Grant Summaries

Sonic Hedgehog: Hippo pathway cross-talk in cerebellar neural precursor biology and pediatric brain tumorigenesis

07/15/2010 by Jeanne Young

Africa Fernandez, Ph.D., Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center first year funding, 2010 – 2011 Medulloblastomas are brain tumors arising in the cerebellum, and they are the most common kind of solid tumor of childhood. Current treatments for these tumors leave patients with life-long damage, since the treatments affect the still-developing brain. Identifying therapies that attack the …

The Hedgehog Pathway in Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma

07/01/2010 by Jeanne Young

Philip Beachy, Ph.D. and Michelle Monje, M.D. 2010-2011 funding Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a devastating childhood brain tumor that is poorly understood and universally fatal. Progress to date has been limited by a lack of faithful experimental model systems. We have overcome this impasse by generating new DIPG cell lines and xenograft model …

RAD001 Clinical Trial Summary

07/15/2009 by Jeanne Young

Low-grade gliomas are the most common brain tumor in children. Although some patients can be effectively cured with surgery alone, recurrences are common in a significant majority of patients—especially those without neurofibromatosis type I (NF1). These patients often require repeated resections, chemotherapy and often radiation therapy. The damage caused by these therapies has a significant …

CNS RHABDOID TUMORS: INTEGRATING BIOLOGICAL INSIGHTS WITH CLINICAL SUCCESS

03/10/2009 by Jeanne Young

Partial sponsorship-funding of a professional meeting for ATRT The Childhood Brain Tumor was a partial sponsor for this important meeting that was held March 9-10, 2009 at the Fairmont Copley Hotel in Boston. Susan Chi, M.D., Mark Kieran, M.D., Ph.D. and Charles Roberts, Ph.D. from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute organized the meeting. Experts in the field …

A Role of a Transcription Factor, FoXm1, in Cancer Stem Cells in Pediatric Brain Tumors

10/01/2008 by Jeanne Young

Ichiro Nakano, M.D., Ph.D., Clinical Instructor / Assistant Professor, Departments of Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, and Psychiatry, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA 2008 Despite the dramatic improvements in the outcome of other childhood cancers in the last decades, brain tumors remain the leading cause of death in the pediatric oncology. Malignant brain tumors are composed …

Hedgehog Pathway Activation in Juvenile Pilocytic Astrocytoma

05/01/2008 by Jeanne Young

Michael Cooper Funded 2008 Pilocytic astrocytoma is commonly viewed as a benign lesion with an excellent 10-year survival rate. However, disease onset is most prevalent in the first two decades of life, current therapeutic modalities are often limited by tumor location and size and late recurrences are not uncommon. Thus, as many children are left …

Gene Expression Analysis of Medulloblastoma

10/06/2001 by Jeanne Young

The Childhood Brain Tumor Foundation is proud to announce year 2001 funding of a promising research study entitled, “Gene Expression Analysis of Medulloblastoma” submitted by Dr. Tobey MacDonald of Children’s National Medical Center. The initial results of this study have been published in the October issues of the leading scientific journals, Nature Genetics. In addition, …