The Story of  Emily Whitehead

When she was born, Emily was perfectly healthy. Sometimes she would complain that her legs hurt, said her mother Kari Whitehead, but that seemed normal, too.

“I thought they were growing pains,” Kari said.

But when Emily was 5, Kari noticed bruises on her body – 21 of them. When she brushed her teeth, her gums bled. One night, she complained of excruciating pain in her legs. Kari and Tom knew something was terribly wrong and rushed Emily to the ER near their home in Pennsylvania.

Not long after, doctors diagnosed Emily with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). They said 85 percent of patients with this diagnosis treated with chemotherapy survived and led normal lives. However, after relapsing twice despite intensive rounds of chemotherapy, it seemed Emily might not be among the 85 percent.

A bone marrow transplant had, for a second, shown itself as an option, but just as quickly fell through at the last minute. Emily continued to descend into sickness as the cancer grew and spread throughout her body.

With no other options, Tom and Kari reached out to their contacts at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia just as a Phase 1 immunotherapy clinical trial for children was beginning. The trial used CAR-T therapy, a technique developed by Dr. Carl June at the University of Pennsylvania.

The CAR-T Journey

For six long weeks, Emily waited as the fighters of her immune system that were extracted from her blood, called T-cells, were “re-programmed” and multiplied in the lab to target and combat her cancer. This army of “hunter” T-cells was then infused back into her body.