Stories of progress, inspiration, and information in overcoming osteosarcoma.

Combining immunotherapy and targeted therapy allows immune cells to kill cancer cells

OSI-Backed Research Explores Combo Immunotherapy

Osteosarcoma researcher Jason T. Yustein, MD, PhD, seeks to better understand the disease by testing various combinations of drugs to treat it.

Immunotherapy has been one of the most promising areas of cancer research in the past few decades. It is now approved to treat many types of cancers, including breast cancer, leukemia, liver cancer and others. But immunotherapy has not been successful in treating some cancers, and unfortunately, that includes osteosarcoma.

“Thus far, immune-based therapeutic approaches for sarcomas have not been extremely successful,” says osteosarcoma researcher Jason T. Yustein, MD, PhD, of Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute. “But there is a lot of research going on in this field, and a lot of us are trying to make progress and improve how we can help the patients’ own immune systems fight the disease.”

Dr. Yustein’s osteosarcoma treatment research, made possible through a 2022 Osteosarcoma Institute grant, currently focuses on combining immunotherapy with targeted therapy. The OSI grant is funded by contributions from the Scott Shockley Foundation and the Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research.

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“I think we are getting to a point where we will start pushing the needle forward on these more high-risk states, particularly the metastatic disease, the relapses, and the treatment-resistant diseases.” — Jason T. Yustein, MD, PhD

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