Grant: Project Grant

Brain tumors are the deadliest form of childhood cancer in Canada. Medulloblastoma is the most common aggressive type of childhood brain cancer. Treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation have severe side effects and are particularly damaging to the developing brains of young children. There are 5 known kinds of medulloblastomas with each type exhibiting a unique genetic makeup and different response to therapy. My laboratory aims to characterize the specific cells in each kind of medulloblastoma that help the tumors "grow", namely the cancer stem cells, as well as those tumor cells that "go" to other parts of the body leading to poor outcome. By identifying proteins that help the tumors "grow and go", we will establish a cellular fingerprint that can be exploited for development of new therapies aimed at targeting the cancer cells while sparing normal cells and improve the quality of life for childhood survivors. We have discovered that a protein called OTX2 plays very important roles in how the most fatal medulloblastomas arise and progress. Now, we want to further understand how this protein functions, how it controls other genes, and how its target genes regulate growth and movement of human medulloblastomas both in a dish and when implanted into mice. So far, we know that OTX2 controls genes involved in nervous system development and this is observed both in a dish as well as a large number of patient samples. Ultimately, our results will open up new avenues for development of novel, more specific and less toxic therapies that will decrease the aggressive behaviour of these tumors.