Grant: Doctoral - PA - Canada Graduate Scholarship to Honor Nelson Mandela

Cisplatin is a cancer treatment drug that is highly effective in treating many kinds of cancers and has greatly improved survival outcomes for paediatric cancer patients. However, it's limited by its toxicity which leads to permanent hearing loss in >50% of the treated children. This leads to several effects on learning, speech and language, and social-emotional growth; as adults, these survivors have been shown to face economic disadvantages. Along with impacting the quality of life of survivors, this toxicity sometimes means cisplatin use has to be discontinued. To conserve cisplatin as a safe and effective chemotherapeutic, we must understand how cisplatin causes hearing loss. Genetics play an important role in worsening a patient's responses to cisplatin that ultimately leads to increased death of cells in the ear that are involved in auditory signaling. Certain genes in some individuals may have differences that make them more vulnerable to development of hearing loss during treatment. Recently, we found that the immune system is involved in increasing susceptibility to hearing loss, and it's possible that genetic differences in an immune gene is making certain individuals more vulnerable to cisplatin's toxicity. By studying how this gene could change an individual's susceptibility to cisplatin-induced hearing loss, we may be able to tailor chemotherapy specifically for each pediatric cancer patient that is undergoing treatment. If we are able to determine whether or not someone is genetically more at risk for developing hearing loss after treatment, then we would be able to administer protective therapies targeting the immune system. This way, we can design interventions or alternative treatment plans that would be better suited to the patient. Our goal is to protect cancer patients against the side effects of cisplatin-induced hearing loss so that they can receive the safest, most effective treatment they can without compromises to their quality of life.