Projects

The group will learn about these two cutting-edge projects from the Children's Brain Tumor Network (CBTN). After leaning about each, the group will collectively choose which project to fund.

Project #1: IMMUNE CORRELATIVES STUDY

Lead Investigator: Dr. Jess Foster

Goal: Better understand the role our immune systems play in cancer treatment

Brief Summary

The Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium (PNOC) is an international group of scientists and clinicians leading innovative clinical trials for patients with Central Nervous System (CNS) tumors. Within the consortium, the Immunotherapy Working Group is led by Dr. Jessica Foster (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia), with co-leaders Dr. Jasper van der Lugt (Princess Maxima, Netherlands) and Dr. Nicholas Vitanza (Seattle Children’s). This group is dedicated to bringing immune based therapeutics to children with CNS tumors and understanding how the immune system in the brain changes during treatment. To better understand how their immune systems evolve throughout therapy and inform how to best deliver immunotherapeutics, this group plans to set up a universal immune monitoring program. This work will begin with a flow cytometry-based panel in a single clinical trial, which will then be broadened to all clinical trials across disease groups. The cost for this first correlative study is $17-34,000 for reagents, and additional analytical personnel costs ranging from $20-50,000.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS STUDY FROM DR. FOSTER IN THE VIDEO BELOW:

Project #2: CHILDREN’S BRAIN TUMOR NETWORK (CBTN) PRECLINICAL MODEL PROGRAM

Lead Investigator: Mateusz Koptyra

Goal: Better understand how animal models progress the discovery of effective treatments

Brief Summary

One of the many ways in which CBTN strives to advance its goal of developing new treatments for kids with brain tumors is to improve its preclinical model program. This program focuses on the development and characterization of tumor models that can be utilized both in vitro and in vivo. These efforts are led by the Director of the CBTN Preclinical Lab, Mateusz Koptyra. Mice models are all generated directly from live tumor tissue such that they recapitulate part of the tumor’s biology. In addition to using the models to study tumor biology, this program provides an opportunity for drug testing and the development of clinical trials. To get FDA approval for a clinical trial, therapies need to be tested to determine if they target and kill the specific subtype of tumor while ensuring safety for use in children.

CBTN currently has 90 preclinical tumor models of various brain cancer disease types. The development and maintenance of preclinical models is both time consuming and staff intensive. As the models are, themselves, living organisms, they must be monitored and handled around the clock. The cost of additional preclinical models and their development and growth is $20-50,000.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS STUDY FROM DR. KOPTYRA IN THE VIDEO BELOW:

Be sure to bring your questions to session two where you will get to hear from and ask questions of both Dr. Foster and Dr. Koptyra!