New approaches to combat paediatric bone and soft tissue cancers

Clara Bueno

Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain

Children and young adults who develop bone and soft tissue cancers often face very difficult journeys, especially when their disease spreads or does not respond to standard treatments. The survival rate in these cases is low, making it urgent to find new and better therapies that can help these patients.

Researchers involved in this project are working on a promising new treatment that builds on the successes seen in blood cancers, where immune cells from the patient are modified to attack the cancer itself. However, this kind of treatment has not worked as well for bone and soft tissue cancers, partly because these tumours are very good at hiding from the immune system and creating an environment that weakens the body’s natural defences.

This team has made important progress by deeply studying samples from patients with these cancers and creating special immune cells that can recognize and destroy the cancer cells more effectively. These advanced immune cells are also designed to overcome the barriers that tumours create, allowing them to reach and eliminate cancer cells even in difficult cases. Early results from laboratory research show that these new treatments can kill cancer cells and change the environment around the tumour to support the body’s natural fight against cancer.

Moving forward, the researchers plan to test this approach in more types of bone and soft tissue cancers, check how well it works in models that closely resemble real patients, and improve the therapy so it can be safely tested in a clinical trial. The ultimate goal is to bring hope and better outcomes to children and young adults affected by these serious diseases by developing a new, effective, and safe treatment option.

Accelerating an armored CAR T cell therapy for metastatic/refractory bone and soft tissue sarcoma

Stage 2