New Investigator Grant Awarded to Sandro Matosevic

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) patients have a poor immune system, and a tumor microenvironment (TME) that excludes immune effector cells. Immunotherapies with immune cells called natural killer (NK) cells, genetically engineered to target specific molecules in DIPG and pathways of resistance, have the ability to aggressively restore immune surveillance in DIPG. This proposal investigates the development of a potent, innovative immunotherapy based on induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived NK cells engineered to eliminate DIPG by disrupting multiple specific molecules in DIPG simultaneously, while restoring anti-tumor and metabolic activity of immune cells. This approach of combining iPSC-engineered NK cells with multi-specific disruption of the DIPG TME will challenge existing paradigms and change the way in which DIPG tumors are treated. It will also lead to data which will initiate new, potentially transformative clinical trials in DIPG.