The National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a $619,628 Project Grant under the Cancer Biology Research program (CFDA 93.396) to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, doing business as Clinical Practices of the University of Pennsylvania. The funding will support the development and validation of an autologous mouse model to study immune system interactions with glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer. The goal is to create a humanized mouse system that incorporates patient-derived tumor tissue, immune cells, and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in an integrated preclinical model. This model aims to better replicate the human tumor-immune microenvironment compared to existing approaches, in order to improve the translation of immunotherapies from preclinical research to the clinic. The University of Pennsylvania will conduct thorough characterization of the immune cell subpopulations and anti-tumor activity in this new autologous mouse system, with results compared to clinical trial data from the same institution. This 5-year project is expected to demonstrate the feasibility of using patient-derived materials for glioblastoma modeling and identify the aspects of tumor-immune interactions that are best suited for this new preclinical approach.