Cancer researcher Catherine Bollard has dedicated her career to helping children with solid tumors. After decades of observing slow progress in treating these cancers, she’s now on the cusp of a major breakthrough. A new two-pronged treatment approach, never tried before, is being tested in a clinical trial at Children’s National.
This innovative therapy targets two proteins on children’s tumors simultaneously: PRAME and B7-H3. The cancer cells can evade medications by removing one target, but the new treatment makes it harder for them to do so because it attacks both targets at once. This approach has shown promising results in early trials.
The idea for this treatment came to Bollard during a drive to the hospital in August 2024. She and her team will need to conduct additional experiments before submitting their clinical trial application to the FDA. Each child’s T cells will take about two to three weeks to prepare, followed by another week of testing for pathogens.
The new treatment is part of a massive $470 million project called Cancer Grand Challenges, which aims to tackle tough problems in cancer research and reduce inequities. The United States records around 3,700 new cases of pediatric solid tumors each year, but progress has been slow due to the relative rarity of these cancers.
Cancer researcher Cindy Schwartz notes that treatments that have worked for adults haven’t shown similar results for children, highlighting the need for innovative approaches. Abbe Pannucci and Gavin Lindberg, both patient advocates in the clinical trial, share their personal experiences with cancer and are dedicated to making a difference through advocacy and research.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/11/01/children-cancer-clinical-trial-solid-tumors