LOS ANGELES, CA (January 14, 2025) – The St. Baldrick’s Foundation, the largest charity funder of childhood cancer research grants in the U.S., and Alice’s Arc US, Inc. are funding groundbreaking research on rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) as part of the EPICC Team (Empowering Pediatric Immunotherapy for Childhood Cancer). This collaboration underscores the Foundation’s commitment to improving treatments for childhood cancers and finding cures and Alice’s Arc’s focus on funding research into rhabdomyosarcoma.
Through this partnership, the St. Baldrick’s EPICC Team – Alice’s Arc Grant totaling $750,000 will support the work of Drs. Yael Mossé and John Maris at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). This research grant will allocate $250,000 annually over the course of three years beginning January 1, 2025. Led by Dr. Mossé, this innovative research will address the urgent need for new therapies for rhabdomyosarcoma, an aggressive pediatric cancer arising in soft tissue sites in the body. Despite decades of research, children diagnosed with RMS today face the same treatment options available forty years ago, highlighting the critical importance of this effort.
Sara Wakeling, CEO of Alice’s Arc, commented “We are delighted to work with the distinguished St. Baldricks EPICC Team, who have significant expertise devising new immunotherapy treatments for kids with solid tumours such as neuroblastoma. This experience urgently needs to be translated to developing new treatments for children with rhabdomyosarcoma to improve outcomes for those diagnosed in the future.”
This research will include two complementary projects aimed at creating new immunotherapies for RMS.
· Project 1: Discovery of new immuno-oncology targets and development of cellular therapies.
· Project 2: IND-enabling studies for a novel antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) targeting ALK in fusion-positive RMS.
“We are humbled and grateful to be chosen by the St. Baldrick Foundation EPICC scientific review committee to receive this award from the Alice’s Arc Foundation. We think we have a real opportunity to make a huge impact by developing completely novel new drugs for children with RMS.”, said Dr. Mossé. Dr. Maris added, “Children with RMS receive pretty much the same therapy today as they did forty years ago. We hope to change this reality with precision immunotherapies that can be rapidly developed and deployed in clinical trials.”
Drs. Charles Keller, Children’s Cancer Therapy Development Institute, Karin Straathof, University College London, and Sam Behjati, Wellcome Sanger Institute, experts in their fields, will collaborate with Drs. Mossé and Maris on these projects to ensure their success.
“This partnership with Alice’s Arc represents a crucial step toward better treatments for rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer that has seen little progress in decades,” said Kathleen Ruddy, CEO of St. Baldrick’s Foundation. “By funding the work of Drs. Mossé and Maris, we’re fostering innovative research that offers hope for children and families facing this devastating diagnosis.”
To learn more about St. Baldrick’s Foundation’s partnership with Alice’s Arc, visit stbaldricks.org/non-profit-partners.
About St. Baldrick’s Foundation
Every 2 minutes, a child somewhere in the world is diagnosed with cancer. In the U.S., 1 in 5 will not survive. The St. Baldrick’s Foundation, the largest charity funder of childhood cancer research grants, has awarded more than $354 million to researchers to Conquer Kids’ Cancer. When you give to St. Baldrick’s, you don’t just give to one hospital – you support every institution with the expertise to treat kids with cancer across the U.S. St. Baldrick’s ensures that children fighting cancer now — and those diagnosed in the future — will have access to the most cutting-edge treatment, by supporting every stage of research, from new ideas in the lab to the training of the next generation of researchers, to lifesaving clinical trials. St. Baldrick’s has played a role in virtually every advancement in the field over the past 25 years and remains essential in advancing progress and fostering innovation in childhood cancer research. Visit StBaldricks.org and help #ConquerKidsCancer.
About Alice’s Arc
Alice’s Arc is a children’s cancer charity dedicated to funding research into finding a cure and less harsh treatments for Rhabdomyosarcoma. The charity operates in the UK and US. Since it’s founding in the UK in 2015, it has made £4million grant commitments in a diverse research portfolio to help devise new treatments for those diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma in the future. As part of this a large community of scientists, clinicians and families have come together to defeat rhabdomyosarcoma. In August 2023, Alice’s Arc US Inc was launched as a sister charity with the same mission as the UK operation. The partnership with St Baldricks Foundation has enabled the launch of the first Alice’s Arc US Inc’s rhabdomyosarcoma research grant. To find out more, please visit www.alicesarc.org.
