New collaborative effort aims to cure ALK-positive lung cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, with various subtypes affecting millions of people each year. Among these, ALK-positive lung cancer frequently strikes younger people who have never smoked, including those aged between 20 and 50. Upon diagnosis, 80% of individuals already have stage 4 metastatic cancer, spread beyond the lungs to other parts of the body. Despite initially effective ALK inhibitor treatments, the cancer recurs in most patients, and there are about 70,000 people living with ALK+ lung cancer in the United States.

Today, Break Through Cancer, a Boston-based cancer research foundation, announces the launch of the PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer TeamLab. This collaborative research team, made up of researchers and physicians from top cancer research institutions, will develop methods to detect, monitor and target cancer cells that cause recurrence of lung cancer.

The ultimate goal is to develop treatment strategies that leave no cancer cells alive, thereby transforming this subtype of lung cancer into a curable disease.

We are excited to bring together researchers and physicians from our five partner institutions, along with additional collaborators, to create a collaborative environment that will ignite new ideas and drive innovative approaches in ALK-positive lung cancer research. By working together, our PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer TeamLab will identify new molecular targets and develop clinical trial frameworks that have the potential to transform the treatment of residual disease in lung cancer and lead to durable cures.”

Tyler Jacks, PhD, president, Break Through Cancer; founding director, MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research; David H. Koch (1962) Professor of Biology

Since 2011, drugs called ALK inhibitors, which block an abnormal form of the ALK protein, have been shown to slow or stop the progression of the cancer, even in stage 4 patients. Yet for most patients, a small number of remaining cancer cells evade treatment and become the seed from which the cancer eventually recurs.

“While we’re quite excited about the progress that has been made, the problem is that we’re not curing these patients,” says Vincent Lam, Director of the Thoracic Oncology Clinical Research Program at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and member of the Break Through Cancer TeamLab. “That’s why we’re pushing so hard toward new and novel approaches to bend the survival curve toward an actual cure.”

Funded by Break Through Cancer and a coalition of funders, including a leading commitment of $2M to fund initial and planned future studies from ALK Positive Inc, a patient-supported foundation, the PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer TeamLab aims to identify and exploit the vulnerabilities of those leftover cancer cells, called minimal or measurable residual disease, as a way to prevent the cancer from recurring.

Break Through Cancer TeamLabs look beyond conventional therapies, utilizing new strategies, structures and thinking from across disciplines. They are enabled by real-time data and discovery sharing, a trust and willingness to share and critique each other’s ideas, and an urgent focus on discoveries and patient benefit.

“By truly radically collaborating, we can all row in the same direction and really make progress, simply by not having the traditional barriers that slow progress in medical research,” says Lam.

The founding members of the PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer TeamLab hail from Break Through Cancer’s five partner institutions: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center as well as newly engaged collaborators from: Mass General Brigham, Boston Children’s Hospital, the University of Colorado Cancer Center and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

To transform the care of lung cancer by developing the ability to understand and target minimal residual disease, the team is pursuing three aims:

• Create a nationwide patient sample donation framework to demonstrate the feasibility of obtaining patient tissue samples and using those samples to understand ALK-positive tumor biology on a deep molecular level.
• Establish the biological features of residual disease following treatment with ALK inhibitors, and identify which preclinical models of residual disease most accurately represent the residual disease state in patients.
• Develop a master clinical trial protocol -; to be used across the Break Through Cancer partner institutions and other participating locations -; to test new therapies aimed at eradicating residual disease in lung cancer.

If successful, the project outcomes could also advance strategies to treat other types of non-small cell lung cancer subtypes, such as those with mutations in EGFR and KRAS. “We’re optimistic that this approach can be extended to improve outcomes for many types of lung cancers,” says Lam.

The new TeamLab joins eight other Break Through Cancer-supported TeamLabs working to intercept and find cures for the deadliest cancers, including glioblastoma, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, and acute myelogenous leukemia.