Projects & Progress We Fund

Identifying new genetic mutations that cause brain tumors.

Enabling medicines to pass the blood-brain barrier.

Evaluating whether certain molecules that can enter the brain could treat tumors.

High-Risk Ependymoma

2025 | The Team Jack Foundation granted $600,000 to Dr. Nick Foreman at the University of Colorado at Denver for a comprehensive research program to improve survival rate of high-risk childhood ependymoma. Relapsed ependymoma in children is sometimes rapidly fatal with no treatment. Dr. Foreman’s lab found that these patients have developed either a loss of part of chromosome six, or a gain of part of chromosome one, in their tumors. They have identified why these changes make these recurrences untreatable. This research project will develop therapies, specifically aimed at targeting these chromosomal changes, which can be rapidly translated to clinical trials to give hope where it is currently lacking. 

MYC Inhibitor Treatment for Medulloblastoma

2024 | Dr. Robert Wechsler-Reya of Columbia University Irving Medical Center was awarded a $500,000 grant from the Team Jack Foundation for the development of a brain-restricted MYC inhibitor for medulloblastoma. This work is a collaboration between labs with different skills and expertise, at four different institutions — Columbia University, University of California Berkeley (UCB), University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and Sanford Burnham Prebys (SBP) Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla.

pLGG (Pediatric Low-Grade Glioma) Research

Dr. Pratiti (Mimi) Bandopadhayay

Dr. David Jones

DIPG (Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma) Research

2024 | A $575,000 grant was awarded to Sujatha Venkataraman, PhD, and Rajeev Vibhakar, MD, PhD, at the University of Colorado, Denver. This project is to facilitate the translation of experimental (gated) CAR-T cell therapy to treat Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), a fatal brain tumor in children. DIPG is characterized by its inoperable nature and dismal prognosis, which motivated Venkataraman to identify a highly expressed protein in these tumors, CD99, which paved the way for her innovative approach to treatment. 

Check out this video update from Sujatha which was shared at the 2026 Team Jack Gala. 

Medulloblastoma Research

2023 | Team Jack has committed $290,000 at the University of British Columbia to Dr. Poul Sorensen to decipher eEF2K biological functions for therapeutic targeting of pediatric medulloblastoma. The tumor microenvironment (TME) imparts potentially lethal stresses on childhood cancer cells, including oxidative stress, hypoxia, and nutrient deprivation (ND). Tumor cells must acutely adapt to these stresses to survive, potentially leading to emergence of aggressive clones with metastatic capacity.

Dr. Sorensen’s group discovered that an enzyme called eEF2K helps cancer cells cope with stress and resist treatment. In this project, Dr Sorensen and his team will determine how eEF2K protects brain cells under stress and test whether blocking the enzyme will make cancer cells sensitive to therapy. This work could lead to more effective and targeted treatment options for childhood brain and neural cancers.

Medulloblastoma Research

2023 | Team Jack has committed $628,730 at Stanford Medicine to Dr. Sabine Heitzeneder to advance the use of CAR T cells targeting GPC2 for the treatment of children and young adults with recurrent/refractory medulloblastoma to phase I clinical trials using two independent approaches. 

Survival rates for children with high-risk medulloblastoma (MB) have not significantly improved in the last three decades.  Despite aggressive multimodal therapy, 30% of MB patients succumb to their disease and survivors face severe long-term side effects. CAR-T cells have revolutionized cancer treatment, mediate impressive clinical activity in refractory leukemia/lymphoma and have recently proven well positioned for clinical success against aggressive childhood brain tumors. This application focuses on advancing the use of CAR T cells targeting GPC2 for the treatment of children and young adults with recurrent/refractory medulloblastoma to phase I clinical trials using two independent approaches. 

Pediatric High-Grade Glioma Research

2023 | The Team Jack Foundation awarded $179,479 to support a new phase I/II clinical trial for children with newly diagnosed high-grade glioma being undertaken by neuro-oncologist Ashley Plant-Fox at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. The trial “DAY101 Plus Pimasertib for Pediatric High-Grade Glioma” has been approved to move forward through the Collaborative Network for Neuro-oncology Clinical Trials (CONNECT) consortium and is expected to open to enrollment in late 2023 or early 2024. 

DMG (Diffuse Midline Glioma) Research

2022 | The Team Jack Foundation awarded a $250,000 grant to Dr. Jovana Pavisic at Columbia University for translational research to study master regulators to dependencies for Diffuse Midline Glioma (DMG). 

Uncovering Hidden Drivers of Low-Grade Gliomas

2021 | Team Jack has committed $490,000 at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center to Dr. Pratiti (Mimi) Bandopadhayay to apply a genomic approach to identify drivers of pediatric low-grade glioma (pLGG) growth. Understanding these “mystery drivers” is critical to treating and ultimately curing pLGGs.

First In-Human Clinical Trial of Novel Immunotherapy Vaccine for Brain Cancer

2021 | Primary high-grade gliomas (pHGGs) in children are almost uniformly lethal. The Team Jack Foundation has committed $100,000 to Dr. Sayour at the University of Florida to start a first-in-human clinical trial to test a novel form of immunotherapy to treat pHGG (pediatric high grade gliomas). The treatment platform which leverages the use of nanoparticles (NPs) combined with messenger RNA (mRNA) taken from the patient’s tumor to make a product that functions as both a vaccine and an agent that is capable of increasing activity of the immune system. To facilitate translation of this promising technology into first-in-human studies for pHGG, Dr. Sayour and colleagues have partnered with the Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium (PNOC), where their clinical trial concept was accepted for multi-institutional trial development.

Unraveling the Importance of Cell and Mutation Context in Oncohistone-driven pHGG

2021 | The Team Jack Foundation awarded $50,000 to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to allow Dr. Maya Graham to research the gaps in insights into oncohistone-mediated gliomagenesis that currently pose a barrier to therapeutic development for patients with high-grade gliomas. The proposed project will further understanding of the mechanisms underlying oncohistone-mediated transformation in pHGG and allow for rational selection of targeted therapies for this devastating disease, with implications for the broader role of epigenomic reprogramming in pediatric cancer. By Team Jack funding the early stages of Dr. Graham’s project, she was able to retrieve preliminary data for several additional grants.

Power5 Childhood Brain Tumor Initiative

Heat Shock Protein (HSP) Neo-Antigen Vaccine for DIPG

2020 | The Team Jack Foundation committed $325,000 to Dr. Ashley Plant-Fox at Lurie Children’s Hospital to study a Heat Shock Protein (HSP) Neo-Antigen Vaccine Plus Checkpoint Blockade for Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), the deadliest form of childhood brain cancer. This Phase I clinical trial is evaluating the safety and tolerability of rHSC-DIPGVax in combination with BALSTILIMAB and ZALIFRELIMAB. rHSC-DIPGVax is an off-the-shelf neo-antigen heat shock protein containing 16 peptides reflecting neo-epitopes found in the majority of DIPG and DMG tumors. The clinical trial officially opened and began enrolling patients in January 2022. In April 2022, the first patient received two doses and is currently doing well. This study will improve therapies for children diagnosed with DIPG.

Development of Therapeutic Strategy for DIPG

2019 | Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas (DIPG) is the deadliest type of brain tumor in children with less than 1% survival rate. The Team Jack Foundation committed $150,000 to Dr. Richard Phillips at the University of Pennsylvania to study a very promising new therapy for the disease. In collaboration with the Therapeutics Discovery Institute at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Phillips and his lab have developed novel EZH2 inhibitors that exhibit brain penetrance in mouse models in vitro. The overall goal of this project is to optimize and validate these novel brain-penetrant EZH2 inhibitors in vivo and characterize biomarkers of anti-tumor response to EZH2 inhibition in DIPT toward eventual use in human clinical trials. 

University of Nebraska Medical Center Childhood Brain Tumor Program

2018 | The Team Jack Foundation committed $1.5 million, which was matched by the State of Nebraska, for the development of a childhood brain tumor program at UNMC’s Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center. With the passing of LB 110 in 2015, public and private resources are continuously being raised to attract brain tumor experts to Nebraska and build a comprehensive program. The specialized treatment of pediatric brain tumors requires diagnosis and treatment recommendations from physicians who have developed brain tumor treatment as an area of sub-specialty.

Study of DAY101 in pLGG

2017 – 2019 | This project studies the drug Tovorafenib/DAY 101 (formerly TAK 580) as a possible treatment of pLGG (pediatric low grade gliomas) that have not responded to other treatments. The Team Jack Foundation committed $300,000 in 2017 to this study to study the safety of the drug and define the appropriate dosage (phase I). In 2019, Team Jack made an additional investment of $500,000 for both MEK 162 and TAK 580 to further investigate. Research in the laboratory has shown that DAY101 may have activity against cancer cells. DAY101 belongs to a group of drugs called type II BRAF inhibitors. BRAF abnormalities are found in cancer cells. There are no type II BRAF inhibitors approved by the FDA for humans at the time of this study’s start. In 2020, Day One Biopharmaceuticals acquired the rights to develop and commercialize DAY101 wordwide. In January 2023, Day One announced topline data from FIREFLY-1 trial which demonstrated meaningful responses.

APRIL 23, 2024 UPDATE: DAY101, now OJEMDA, received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of patients six months of age and older with relapsed or refractory pLGG harboring a BRAF fusion or rearrangement, or BRAF V600 mutation. READ MORE HERE.

Phase I/II Study of MEK162 for pLGG at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

2014 | The Children’s Hospital Los Angeles/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute launched a phase I/II clinical trial of the drug MEK162 for children with recurrent brain tumors. Team Jack provided $300,000 for the Phase I study to determine the best dose of the drug and find out the most common side effects. Phase II of the study was to determine whether MEK162 causes tumors to shrink or stop growing. This new drug will turn off mutations in a molecular growth pathway that enable tumor growth in low grade gliomas, brain cancers.

Medulloblastoma Treatment Research