All Children’s shares latest on $7.5 million pediatric cancer research grant

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — To Mia Morrison, 5, the rooms on the seventh floor of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital have become almost a second bedroom. 

She is comfortable here, even though this is where she gets ongoing cancer treatments. 

“Mia is actually on a clinical trial right now for an immunotherapy drug that she received. It has already done incredible things for the outcome of children with B-cell ALL. And so we are always very excited to hear about new trials, participate in new trials,” said Callie Morrison, Mia’s mother.

New and expanded trials are a big part of the Florida Cancer Connect Collaborative Research Incubator grant, giving this hospital and three others in Florida $7.5 million a year for the next five years. 

“We are trying to attract and grow the research in Florida so people do not have to leave Florida to go get that care,” said Dr. Cassandra Josephson, director of the Cancer and Blood Disorders Institute at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.

Mia has acute lymphoblastic leukemia and this grant will help her and others in five main ways. 

First, it expands current clinical trials, it also will develop a statewide clinical trial database, create a network to move research discoveries into the trial-phases faster, implement more immune system studies, and will create more testing for the next generation of gene and cellular therapies. 

“Getting more kids to be on study and to be enrolled in studies is part of this grant. And that will lead to bigger cures and bigger survival rates in different places,” said Josephson. 

It also will help more complex cases, like Mia. 

She is non-verbal living with autism. Callie said that being neurodivergent sometimes creates barriers with being included in long-term trials. 

“So the fact that we have this grant, this renewable grant that we have access to for the next five years, I can’t wait to see what the opportunities are for kids like Mia,” said Morrison. 

Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital was one of four specialty hospitals in the state for this five-year grant. 

Nicklaus Children’s in Miami, Nemours Children’s in Orlando, and Wolfson Children’s in Jacksonville were also awarded this funding.