Novocure Announces Recipients of 4th Annual AACR-Novocure Grants for Tumor Treating Fields Research Program
07/27/2022 - 08:00 AM
Awards aim to promote and support innovative research on Tumor Treating Fields to deepen understanding and accelerate the development of new treatment strategies
ROOT, Switzerland --(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Novocure today announced the recipients of the 4th Annual AACR-Novocure Grants for Tumor Treating Fields Research Program. The AACR-Novocure Grants for Tumor Treating Fields Research Program represents a joint effort between Novocure and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) to promote and support innovative research on Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields). The AACR is the world’s first and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research and its mission to prevent and cure cancer.
Such collaborations help to deepen the understanding of TTFields’ mechanism of action and to identify its optimal use. Extensive preclinical and clinical evidence provides the foundation upon which Novocure executes its strategy to advance TTFields through additional clinical research studies across multiple solid tumor types.
Professor Wafik El-Deiry , M.D., Ph.D., FACP, Director of the Legorreta Cancer Center at Brown University and Associate Dean for Oncologic Sciences at the Warren Alpert Medical School , is one of the grant recipients. His hypothesis is based on a prediction that therapeutic agents that trigger cell stress pathways in different ways may cooperate to achieve a greater therapeutic effect in various cancers.
Over the past year, Dr. El-Deiry , an expert in cancer biology, has become interested in TTFields and their potential to affect the integrated stress response, a signaling network within cells that is related to their survival. His research group will combine TTFields with other therapies, including the oral drug ONC201, and study how the combinations affect the integrated stress response in various cancer types.
“I’m a practicing clinical oncologist. I see patients every week,” said Dr. El-Deiry . “I’m well aware of the genes that contribute to tumor progression, drug resistance, and failure of the immune response, and clearly we need to do better. There’s a certain skillset that I think we have, to be able to design and propose rational combinations in different tumor types to achieve tumor regression with limited toxicity. I look forward to researching how TTFields, when used in combination with other therapies, affects many different solid tumor types.”
Recipients of the AACR-Novocure Tumor Treating Fields Research Grants will receive a total of $250,000 over two years.
“Congratulations to the recipients of the AACR-Novocure Tumor Treating Fields Research Grants,” said Uri Weinberg
2022 AACR-Novocure Tumor Treating Fields Research Grants
Wafik El-Deiry , M.D., Ph.D., FACP; Brown University ; Integrated Stress Response induction by TTFields + ONC201 in cancer treatment
Matthew R. Sarkisian , Ph.D.; University of Florida ; Improving TTFields Efficacy by Altering Ciliogenesis
Stuart Smith , Ph.D.; University of Nottingham ; Combining Tumor Treating Fields with Ion Channel Blockade
ABOUT TUMOR TREATING FIELDS
Tumor Treating Fields, or TTFields, are electric fields that disrupt cancer cell division. Fundamental scientific research extends across more than two decades and, in all preclinical research to date, TTFields have demonstrated a consistent anti-mitotic effect. TTFields therapy is intended principally for use together with other standard-of-care cancer treatments. There is a growing body of evidence that supports TTFields’ broad applicability with certain other cancer therapies, including radiation therapy, certain chemotherapies and certain immunotherapies. In clinical research and commercial experience to date, TTFields therapy has exhibited no systemic toxicity, with mild to moderate skin irritation being the most common side effect. The TTFields global development program includes a network of preclinical collaborators and a broad range of clinical trials across all phases, including four phase 3 pivotal trials in a variety of tumor types. To date, more than 24,000 patients have been treated with TTFields therapy.
ABOUT NOVOCURE
Novocure is a global oncology company working to extend survival in some of the most aggressive forms of cancer through the development and commercialization of its innovative therapy, Tumor Treating Fields. Novocure’s commercialized products are approved in certain countries for the treatment of adult patients with glioblastoma and in the U.S. for the treatment of adult patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. Novocure has ongoing or completed clinical trials investigating Tumor Treating Fields in brain metastases, gastric cancer, glioblastoma, liver cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and ovarian cancer.
Headquartered in Root, Switzerland and with a growing global footprint, Novocure has regional operating centers in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Tokyo , as well as a research center in Haifa, Israel . For additional information about the company, please visit Novocure.com and follow @Novocure on LinkedIn and Twitter.
ABOUT THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR CANCER RESEARCH
Founded in 1907, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is the world’s first and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research and its mission to prevent and cure cancer. AACR membership includes more than 50,000 laboratory, translational, and clinical researchers; population scientists; other health care professionals; and patient advocates residing in 129 countries. The AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise of the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer by annually convening more than 30 conferences and educational workshops—the largest of which is the AACR Annual Meeting, with more than 74,000 attendees for the 2020 virtual meetings and more than 22,500 attendees for past in-person meetings. In addition, the AACR publishes 10 prestigious, peer-reviewed scientific journals and a magazine for cancer survivors, patients, and their caregivers. The AACR funds meritorious research directly as well as in cooperation with numerous cancer organizations. As the Scientific Partner of Stand Up To Cancer , the AACR provides expert peer review, grants administration, and scientific oversight of team science and individual investigator grants in cancer research that have the potential for near-term patient benefit. The AACR actively communicates with legislators and other policymakers about the value of cancer research and related biomedical science in saving lives from cancer. For more information about the AACR, visit www.AACR.org .
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
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Source: Novocure
