The National Brain Tumor Society history traces back to the 1980s, with the founding of two legacy organizations – the National Brain Tumor Foundation and the Brain Tumor Society. In 2008, the two groups strengthened their collective efforts by merging to form the National Brain Tumor Society (NBTS).
The National Brain Tumor Foundation (NBTF) was founded in 1981 by a small group of San Francisco-based healthcare providers and people whose lives had been affected by brain tumors. The Foundation’s mission was to provide comprehensive resources and support services for the brain tumor community. Throughout its nearly 30 years, the group established a number of pivotal programs for the community including the first national conference for people with the disease, a national volunteer support network, and the only searchable database of brain tumor treatment centers in the United States.
The Brain Tumor Society (BTS) was founded in Boston in 1989. Bonnie and Sid Feldman – as well as Richard B. Ross and other committed volunteer leaders – established the organization after the loss of their son Seth to a brain tumor. After its formation, BTS played an instrumental role in raising funds to make grants for brain tumor research. BTS funded pioneering research during its 20 years, including more than 90 scientists that represent a “who’s who” of brain tumor experts. BTS grants led to key breakthroughs in the discovery of brain tumor biology and patient treatments.
Two years after the merger of these organizations in March 2010, the Kelly Heinz-Grundner Foundation (KHG) – a Delaware-based group dedicated to raising awareness about brain tumors – merged with NBTS. KHG was founded in 2004 as a tribute to Kelly, who died in September 2004, after a two year battle with a brain tumor.
Today, the National Brain Tumor Society continues its legacy of driving research accomplishments and discoveries toward treatments, servicing, guiding, and preparing patients to face their disease, changing public policy agendas through country-wide advocacy, and providing a powerful voice that unites the brain tumor community.
The National Brain Tumor Society and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy partnered to host a workshop to share recent data, ideas and identify both hurdles and new opportunities for harnessing immunotherapy against pediatric and adult brain tumors. Adoptively transferred cell therapy have recently shown promising early clinical results. Local cell delivery to the brain, new antigen targets and innovative engineering approaches are poised for testing in a new generation of clinical trials. Although several such advances have been made, several obstacles remain for the successful application of immunotherapies for brain tumors, including the need for more representative animal models that can better foreshadow human trial outcomes. Tumor and tumor microenvironment biopsies with multiomic analysis are critical to understand mechanisms of response and patient stratification, yet brain tumors are especially challenging for such biopsy collection. These workshop proceedings and commentary shed light on the status of immunotherapy in pediatric and adult brain tumor patients, including current research as well as opportunities for improving future efforts to bring immunotherapy to the forefront in the management of brain tumors 1)