By harnessing the unparalleled knowledge and insights of CRI’s global network of scientists and clinicians, CRI is able to determine where its research funding can make the greatest impact possible. Our approach to strategic investment is designed to accelerate discovery that can ultimately lead to improved patient outcomes.

Traditional sources of research funding are often tied to specific projects and typically favor incremental experimentation based on existing data from prior experiments. When new and unexpected discoveries are made along the way, however, the limitations of project-based funding do not always allow investigators to easily pursue new ideas and research directions. This can stifle innovation and slow progress that could benefit cancer patients.

To address this, CRI created the CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR (Scientists TAking Risks) program, which provides $1.25 million over five years to give these scientists freedom to pursue high-risk, high-reward research with the greatest potential to transform cancer immunotherapy. As investments in the scientists themselves rather than in defined projects, CRI funding permits STARs to pivot research directions easily based on emerging data and new discoveries.

Sixteen STARs are currently advancing outside-the-box and disruptive avenues of research, sometimes steering their laboratory’s work in new directions they otherwise would not have explored. They are also forging new, interdisciplinary collaborations with others outside their own areas of expertise, such as clinicians who provide human tissue samples and data scientists who help to mine and analyze large sets of information derived from STARs’ research. The combination of flexibility, funding, and CRI’s endorsement has already led to exciting new approaches to exploring cellular metabolism, T cell biology and function, immunosuppression within the tumor microenvironment, employing bacteria in drug delivery, and much more.

For example, CRI STAR Dr. Alexander Marson at the University of California, San Francisco, is optimizing immune cells through genetic engineering to improve their ability to fight infection and cancer. He recently published work in Nature Immunology, Science Advances, and Cell Reports showing that, using CRISPR gene-editing technology, he has been able to map the network of genes involved in the development of regulatory T cells that inhibit the immune response. He also has developed a way to determine the precise locations of various cell types within tumors, which is important to understanding how immune cells migrate in and around tumors and why and how this affects their ability to promote or combat tumor growth. This work has significant potential for enhancing cancer patient immune responses.

The Cancer Research Institute website is a valuable resource containing hundreds of pages of helpful information about cancer immunotherapy. It includes descriptions of various forms of immunotherapy and how they work, detail on approved and investigational treatments by cancer type, an Immunotherapy Clinical Trial Finder, and a suite of videos featuring world-leading immunotherapy experts as well as testimonials from cancer patients sharing their immunotherapy experiences. Before 2021, however, all this information had been provided entirely in English. 

In the United States, Hispanic and Latino populations are the fastest growing. In 2021, an estimated 176,600 new diagnoses and 46,500 deaths occurred in these communities, making cancer the #1 cause of death in these groups. In addition to language barriers that can complicate communication about a patient’s diagnosis and their treatment options, other socio-economic and cultural factors contribute to higher mortality compared to non-Hispanics. Together, growing U.S. Hispanic populations and underutilization of health care services due to language and other barriers have created an urgent need for CRI to provide Spanish language immunotherapy resources. 

Launched in June 2021 as part of CRI’s annual Cancer Immunotherapy Month awareness campaign, the Spanish-language version of the CRI website now features hundreds of in-language pages along with subtitled videos. These resources have been accessed more than 112,000 times since launch. 

We also announced plans for the first-ever CRI Virtual Immunotherapy Patient Summit provided entirely in Spanish. Timed to occur at the start of Hispanic Heritage Month in September 2021, the program featured immunotherapy experts and cancer patients along with a panel discussion on the health care disparities faced by members of the Hispanic community. Thanks to a promotional partnership with Univision, the largest provider of Spanish-language content in the United States, and with the participation of celebrity host Ana Patricia Gámez and award-winning reporter Teresa Rodríguez, the program has reached more than 1,800 live viewers and continues to inform the Spanish-speaking cancer patient community with our on-demand videos from each of the program’s informative and thought-provoking sessions.