Bench to bedside

Dr. John Wrangle developed a new lung cancer immunotherapy treatment that will be offered in a large NCI clinical trial.

Read about the treatment
Dr. John Wrangle stands in his lab

Spotlight on Innovation

Giving patients a second chance

rendering of CAR-T-cells attacking and killing a cancer cell

Researchers at Hollings are working to create "purified" versions of CAR-T-cells, which could significantly reduce the side effects associated with CAR-T-cell therapy and make this groundbreaking treatment available to more patients.

“CAR-T-cell therapy has been able to provide durable remissions and hopefully a cure to patients who otherwise have an extremely poor prognosis,” said Dr. Brian Hess, co-leader of the project.

Read about the project

“ You know, if I had been diagnosed with this thing 20 years ago, it may have killed me. But now with advancements with technology and science, this has made a big difference. ”

William Donevant, CAR-T-cell therapy recipient

William's story
Will Donevant sits in an exam room

 

Honoring a lost friend

Dr. Nancy Klauber-DeMore stands next to a microscope in her lab

With her daughter’s best friend in the midst of a battle with pediatric osteosarcoma, Dr. Nancy Klauber-DeMore set out to find a potential new treatment for this terrible disease. Working from her extensive research on the pro-angiogenic protein SFRP2 in breast cancer, she found that blocking SFRP2 also slowed osteosarcoma tumor growth.

Although Weston Mallard (seen below with his family) passed away in 2017, Klauber-DeMore's work provides hope that future patients will have better treatment options.

Read about the breakthrough

Weston Mallard with his parents and brother Weston Mallard

Having received rare pediatric disease designation from the FDA for her osteosarcoma treatment, Klauber-DeMore is working with Innova Therapeutics to get this treatment into clinical trials.

About the designation

 

Technological advances

Richard Drake sits in his lab and holds a component of the GlycoTyper technology 

Technology developed at MUSC holds promise for preventing liver cancer

Technology developed by Hollings researchers Richard Drake, Ph.D., Anand Mehta, Ph.D., and Peggi Angel, Ph.D., can detect early-stage liver cancer at double the rate obtained with current standard diagnostic tools.

If the technology is brought to market, the resulting product would be a rapid blood test that could detect liver fibrosis (or scarring) in its earliest stages, allowing time for intervention before the disease progresses to permanent liver damage or liver cancer.

Dr. Bruce Frankel and Dr. Arabinda Das stand together in their lab 

MUSC neuroscientists develop new model to address brain cancer treatment problems

Neuroscientist Arabinda Das, Ph.D., and neurosurgeon Bruce Frankel, M.D., have developed the first clinically relevant patient-derived xenograft (PDX) brain tumor model using NICO Corp.’s BrainPath Automated Preservation System.

This improved and more reliable PDX model allows the scientists to evaluate how treatment alters the complex brain microenvironment, including tissue mutations within the tumor during treatment or brain tumor development.