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The supporters and scientists of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are united by a desire to ease the suffering of those with cancer and related diseases. This desire helps propel the innovative thinking, the dedicated workmanship and the interdisciplinary cooperation that makes the Hutchinson Center a home of cutting-edge science and globally influential clinical discoveries.

Over the past 33 years, the Hutch Holiday Gala has generated more than $60 million to fund our research and help the Hutch School support patients and their families. The Gala is the single largest fundraiser benefiting the Center, and Gala attendees are an important part of our efforts. The $2.2 million that supporters like you contributed last year will help maintain the excellence of the Center’s research.

In this report, we touch on some important undertakings in the dynamic field of immunotherapy. Beginning with the Hutchinson Center’s Nobel prize-winning work on bone marrow transplantation, the Center has been a pioneer in harnessing the power of the human immune system to cure cancer. Over the past three decades, the Center has led the way in understanding and increasing the applications of immunotherapeutic approaches to cancer treatment. Several recent discoveries have heralded the next era of immunotherapy, and it promises to be a thrilling time.

The promise of precision

Dr. Oliver Press

The excitement is palpable as the Center undertakes the world’s first human clinical trial of pretargeted radioimmunotherapy (PRIT), a precise approach to radiation that is offering a new locus for optimism. Both PRIT and its cousin, radioimmuntherapy (RIT), are antibody-based cancer therapies. Antibodies are proteins in the blood that are a key element of the immune system, defending against health-threatening pathogens. Hutchinson Center scientists are finding ways to distill and expand the cancer-fighting potential of these antibodies.

The Center is a leader in a range of antibody-based therapy research. Dr. Oliver Press is one of the researchers using radioimmunotherapy, in which radioactive molecules are joined to cancer-binding antibodies as a means of delivering radiation to tumor sites while avoiding healthy tissues. Dr. Press pioneered this therapy for leukemias and lymphomas, and he is now expanding RIT to multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer for which there is currently no curative treatment.

Dr. Press’ work has led to the next generation of radioimmunotherapy as his colleague Dr. John Pagel has taken on pretargeted radioimmunotherapy. PRIT offers new therapeutic potential by first infusing antibodies, giving them time to bind to the cancerous cells, and then delivering the radioactive molecule. This sequential delivery allows five times more therapy to reach the cancer than with standard radiation. It also cuts down on negative side effects by avoiding healthy tissue.

The two-year PRIT trial will enroll 20 to 30 leukemia patients who have no other viable treatment options. These patients will receive PRIT followed by a blood stem-cell transplant. If the trial shows that PRIT has potential, it will be a critical advance in cancer therapy research.

Turning T-cells into cancer therapies

Dr. John Pagel Dr. Stan Riddell

No other cancer center in the country is as advanced or sophisticated as the Hutchinson Center in T-cell immunotherapy, and Center researchers continue to make impressive advancements. Drs. Stanley Riddell and Carolina Berger recently made waves in the research community with their discovery of the therapeutic potential of central memory T-cells, a rare subgroup of T-cells that can serve as a source of long-lasting, cancer-fighting T-cells.

T-cells are immune cells that search for and recognize various molecular targets called antigens that are on the outer envelope of threatening cells. The T-cells then trigger the immune system to attack the invader. Hutchinson Center scientists demonstrated that it was possible to extract T-cells from a cancer patient, grow them in large numbers in the laboratory and reintroduce them into the patient to target and destroy the disease.

By isolating central memory T-cells, Drs. Riddell and Berger were able to produce therapeutic T-cells that persist in patients for months or years, rather than the days or weeks typical of more common subsets of T-cells. Dr. Riddell’s team has now developed ways to efficiently isolate these rare central memory T-cells from a patient’s blood and is currently manipulating them to successfully target chronic lymphocyctic leukemia.

Existing T-cell therapies have had promising but inconsistent results, working extremely well with a small subset of patients but not showing lasting results in many patients. Unlocking the potential of the central memory T-cells allows researchers to begin to think of the next steps in using T-cells to develop new, more powerful cancer therapies. The fact that Dr.Berger developed the techniques to isolate, grow and study these rare cells at the Center gives our scientists an advantage as they continue to find ways to translate this finding into powerful clinical tools.

Berger developed the techniques to isolate, grow and study these rare cells at the Center gives our scientists an advantage as they continue to find ways to translate this finding into powerful clinical tools.

Thanks to our research success, the Hutchinson Center is now uniquely poised to expand on current immunotherapy discoveries and transform the future of cancer therapy. We thank you for your support at this pivotal time in cancer research.

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