Under the leadership of Kent Weinhold, PhD, Chief of Surgical Sciences, the Duke Immune Profiling Core will assist in a trial investigating the efficacy of radiotherapy and immunotherapy as treatment options for patients with high-risk soft-tissue sarcoma.
The $2.5 million dollar grant was awarded to a team led by David Kisch, MD, PhD, of the Duke Cancer Institute in order to conduct the first trial of the use of an immune checkpoint inhibitor, a drug that retrains the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells. Combined with radiotherapy, it has the potential to be a more effective treatment for cancer.
Dr. Weinhold’s team will analyze the immune cells of the patient’s tumor after resection, as well as blood samples taken before, during, and after treatment. This will help to develop a profile of the tumor’s DNA and will help to plan future studies that combine immunotherapy and radiation.