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Fred Hutch Cancer Center medical oncologist Lisa Tachiki, MD, has been named a 2025 Cancer Research Fellow by the Kuni Foundation, an honor that includes an unrestricted, two-year $300,000 award.
Tachiki is pursuing a unique approach to make immune checkpoint inhibitors more accessible to patients worldwide and improve their experience with these life-saving drugs by giving lower doses less often than the current standard regimen. She is an assistant professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
“I’m grateful for the Kuni Foundation’s focus on supporting cancer research that has the potential to dramatically impact people’s lives,” Tachiki said. “The foundation provided me with my first grant in 2019. Having them take an interest in me as a young investigator, when I did not yet have much experience, was fundamental to getting the preliminary data that guides the larger clinical trials we’re doing now.”
Improving access to a revolutionary — but costly — treatment
Tachiki is co-principal investigator with Shailender Bhatia, MD, on a Phase 2 clinical trial to test a markedly lower-dose plus reduced-frequency strategy for giving the immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab. Bhatia is the director of the Melanoma and Renal Cancer Team at Fred Hutch and holds the Lyn and Daniel Lerner Endowed Chair for Merkel Cell Carcinoma. Their study is funded by a $1.05 million Kuni Foundation Discovery Grant.
“Immune checkpoint inhibitors can be used across more than 20 different cancer types,” Tachiki said. “They’ve really changed the game in how we treat patients and how long patients survive. In melanoma, for example, a diagnosis at stage 4 used to have a prognosis of about eight months. With these drugs, survival has been extended to five years, which is revolutionary.”
A concern, however, is that the drugs are so expensive that the cost is not sustainable in the United States, and it’s prohibitive in many low- and middle-income countries, where the majority of patients have no access. The upcoming clinical trial will allow physicians to offer nivolumab to patients in Uganda who otherwise have no good options if they aren’t able to tolerate chemotherapy or their disease has progressed on chemotherapy.
Previous work by Tachiki and Bhatia has shown that reduced-frequency nivolumab can be effective in patients who’ve responded well to a standard regimen. Separately, they’ve observed that lower doses, given to some patients to reduce the risk of severe side effects, still have the intended effect against cancer cells.
“I’ve been doing mechanistic evaluation to confirm what we suspected — that even at a very low dose, the smallest vial size available, the drug hits the target in the body, PD-1, that makes it effective,” said Tachiki. “There are other studies globally testing either lower doses or reduced frequency. Our study is unique because we’re combining the two principles, and we’re using immunotherapy alone, not in combination with chemotherapy, to spare patients the chemotherapy side effects.”
If the approach works as they hope, it will reduce the cost of nivolumab 100-fold, Tachiki said. In addition, the investigational regimen may minimize the risk of severe side effects and greatly reduce the “time toxicity” (total time spent on cancer care and related tasks) and travel burden on patients who have to come into a clinic for their infusions.
“Dr. Tachiki’s work exemplifies the kind of transformative, patient-centered research we're committed to advancing,” said Kuni Foundation President Angela Hult. “By exploring new ways to make immunotherapy more accessible, affordable and sustainable, her research has the potential to expand life-saving treatment for patients worldwide.”
Why unrestricted awards matter
The flexibility of an unrestricted award helps researchers like Tachiki propel promising ideas forward by giving them the freedom to dedicate time to projects that wouldn’t otherwise be funded. For example, the unrestricted Kuni Foundation award affords Tachiki time to develop a new research idea into a fully formed, cohesive concept ready for grant applications, she said.
“Having this protected time lets me explore ambitious ideas and nurture them into impactful scientific endeavors,” said Tachiki. “I have such appreciation for the Kuni Foundation. Their goals have always been closely aligned with the kind work I’m doing — patient-centered research that has the potential to really change the way we practice medicine. Their support is incredibly helpful, especially for research that’s not necessarily revenue-generating for pharmaceutical companies and at a time when there are challenges around funding from the National Institutes of Health.”
Based in Vancouver, Washington, the Kuni Foundation is committed to funding innovative cancer research that promotes early detection, enhances treatment and improves outcomes. They focus on underfunded areas of research, including rare cancers, and emphasize collaboration among individuals and institutions as well as accessibility to clinical trials for underserved communities.
