The Kristen Ann Carr Fund Center for Sarcoma Treatment and Research

Although soft tissue sarcoma diagnosis and management have slowly improved over the last decade, 50% of patients with newly diagnosed sarcoma eventually die of disease. Soft tissue sarcoma is a heterogeneous disease, comprising over 70 histological types and subtypes with diverse biological behavior and, in many cases, unique genetics. This diversity presents a diagnostic and prognostic challenge for clinicians, and, although genetic and cytogenetic analysis has improved classification, there is a pressing need to develop effective sarcoma type-specific targeted therapies.

The long-term goal of the Sarcoma Center of Excellence is to reduce the morbidity and mortality from soft tissue sarcoma by developing targeted therapies and biomarkers that are specific to the molecular, genetic, epigenetic, and signaling pathway alterations discovered for each sarcoma type and subtype. To pursue this, we will focus our efforts on the following strategic priorities:

  • Develop and support sarcoma-specific clinical fellows and junior faculty
  • Recruit new faculty members whose research will focus entirely on basic and translational research in sarcoma
  • Facilitate the development of a sarcoma-specific Pediatric and Adult Clinical Trials Unit to seamlessly incorporate the continuum of age into clinical and translational research for patients with sarcoma
  • Expand clinical trials for adult and pediatric sarcoma patients so as to validate new therapeutic targets, treatment strategies, and tissue/blood-based biomarkers in phase I/II trials
  • Expand integrated sarcoma care across the MSKCC sarcoma DMT and the MSKCC network sites and facilitate interactions between sarcoma DMT members
  • Enhance education and support for adult and pediatric sarcoma patients and their families
  • Provide infrastructure and resources to facilitate and expand translational sarcoma research at MSKCC
  • Fund innovative and transformative translational and clinical research that may be considered too high risk to fund through traditional funding mechanisms
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