Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Every day, 43 children are diagnosed with cancer in North America. Aggressive brain cancer, such as medulloblastoma, is the most common pediatric solid tumor and the number one cause of death by disease for children in the Western world. Cancers grow very quickly and need high quantities of nutrients. However, increased nutrient supply to the cancer is not always possible for the human body. When cancer cells do not have enough nutrients to grow, they need to find ways to compensate for this. Our laboratory team at the BC Cancer Agency recently made a significant discovery: a small protein called eEF2K helps cancer to survive when it has no nutrients. Pediatric brain tumors produce a very high amount of this protein. In addition, children with tumors that produce excessive eEF2K protein usually die earlier than children with tumors that do not produce the protein. We are convinced that by blocking the function of the eEF2K protein, we can starve tumors to death. To test our idea, we first checked if cells lacking the eEF2K protein grew slower or died more often under starvation conditions, compared to cells that have the protein. We then grew these cells in mice and looked at the same effects, noticing that tumors lacking the eEF2K protein grew slower. No specific and effective therapies for children with brain tumors are currently available. Our study is crucial not only in understanding how eEF2K affects pediatric brain tumors, but also in finding new possible therapies for children afflicted by this destructing disease.