Our Funded Research
Bone Research Projects
Exploring a new treatment for osteosarcoma
With Professor Agamemnon Grigoriadis
Osteosarcoma is a type of cancer that mostly affects children and young adults. It can be difficult to treat, especially if it has spread to the lungs. We need new treatments that will help stop osteosarcoma spreading to the lungs.
Professor Agamemnon Grigoriadis at King’s College London will be working on immune cells that have been hijacked by osteosarcoma. The cancer forces the immune cells to hide it from the rest of the immune systemn instead of alerting the body to the tumour. The hijacked immune cells may do this by producing an enzyme, which the researchers plan to block with an existing medicine. They hope that this could help the immune system recognise the cancer again and fight it.
Project title: Drug repurposing targeting immunomodulatory Haem oxygenase-1 (HO-1) for prevention of osteosarcoma growth and metastasis
Lead investigator: Prof Agamemnon Grigoriadis, King's College London
Funded by: The Little Princess Trust
Funded: December 2020
Award: £223,173.70
Helping immune cells find and destroy bone cancer
With Dr Jonathan Fisher
Osteosarcoma is a bone cancer that affects teenagers. Unfortunately, only around 50% of teenagers with osteosarcoma can be treated successfully. Treatment is life-altering due to toxic chemotherapy and amputations. Osteosarcoma can also stop responding to treatment and immunotherapy hasn’t worked against it yet. All of this shows that new treatments are desperately needed.
Dr Jonathan Fisher at University College London wants to make immunotherapy work for osteosarcoma. With his team, he plans to edit immune cells so that they can find cancer more easily, and then kill the cancer cells. They will then test their edited cells to make sure they can stay healthy and find and destroy cancer cells. Dr Jonathon Fisher hopes that this approach could help in many other cancers in the future too.
Project title: Delivering gdT cells for osteosarcoma immunotherapy
Lead investigator: Dr Jonathan Fisher, University College London
Funded by: The Little Princess Trust
Funded: July 2021
Award: £244,413.68
