PHILADELPHIA - The University of Pennsylvania and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) have renewed their collaboration to advance cancer immunotherapy research at Penn Medicine's Abramson Cancer Center (ACC). The renewal comes as PICI recently announced a $125 million investment across the PICI Network to expand research efforts and accelerate the development of innovative cancer immunotherapies. Penn was one of the founding institutions to join the unprecedented cancer research consortium when PICI launched in 2016, through an initial $250 million gift from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist Sean Parker.
The continued collaboration will support laboratory studies and clinical trials that leverage the science of cancer immunology, as well as training of early-career scientists, at the ACC, an international leader in basic, translational, and clinical cancer immunotherapy research.
"Being part of PICI has opened new doors for teamwork across institutions that has already proved to be very fruitful in moving immunotherapy forward as a pillar of cancer treatment," said Carl June, MD, director of the PICI Center at Penn, the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy and director of Penn's Center for Cellular Immunotherapies. "We look forward to continuing this powerful alliance to quickly translate research findings into tomorrow's cancer cures."
PICI's network includes hundreds of cancer researchers and seven leading cancer institutions across the country, all focused on developing breakthrough immunotherapies. The network is based on an innovative intellectual property model that makes it easier for scientists to share data and quickly move new discoveries into clinical trials. For example, PICI researchers from Penn and Stanford collaborated on the first clinical trial in the United States to test CRISPR-edited immune cells, which found that the genetically edited cells can persist, thrive, and function months after a cancer patient receives them.
"The PICI Center at the University of Pennsylvania is a cornerstone of cancer immunotherapy innovation, and our renewed commitment will empower this exceptional team to continue accelerating their groundbreaking research," said Shane Corcoran, MD, MBA, senior vice president of strategy and operations at PICI. "Penn's breakthroughs, amplified across the PICI Network, exemplify our mission to push scientific boundaries and bring curative treatments to cancer patients."
With support from PICI, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine and the ACC have led major, cross-cutting research projects to accelerate immunotherapy research, such as the national, randomized Phase II PRINCE clinical trial for pancreatic cancer. In 2022, this Phase II study found that a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy was effective and identified immune system biomarkers associated with better outcomes, setting the stage for future studies based on patients' "immune health," now a major focus of Penn Medicine's Institute for Immunology and Immune Health (I3H). Another recent study published in Science found that adding an anti-inflammatory drug to anti-PD1 checkpoint inhibitor therapy immunotherapy's effectiveness against advanced lung cancer.
E. John Wherry, PhD, the Richard and Barbara Schiffrin President's Distinguished Professor and chair of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, will continue to serve as co-director of the PICI Center at Penn, alongside co-director Saar Gill, MD, PhD, an associate professor of Hematology-Oncology and scientific director of the ACC's Center for Cell Therapy and Transplantation, who was recently added to the leadership team of the PICI Center at Penn.
