No child with leukemia
SpainAlthough less prevalent than in adults, children have cancer. Cure rates for childhood leukemias have improved a lot in recent years, but there is a group of pediatric leukemias with a very poor prognosis that continue to cause a lot of suffering for both the children who suffer from them and their families.

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Donors
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Total raised €100%raised
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Bonpreu i Esclat clients 43.771€
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Direct beneficiaries
250
Those people who have naturally benefited from the project's interventions.
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Indirect beneficiaries
500
Those identifiable people who will potentially recieve an effect from the project's activities.
Budget
- Materials 18.770€
- Staff 25.000€
- Total 43.770€
Description
Acute B lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) is the most common cancer in children under 18 years of age. Cure rates in pediatric leukemias for children over 2 years of age have greatly improved in recent years. However, childish leukemias are still considered a separate entity with a frightening diagnosis (5-year survival <20%). Childhood ALL-B has, beyond the emotional damage to families, dire consequences on the development of the child due to the multi-organ toxicity of current treatments.
The group of Dr. Pablo Menéndez from the Josep Carreras Foundation is an international leader in childhood B-ALL and has spent 20 years studying the origin of leukemia in the womb, the causes (etiology) and the mechanisms of the disease (pathogenesis). For 4 years, and motivated by the exclusion by the pharmaceutical industry of including children under one year of age in immunotherapies with T lymphocytes (CAR-T therapy), the group also investigates targeted and non-toxic immunotherapies for these children, in order to avoid the life-long consequences of survivors of current chemo therapy.
Activities
- Generate a laboratory model that reproduces the disease in order to study how and why this type of leukemia develops.
- Identify mechanisms that alter gene expression without mutating the DNA structure through the epigenetic study of these sick children.
Who will benefit?
Children under 2 years of age with a “denovo” diagnosis of acute leukemia, survivors of the disease at risk of relapses and future patients, given the higher prevalence in increasingly developed societies.
Project objectives
- Identify the cell of origin and the leukemic stem cell responsible for relapse in these leukemias.
- Improve CAR19 T cell immunotherapy for children <2 years of age.
- Combine CAR19 T cell therapy with an anti-TIM3 antibody that is predicted to be highly effective based on preliminary preclinical studies.
Updates & Links
Fundación Josep Carreras (website)