Maximizing what's learned from clinical trials in children

The St. Baldrick's Foundation, the largest charitable funder of childhood cancer research grants, and the American Cancer Society, a health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer, formed a partnership in 2019 to fund grants that will accelerate childhood cancer research with the goals of understanding and discovering new treatment options and improving care and survival in children with cancer. Kathleen Ruddy, St. Baldrick’s Foundation CEO, joined the podcast to talk through the goals of this unique partnership. “Why do some patients respond better than others to a particular treatment? Why does one treatment cause more late effects than another? What else can we learn to speed up progress, to cure more children, more effectively, and less harshly?” Then two of the grantees who have been funded through the partnership talked about what they hope to accomplish. Yael P. Mossé, MD, is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Neuroblastoma Developmental Therapeutics Program, as well as a pediatric oncologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Mossé’s grant is focused on improving patient outcomes for ALK mutant neuroblastoma through precision molecular targeting. E. Anders Kolb, MD, is Vice Chairman for Research and Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, as well as Director of the Nemours Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. Dr. Kolb’s study aims to validate the detection of novel biomarkers for the Pediatric Acute Leukemia (PedAL) Initiative Sub-trials. 0:00 – Kathleen Ruddy, CEO of St. Baldrick’s Foundation 10:25 – Yael P. Mossé, MD, and E. Anders Kolb, MD 11:29 – Drs. Mossé and Kolb on why, “in pediatric cancer care, clinical trial participation is the standard of care” 13:31 – Dr. Mossé on how her team is “bringing the science to the patient” to learn how children with neuroblastoma respond (or don’t respond) to treatmen