Project Funding Details

Lay abstract (no permission to release technical abstract): Not available Brain tumours are the most common type of solid tumour in children. The principal issue affecting survival is that brain tumours often recur, and in many instances children with malignant brain tumours have less than a 50% chance of surviving one year after their initial diagnosis. There is research suggesting that one reason why brain tumours are so difficult to treat is that a unique stem cell type, the brain tumour initiating cell (BTIC), makes the tumours drug and/or radiation resistant. One challenge with past research is that non-human (animal model) brain tumours are not necessarily representative of human brain tumours. Our plan is to study, using human pediatric brain tumour preparations, new treatment approaches with the goal of improving patient cure rates. We plan to block a specific mechanism of growth of BTICs that we believe is responsible for the progression of those tumours. Once this mechanism is shut down, the cells will be deprived of necessary growth signals and they will die. We then plan to combine these inhibitors with classic agents used to treat brain tumours so that we are able to eliminate the cancer cells and improve cure rates.