Bens Gift Inc

In prior years, bolstered by Ben’s Run’s support, Dr. Williams developed a groundbreaking
blood test that detects low levels of leukemia without an invasive bone marrow biopsy.
By testing the blood, clinicians can learn of relapse sooner and, ideally, before the disease
progresses or advances to other parts of the body.
This past year, Dr. Williams continued to push the boundaries of blood testing using a
new polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method. PCR is a technique commonly used in
molecular genetics; it amplifies DNA or RNA sections to permit analysis even on very
small samples. This is important in cancer research because there is much to learn about
leukemia and how our bodies fight cancer cells, but researchers had been previously
inhibited because existing methods require unfeasible amounts of blood to analyze.
Using this new PCR, Dr. Williams measures the levels of three distinct pieces of tumor
RNA, “tumor bits,” she calls them, which are present in blood even after leukemia is
no longer present in bone marrow. These tumor bits spike when relapse is imminent or
in its early phases, so this new blood analysis could help clinicians predict relapse and
potentially intervene. In comparison, if Dr. Williams were to attempt to do this type of
analysis using traditional PCR, she would require the entire research blood supply of
Children’s National to test just two of RNA segments. With new PCR, she can study three
segments with a fraction of material.

Thanks to support from Ben’s Run, Dr. Williams developed a painless methodology
to detect transplanted cell growth anywhere in the body. The approach uses
18Flurothymidine, or FLT, previously used to study lymphoma and leukemia
progression in adults; Dr. Williams is the first to translate this protocol for pediatrics.
Results are as fast and painless as a CT scan and reveal where in the body newly
transplanted cells grow, offering incredible insights into cellular activity at the most
critical post-transplant stage.
This past year, Dr. Williams made impressive strides in FLT research. She obtained an
Investigational New Drug (IND) Application from the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA), a comprehensive submission that enables her to begin formally using FLT to
treat patients at Children’s and marks the first step in bringing a new protocol to
market. With this IND, Dr. Williams will study the methodology of using FLT to see if
acute leukemia responds to RESOLVE, Dr. Williams’ promising new project that uses
a patient’s own immune cells to fight back against resilient or relapsed leukemia.
Importantly, the IND can also springboard additional applications to study future
protocols which will help to rapidly advance research on FLT in pediatric applications.
Dr. Williams’ results will be published in The Lancet Haematology, acknowledging
Ben’s Run at the start and conclusion of the paper. She is also planning a second paper
on the resulting analysis on how well her FLT imaging protocol detects leukemia.