Funding development of a vaccine for acute myelogenous leukemia (AML)

Adult acute myelogenous leukemia—also known as acute myeloid leukemia (AML)—is a blood cancer in which the bone marrow makes a large number of abnormal blood cells. 

About 20,000 new cases of AML are diagnosed each year in the US with a 5-year survival rate of around 29%. In 2022, there were nearly 12,000 deaths from AML. Many AML patients—a majority of which are over 60 years old—relapse after treatment. Blood stem cell transplant can be curative, but many older patients do not qualify, showing that there is a significant unmet medical need in treating AML. 

That’s why the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) awarded $6,000,000 to Dr. Karin Gaensler at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to support development of a safe and effective vaccine for the blood cancer AML to improve relapse-free survival. 

To develop the cancer vaccine, Dr. Gaensler and her team will engineer the patient’s blood stem cells to maximize stimulation of leukemia-specific killing activity and reintroduce engineered cells back to the patient to target and kill residual leukemia stem cells.  

This approach holds the potential for long-term effectiveness as it targets both AML blasts and leukemic stem cells that are often the source of relapse.  

This award is a continuation of a previous CIRM grant that will support the manufacture of the vaccine and the completion of late-stage testing and preparation needed to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for permission to begin a clinical trial. 

stem cells
medical
fda