Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine has established the Troiano Brain Tumor Center with a $35 million initiative built to translate the system’s cell therapy research into treatment.
Penn Medicine said Oct. 29 the center will focus on early-phase clinical trials and coordinated care, integrated with its Abramson Cancer Center. It builds on two therapies pioneered at Penn: CAR-T cell therapy and the mRNA platform behind the COVID-19 vaccines.
The center is led by three directors: Nduka Amankulor, MD, as executive director; Dolores Hambardzumyan, PhD, as scientific director; and Stephen Bagley, MD, as clinical director.
Launching a solid-tumor cell therapy program requires infrastructure beyond a single trial — the capacity to run first-in-human studies, source engineered cells, manage neurotoxicity and move findings between the lab and the clinic. Penn Medicine said the center is intended to house that work for brain tumors in one place, uniting neurosurgery, neurology, hematology-oncology, neuroradiology, neuropathology and cancer biology.
The center is named for John Troiano, a 1992 University of Pennsylvania alumnus, and his wife, Rosanna Troiano, whose gift anchored the initiative. Institutional investment and additional philanthropy also funded the center. The Troianos’ donation will support multidisciplinary clinics and a survivorship clinic, Penn Medicine said.
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