Collaborating Labs

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All NANT clinical trials start in a laboratory, where investigators develop and test new ideas for treatments to determine how they work and demonstrate they are effective specifically against neuroblastoma. NANT has established collaborations with the laboratories listed below. These labs and NANT currently receive federal funding for this work via a Program Project Grant, which supports this type of collaborative network of lab and clinical investigators. These interactions are critical to finding better therapies for neuroblastoma. 

NANT collaborating translational labs participating in the NCI Program Project Grant (2024-2029)

Yael Mosse, MD

Children’s Hospital of Philadephia

John Maris, MD 

Also Lead PI of PPG 

Children’s Hospital of Philadephia

Targeting Evolving Therapy Resistance

Aims:  To catalogue pre-existing and emerging sub-clonal and clonal driver mutations after frontline therapy to define strategies to introduce targeted therapeutic agents earlier when the mutation is first detected; and to identify the appropriate in vivo models to study the preclinical impact of targeting subclonal mutations.

NANT 2015-02 Phase 1 trial of Lorlatinib 2017-accrual completed 2023

William Weiss MD,PhD 

UCSF

Kim Stegmaier, MD

Dana Farber Cancer Institute 


Exploiting Therapeutic Vulnerabilities

Aims: To identify molecules and pathways that promote cytotoxicity in NB deleted for 1p and Small molecules that potentially target these pathways; and to leverage MYCN-driven immunocompetent models of NB to identify effective combination therapy, focusing on immunotherapy.

Yves DeClerck, MD 

CHLA

Shahab Asgharzadeh, MD 

CHLA



Targeting the Pro-tumorigenic Microenvironment

Aims: To determine the evolution of the tumor microenvironment (TME) landscape in chemotherapy-resistant human NB tumors and compare findings to the changes in TME of murine NB models. Different immune cell subsets are recruited into the TME via interactions between chemokines (small secreted proteins) and chemokine receptors, and these populations have distinct effects on tumor progression and therapeutic outcomes.  The role of EZH2 in the TME will be studied, as well as the effects of EZH2 inhibitors in NB tumor response and resistance.

NANT 2015-01 Precision Trial 2016-2020

Crystall Mackall, MD 

Stanford

Robbie Majzner, MD

Stanford



Enhancing Potency and Durability of Immunotherapies

Aims: To enhance the effectiveness of CAR T cells targeting NB, with goal of phase I NANT study of an optimized GD2-CAR and a B7-H3-CAR; to improve aNK cell potency and durability by targeting more aNK cells to tumor sites with anti-B7-H3 mAb MGA271 and dinutuximab, and by improving aNK function and survival with superagonist IL-15 ALT-803; and to overcome TME suppression of CAR T cell and aNK cell function by decreasing MSC and TAMs which are known suppressors via cytokine release.

NANT 2011-04 Phase 1 trial of lenalidomide with dinutuximab and isotretinoin 2013-2018.

NANT 2013-01 Phase 1 trial of NK cells with dinutuximab +/- lenalidomide 2018-2022.

NANT 2021-01 Allogeneic NK cells with Temozolomide-Irinotecan & Dinutuximab opening 2024