Will Parsons, Director of the Pediatrician-Scientist Residency Training Program and Professor at the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, and Interim Director of Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Center, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Excited to share new findings published in Nature Medicine (Nature Portfolio) on a phase 1/2 trial of a personalized T cell therapy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC)—a cancer that remains the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S.
This work was driven by first authors Benjamin Musher, Spyridoula Vasileiou, Brandon Smaglo, and senior author Ann M. Leen, alongside an outstanding multidisciplinary team. The approach used autologous, non-engineered T cells—boosted and guided to target five tumor-associated antigens (PRAME, SSX2, MAGEA4, Survivin, NY-ESO-1)—to address tumor heterogeneity and immune evasion.
Among 37 participants, the therapy was safe and well tolerated, with no cytokine release syndrome, and achieved an 84.6% disease control rate in patients responding to chemotherapy. Disease control lasted a median of about six months—and in some cases much longer. Two patients remain disease-free more than five years after surgery.
Importantly, infused cells persisted up to 12 months, elevated levels correlated with clinical benefit, and treatment-emergent antigen spreading and multi-functional immune activity was detected.
While PDAC is almost exclusively an adult disease, the multiantigen T cell platform may have relevance for pediatric solid tumors expressing similar antigens.
Collaboration was key, and the team included contributors from Baylor College of Medicine, Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Texas Children’s Hospital and Houston Methodist. The work was supported by the V Foundation, Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, The National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Featured in the image (clockwise from top): Ann M. Leen, PhD; Benjamin Leon Musher, MD; Spyridoula Vasileiou, PhD; and Brandon G. Smaglo, MD, FACP.
Texas Children’s Hospital and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center are joining forces to launch the Kinder Children’s Cancer Center in 2026.
Title: Autologous multiantigen-targeted T cell therapy for pancreatic cancer: a phase 1/2 trial
Authors: Benjamin L. Musher, Spyridoula Vasileiou, Brandon G. Smaglo, Catherine S. Robertson, Mengfen Wu, Tao Wang, Ayumi Watanabe, Manik Kuvalekar, Yovana Velazquez, Shamika Ketkar, Tamadar Al Doheyan, Penelope G. Papayanni, Aakash Shah, Natalia Lapteva, Bambi J. Grilley, George Van Buren, Premal D. Lulla, Helen E. Heslop, Cliona M. Rooney, Malcolm K. Brenner, Ann M. Leen
You can read the full article in Nature Medicine.
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