Advancing novel therapeutics and translational science to close the survivorship gap in pediatric, adolescent and young adult (AYA) lymphoma

Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL) has its first incidence peak in the adolescent and young adults (AYA) years. Despite the success of chemotherapy and radiation in younger children and older adults, there has been a gap in survival for AYA. In addition, this group is at risk for decreased access to clinical trials. With the availability of antibody drug conjugates and immunotherapies that can treat HL, there is a promise that we can reduce the morbidity of historic chemotherapy and radiation regimens that limit long term overall survival further in AYAs. In her role as the Scientific Chair of the HL committee in the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), Dr. Castellino’s goal is to accelerate the incorporation of immunotherapy and CD30-targeted cellular therapy into children and AYAs through collaborative trials with the NCTN groups both for initial therapy and for relapsed and refractory disease. She also plans to deliver trial designs that incorporate emerging tumor-microenvironment and host biology in HL for better risk stratification and response-based approaches. On a national level she also proposes advances through leadership in the NODAL data commons and through analyses linking trial data to extant epidemiologic data and post treatment follow up. At the institutional level, as the Program leader for Leukemia and Lymphoma at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of the Winship Cancer Institute, she proposes to lead systematic quality initiatives to enhance trial enrollment in AYAs and to ensure representativeness and access to all populations in Georgia. Her leadership of the leukemia and lymphoma biorepository can be extended to creating infrastructure to bank lymphoma tissue which can enhance translational work toward precision trial designs for relapsed HL and rare lymphomas. The effort support through the R50 award would allow her time to accelerate trials in lymphoma nationally and to enhance AYA accrual locally. Her experience and productivity to date position her for success in the role of the R50 Clinical Research specialist.