Seattle Children’s is launching BrainChild with the goal of finding better treatments, or even cures, for children with brain cancer. BrainChild is a series of clinical trials that will treat children whose cancer relapsed using CAR T cells, the promising immunotherapy technology that has already led to revolutionary treatments for blood cancers. The treatments could spell hope for the hundreds of children in the U.S. who die from brain cancer every year. “We’re going to be doing this using CAR T cells that are directed towards the molecule on the surface of a lot of brain tumors called HER2,” said Dr. Nick Vitanza, a pediatric oncologist who is leading the first trial, BrainChild-01. “Obviously my dream is to cure every single patient we enroll, but it would still be a milestone if we were able to show that any of the tumors are able to get smaller with this treatment.”
