad-target approach to treat sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia regardless of a patient’s mutation.

Mitch Weiss, MD, PhD

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS

Pediatric hepatoblastoma model hints at DNA damage repair pathway for novel therapeutics

• Hepatoblastoma is a type of liver cancer that most commonly impacts children younger than three. It has seen the largest incidence increase of all pediatric cancers worldwide in recent years.

• St. Jude scientists used advanced sequencing technology to create a hepatoblastoma cell model. This model helps to demonstrate how the disease works in the human body more clearly, thanks to the technology’s ability to assemble genomic sequences quickly and efficiently.

• Using a liver cell line, researchers explored new therapeutics to treat hepatoblastoma and found target genes previously unknown, opening the doors to developing new treatment approaches.

• Researchers at St. Jude found existing chemotherapies worked in combination with new protein targets to increase treatment outcomes.

Jun Yang, PhD

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS

St. Jude shows cancer resistance protein can have its cake and eat it too

• Humans express proteins that can remove chemotherapy drugs from cells - including tumor cells, which reduces treatment efficacy. ATP-binding cassette protein 2 (ABCG2) is one of these cell-cleaning proteins that functions, too effectively, in cancers like medulloblastoma.

• St. Jude scientists uncovered the feature that makes ABCG2 so effective at removing chemotherapy drugs: its ability to bind and transport hydrophilic (water-loving) molecules.

• Their findings set the stage for the development of more effective, less detrimental, inhibitors of ABCG2 when combined with hydrophilic chemotherapeutic drugs.

John Schuetz, PhD

SCIENCE ADVANCES

Mutation accessibility fuels influenza evolution

• Viruses rapidly change due to genetic mutations, necessitating yearly flu shots to fight against rising dominant strains. While traditional research considers the virus fitness, St. Jude researchers introduce “variant accessibility” as a crucial driver of the flu strains.

• St. Jude researchers created the “survival of the accessible” model, shedding light on how flu viruses change and adapt through mutation alongside the traditional “survival of the fittest” view.

• The model’s applications even extend beyond the flu. Understanding gene accessibility might provide clarity on how changes in gene accessibility play a role in cancer-causing and drug resistancemediating mutations.

Madan Babu, PhD

Jude names Sarah Currie chief nursing executive and senior vice president

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is proud to announce Sarah Currie, RNC, MSN, NEA-BC, has been named chief nursing executive and senior vice president after an extensive national search. At St. Jude, Currie will lead the institution’s Magnetrecognized nursing program, the highest designation a hospital can receive related to nursing. This award winning NICU expert spent 21 years at Children’s Wisconsin, including four years as executive director of perinatal and neonatal services.

Jighui Zhang, PhD, elected Fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital proudly announced that Jinghui Zhang, PhD, Member of the Department of Computational Biology, has been elected as a Fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology. Zhang is one of 15 scientists given this distinction in 2023. She’s being honored for the development and application of innovative computational methods, discovering novel targets and accelerating research and genomic data sharing to advance the diagnosis, treatment and surveillance of pediatric cancers and survivors.

St.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital announces more than $50 million in funding for employee-generated transformational projects

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital announced it will provide more than $50 million in funding to launch and implement six new ground-breaking projects. The initiatives were identified through the organization’s Blue-Sky program, which encourages the development and submission of bold, transformational ideas by faculty and staff. The implementation of these ideas is expected to create 54 new jobs at St. Jude.

Blue-Sky ideas can address critical patient care needs, fundamental basic science questions or administrative gaps. The program, launched in 2017, is considered an outlet for innovative ideas that are not included in the St. Jude FY 2022-2027 Strategic Plan.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Unveils The Domino’s Village

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® and Domino’s®, the largest pizza company in the world, today unveiled The Domino’s Village, a multi-million-dollar housing facility for patients and their families. The six-story building that provides more than 307,000 square feet of residential and recreational space was funded by Domino’s as part of a 10-year, historic $100 million commitment to St. Jude.

Q1FY24: FEATURED MEDIA COVERAGE

Gene Changes Made This Season’s Bird Flu More Severe

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, June 2, 2023

Genetic mutations caused this latest bird flu season to become more severe, increasing the risk it poses to humans and other mammals, a new study finds.

As pediatric cancer rates rise and deaths fall, experts call attention to survivors

Katie Weyer was a Division-I college athlete when she was diagnosed with cancer in 2005. At 21, she began undergoing intense chemotherapy at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, to treat her stage 2B Hodgkin’s lymphoma, commonly known as Hodgkin’s disease, which affects the body’s immune system.

Preventing RSV in the Most Vulnerable Population

Aug 10, 2023

John Parkinson

A clinician offers a glimpse of what it is like to treat infants with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). And with the recent FDA approval of nirsevimab, how that will likely benefit families and the youngest population.

Hematologists/oncologists who dedicate their careers to childhood cancer face a plethora of unique rewards and challenges. They are on the front lines helping patients and families navigate what is arguably one of the most difficult experiences of their lives.

St. Jude back-to-school preparation includes HPV Vaccination

Recent HPV satellite media tour

The team recently conducted a satellite media tour promoting the HPV team encouraging vaccination as children head back to school. Dr. Heather Brandt did 30+ interviews with local television stations and radio stations

St. Jude taps chief nursing executive, senior vice president

Ashleigh Hollowell (Twitter) - Updated Thursday, August 10th, 2023

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., has named Sarah Currie, MSN, RN, as its new senior vice president and chief nursing executive, according to an Aug. 7 news release.

Ms. Currie is joining St. Jude’s after a 21-year tenure at Children’s Wisconsin, a pediatric acute care hospital in Milwaukee.

In her new role with St. Jude’s, Ms. Currie will oversee the hospital’s nursing initiatives including its nurse residency program.