Meet some of Charm City’s premier business and professional leaders, coming from the worlds of academia, business, medical, food service and philanthropy.
Aaron P. Rapoport, MD
Gary Jobson Professor in Medical Oncology
University of Maryland School of Medicine
The University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center (UMGCCC) has pioneered several advances in cancer treatment including aromatase inhibitors and GammaPod radiation therapy for breast cancer.
Now, its expert researchers and clinicians from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) are on the cusp of a cutting-edge innovation to treat blood cancers. They are developing a form of personalized cancer immune therapy called chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy. Also known as “CAR-T therapy,” the approach collects a patient’s own immune cells (T cells) and genetically engineers them to destroy cancer cells.
“We were the first cancer center in the Maryland-Delaware-Virginia tristate area and the 20th in the nation to be qualified to offer CAR-T therapy to patients with aggressive lymphoma,” says Dr. Aaron Rapoport, the Gary Jobson Professor in Medical Oncology at UMSOM and Transplant and Cell Therapy Director at UMGCCC.
“UMGCCC has dozens of clinical trials underway using cellular immunotherapy for all blood cancers and some solid tumors, and we are developing at least three types of ‘next-generation’ CAR-T products,” adds Dr. Rapoport, who was named a Top Doctor in the specialty of Oncology-Bone Marrow Transplant by Baltimore Magazine in 2021.
To date, UMGCCC has treated more than 250 cancer patients with engineered CAR-T and other T cells. Many of these patients had relapsed and totally resistant forms of blood cancers and no other treatment options.
The longest surviving of these patients are nearly five years out from treatment. According to Dr. Rapoport, “About 50 percent of patients with otherwise untreatable, aggressive lymphoma, leukemia and myeloma experience long remissions after CAR-T therapy, and many of these patients are likely to be cured.”
“CAR-T therapy is a remarkable advance for patients with relapsed and advanced blood cancers, but there is much more work to do,” Dr. Rapoport concludes. “Hopefully in the future, CAR-T also will be an option for patients with other forms of cancer.”
The University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center (UMGCCC)
umgccc.org
410.328.7904
22 S. Greene Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
Now the president and Chief Executive Officer of Keswick, Aileen McShea Tinney, MHS, MS has devoted her career to developing logical and dignified health and housing opportunities for older people.
As the Director of Planned Giving at Kennedy Krieger Institute, Orlee Kahn works with donors to raise funds, friends and awareness for the internationally recognized Institute.
Imagine going to a barbershop and coming out with a haircut, a COVID-19 vaccine and a new primary care physician! That's the concept behind Live Chair Health, part of the inaugural cohort of 1501 Health, an incubator for health care startups developed through a partnership between LifeBridge Health and Healthworx.
The panel discussion featured Marina Cecchini of Sheppard Pratt, Jennifer Main of Amalgam RX, Dr. Aaron Rapoport of the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center and Dr. Jonathan Thierman of LifeBridge Health.