University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center Receives $4.5 Million Gift From Bill And Melinda Gates

Sue Montgomery
Phone: 215.349.5657

PHILADELPHIA — The University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center has received a $4.5 million gift from Bill and Melinda Gates to support a team of nationally prominent researchers who are pioneering innovative technologies and basic science discoveries toward a new form of treatment known as adoptive immunotherapy, specifically targeting non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This generous gift is the largest amount given to date by the William H. Gates Foundation that is solely dedicated to forging new breakthroughs in basic cancer research.

The $4.5 million gift is specifically earmarked for the immunotherapy research and innovative clinical trials conducted by David Liebowitz, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Liebowitz was recently recruited from the University of Chicago in January 1999 as an investigator of the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center. The Abramson Institute was created in December 1997 with a $100 million commitment from the Abramson Family Foundation, which is directed by Leonard and Madlyn Abramson. Leonard Abramson is the former CEO and founder of US Healthcare.

“This truly generous gift will help our top scientists make faster in-roads and innovative discoveries into treating and controlling cancer,” says John H. Glick, M.D., director of the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center and of the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute. “We’re extremely grateful to the William H. Gates Foundation and appreciate its support and belief in our quest to find and develop better cancer treatments.”

“Dr. Liebowitz’s groundbreaking research has far-reaching implications for people living with cancer,” said William H. Gates Sr., director of the Foundation. “Bill and Melinda are pleased to support the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center to help make inroads into stopping a disease that affects so many people and families each year.”

Dr. Liebowitz’s laboratory research seeks to find an effective method of educating the immune system to identify and kill cancer cells. To that end, he is currently investigating several promising techniques to treat non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system that strikes nearly 57,000 people in the United States each year. It is the fifth most common cancer in America and has increased by 50 percent during the last 15 years.

Within the immune system, T cells basically have two functions: identifying and attacking foreign invaders. In cancer patients, the immune system malfunctions – causing the T cells to build a tolerance to cancer cells, which, in turn, permits the cancer cells to grow. Dr. Liebowitz is researching methods of reversing this T cell tolerance by manipulating the T cells’ stimulation signals – ex vivo -and then reinfusing the modified T cells back into patients to provoke an appropriate immune response.

“The manipulation of T cell costimulatory signals of immune responses is a leading field of investigation and we’re seeing very promising results,” says Dr. Liebowitz. “The generous support of Bill and Melinda Gates will allow our laboratory to more rapidly bring new and better treatments to patients suffering with cancer.”

Exploring advances in immune-based therapies may help solve many of the mysteries that have kept scientists from finding potential cancer treatments. “Our researchers will be utilizing the most advanced methods of manipulating immune system signals to reverse T cell tolerance,” says Craig Thompson, M.D., scientific director of the Abramson Institute. “With support from the William H. Gates Foundation, we’ll be able to further investigate potential advances in the laboratory and transfer these successful findings to cancer patients.”