{"id":35872,"date":"2025-11-06T14:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T14:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/35872\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T14:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T14:35:09","slug":"state-funding-propels-local-pediatric-cancer-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/35872\/","title":{"rendered":"State funding propels local pediatric cancer research"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Petersburg is home to a comprehensive, innovative pediatric cancer research facility that received a $7.5 million renewable state grant to bolster cutting edge care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The funding, announced Monday, will support Johns Hopkins All Children\u2019s Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute<\/a>. Its director, Dr. Cassandra Josephson, subsequently outlined the hospital\u2019s ambitious plans for the much-needed money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She expects the institute to eventually receive $37.5 million from the five-year Florida Cancer Connect Collaborative Research Incubator Grant program. The funding will support All Children\u2019s<\/a> proposal, dubbed \u201cFlorida\u2019s Catalyst for Childhood Cancer Cures.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been a lot of patients locally that have to leave because we just don\u2019t have a study open here, or we don\u2019t have the types of studies they need,\u201d Josephson told the Catalyst. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have more clinical research coordinators and clinical research nurses to run more studies \u2013 that is right here in our backyard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your place is not offering clinical research studies, then you\u2019re really not on the cutting-edge of what you can offer your patients.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dr. Cassandra Josephson, director of the Johns Hopkins All Children\u2019s Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute, and an oncology professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

That innovative work<\/a> is already occurring at All Children\u2019s. The hospital is Florida\u2019s only Pediatric Early Phase Clinical Trials Network site, as designated by the global Children\u2019s Oncology Group.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All Children\u2019s is also the state\u2019s top-ranked pediatric hospital for the third consecutive year and No. 37 for child cancer nationally, according to U.S. News & World Report. Josephson said a key focus of the grant program is ensuring \u201cno patient has to leave the State of Florida to get care.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s pediatric population ranks third nationally, underscoring the need for cutting edge childhood cancer care. Josephson credited the governor, his wife and state lawmakers for championing the incubator initiative, designed to accelerate those efforts at All Children\u2019s, Nicklaus Children\u2019s Hospital in Miami, Nemours Children\u2019s Hospital in Orlando and Wolfson Children\u2019s Hospital in Jacksonville.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Josephson stressed that clinical research improves patient outcomes, which is why some cancer survival rates surpass 90%. However, studies typically require several years of specialized treatment and monitoring, and funding remains an issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among children after infancy, only about 4% of National Cancer Institute Funding supports pediatric research.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe return on investment for the private sector is just not there,\u201d Josephson said. \u201cPharmaceutical companies do not have a drive to go and develop things that are going to help a very small population of people \u2013 even though that small population of people may be their child.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

All Children\u2019s will use the funding to:<\/p>\n

Expand access to and participation in innovative clinical trials;
\nDevelop a statewide interactive database portal to match patients with appropriate trials;
\nCreate a statewide network to move research discoveries into the clinical trial phase more rapidly;
\nStudy how to enhance the immune system to fight cancer;
\nGenerate, test and deploy next-generation gene and cellular therapies to combat pediatric cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe private sector is not going to do this for you,\u201d Josephson said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t step in, who\u2019s going to make sure we find all these cures for cancers?\u201d<\/p>\n

All Children\u2019s has invested millions of dollars in collecting and analyzing anonymous patient data. The hospital operates the state\u2019s only pediatric biorepository, which stores biological specimens for research.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Cancer & Blood Disorder Institute offers leading therapies for sickle cell disease and hemophilia. Bone marrow transplant techniques improve outcomes for children with leukemia and lymphoma.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All Children\u2019s was also the first pediatric hospital in Florida certified to provide CAR T-cell therapy, a life-saving treatment for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia or lymphoma. Josephson said the hospital will use the funding to manipulate patient cells<\/a>, \u201cinfuse it back into their body so it can wake up their immune system and kill the cancer. And they won\u2019t reject it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grant will also support the development of innovative delivery systems, including nanoparticles, that carry gene-regulating RNA from the bloodstream to the brain. If successful, All Children\u2019s could \u201cturn on and off some of the brain tumors,\u201d Josephson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She noted that All Children\u2019s offers studies \u201cright when they walk in the door to learn more about the biology of the cancer.\u201d Some include experimental drugs rather than traditional chemotherapy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can toggle the immune system, we can treat things in a much more humane way than even giving chemotherapy,\u201d Josephson added. \u201cIf you can wake a person\u2019s own immune system up to help fight the cancer, that\u2019s a game-changer, as far as side-effect profiles and second cancers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSurvival is really important \u2013 not just to survive the cancer, but to survive the treatment and what happens next in your life. If we make those discoveries here, it can help everybody in the whole world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The hospital is also creating the Florida Collaborative Childhood Cancer Predisposition Program: Protecting Children and Families Through Early Identification and Prevention. A user-friendly, state-of-the-art registry will aid those efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Petersburg is home to a comprehensive, innovative pediatric cancer research facility that received a $7.5 million renewable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-35872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}