Grant: Project Grant

Brain tumors are the most common solid cancer in children. The cancer as well as its therapy has a damaging impact on the child's development. Scientists have found that brain cancers are in fact a collection of distinct diseases with very different properties and responses to therapy. To understand how these cancers form and how to select the least damaging therapies for each individual patient, we need to discover the changes that occur during childhood development to enable these cancers. We propose a deep computer analysis of many thousands of non-tumor and brain tumor samples to find mutations in genes and other parts of the DNA that are likely responsible for the cancer and its response to therapy. We will study these changes using information about complex networks and developmental systems active in the brain. This new information will help us better understand the role of these changes in the biology and development of brain cancers. Our study will provide detailed clues for researchers to verify new cancer genes and developmental pathways with focused experiments. It will also help build better tools for researchers to distinguish between types of cancers of the brain and potentially other types of cancer so doctors can provide personalized therapy to each patient. We strongly believe this is the best, and perhaps the only way to improve survival rates and the quality of life of Canadians with these deadly human cancers.