Break Through Cancer Announces $50M in Grants to Empower Researchers from Five Top Cancer Research Centers to Work as One

New cancer research foundation will help accelerate discoveries in glioblastoma, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers using a bold new approach.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, one year after its founding, Break Through Cancer announced $50 million in grants to support several cutting-edge research projects using a novel "TeamLab" structure—designed to maximize interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. This first-of-its-kind model for collaboration enables researchers to boldly tackle some of the biggest challenges in cancer. Break Through Cancer hopes to overcome conventional barriers to multi-institution teamwork using streamlined systems and advanced analytics for data sharing in real time; umbrella contractual agreements that reduce administrative burdens on researchers; and pioneering policies on intellectual property and authorship.

The Foundation is funding four TeamLab-based research projects with an initial investment of more than $50 million in grants to bring new approaches and innovative ideas as rapidly as possible to the clinical challenges of glioblastoma, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers.

"Break Through Cancer and its partner institutions are reducing the siloes in the academic research system as never before," said Tyler Jacks, president, Break Through Cancer. "In just one year's time, we have built an expansive and impressive community of leading cancer researchers and physicians who can now work as one to accelerate the pace of discovery. This model of radical collaboration will empower many of the brightest minds in cancer research and maximize the capabilities of partner institutions."

Added Jacks, "In the near future, we look forward to partnering with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as technology developers to further expand the impact of Break Through Cancer."

"To be part of Break Through Cancer's new model of research collaboration is extremely exciting," said Rebecca Stone, MD, MS, director of the Kelly Gynecologic Oncology Service, associate professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, and a principal investigator for Break Through Cancer's funded research in ovarian cancer. "Break Through Cancer has created a fertile ecosystem for nurturing new ideas and rapidly bringing laboratory discovery to advance cancer care."

Break Through Cancer's initial investment of $50 million will fund the following research projects for an initial three-year period and will include researchers and physicians from all five partner institutions.

Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

• Recent research has shown that most, if not all, high grade serous ovarian cancer originates as precursor lesions of the fallopian tubes.
• In addition to characterizing precursor lesions located in the fallopian tubes, the team will develop strategies to expand awareness of and access to safe and effective ways for women to undergo fallopian tube removal as a primary prevention strategy, particularly in women who are done having children and are already undergoing elective abdominal surgeries.

Targeting Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) in Ovarian Cancer

• A key factor underlying these poor ovarian cancer cure rates is the ability of cancer cells resistant to chemotherapy to persist after frontline treatment.
• Among other aims, the research team will develop and benchmark the accuracy of new blood biopsy and "second-look" surgical technologies to monitor MRD at high resolution including extensive use of single-cell analysis.

Revolutionizing GBM Drug Development Through Serial Biopsies

• The Revolutionizing GBM (glioblastoma) Drug Development Through Serial Biopsies project will demonstrate the safety and feasibility of carefully performed serial biopsies, and assess how promising new therapies directly affect these brain tumors. The objective of the project is to establish a new paradigm of therapy development for GBM.
• The extraordinary level of funding support from Break Through Cancer, highly unusual in GBM research, will be essential to overcoming many financial and logistical barriers to converting the vision of longitudinal tumor sampling into a reality.

Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer in partnership with the Lustgarten Foundation

• The Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer team will integrate clinical and laboratory approaches to understand why patients do or do not respond to new KRAS directed therapies using powerful technologies to deeply investigate biology in preclinical models and in humans.
• The team will develop pharmaceutical partnerships to accelerate the translation of new KRAS inhibitors into effective drugs for this disease. 

About Break Through Cancer

Founded in 2021, Break Through Cancer empowers outstanding researchers and physicians to both intercept and find cures for several of the deadliest cancers by stimulating radical collaboration among outstanding cancer research institutions, including Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
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Contact:
Jennifer Goonan 
[email protected]

SOURCE Break Through Cancer