Pediatric CAR-T therapy, a breakthrough cancer treatment, is a "Philadelphia story all the way," CHOP says

In the hallways at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 20-year-old Emily Whitehead is a celebrity.

Whitehead, in 2012, was the first pediatric patient to get a breakthrough cancer treatment that saved her life and is now helping others.

"Emily made it safe for the 40,000 patients that have followed," CHOP Dr. Stephan Grupp said.

Grupp, the head of cellular therapy at CHOP, treated Whitehead.

"I think growing up, having that experience, I think has changed my life in a lot of ways," Whitehead said.

She had leukemia that didn't respond to traditional treatments. Her desperate parents turned to CHOP, which was about to start experimenting with something called CAR-T therapy.

"We take the patient's own immune cells, called T cells," Grupp said. "We retrain them in the lab using a genetic technique to teach them how to fight, recognize, and kill cancer."

Even though it had never been tried on a child, Whitehead's parents said yes.

"It was the choice of going home on hospice or trying something brand new, so that decision was pretty easy," Tom Whitehead, her father, said.

Whitehead was 6 at the time.

"I remember some of the fun things that we did, but from the treatment, not as much," she said.

Whitehead had complications. To save her, doctors tried another experimental treatment to control the side effects that worked.

"Not only was it the first treatment ever FDA-approved, but it was also the first treatment where we learned how to control the side effects related to CAR-T, making it safe," Grupp said. "It took me 10 years before I was willing to say that [it cured her]."

Whitehead is now a junior at Penn majoring in English and still adjusting to her celebrity status that laid the foundation for so many others.

"It's weird to think about now, but I'm really happy that I was able to do that," Whitehead said. "It's not just my story now. It's so many other patients who have their own kind of individual experience and have gotten CAR-T."

To help other cancer patients, Whitehead and her parents established the Emily Whitehead Foundation.

"I was getting calls from parents from all around the world saying, ' We're being sent home on hospice," Tom Whitehead said. "Our mission every day is just to help the next family or a patient, which we get calls from adults too, to have the same outcome that we've had."

"I'm really passionate about patient advocacy and mental health and kind of thriving after cancer, not just surviving," Emily Whitehead said.

The trailblazer who's become the face of curing cancer with a therapy developed here in the City of Brotherly Love.

"This is a Philadelphia story all the way," Group said.