Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Mentor Name: Jun Qi

Mentor Name: A. Look

Mentor Name: Jun Qi

Treatment options for children with fusion-driven Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma (aRMS) are very limited, and there are no approved new targeted therapy approaches for these children. In fact, there have been no substantial improvements in treatments for these children in over two decades. I have identified CDK8 as a candidate therapeutic target in aRMS and interaction partner of PAX3-FOXO1, the abnormal gene involved in the initiation and maintenance of this disease.

Mentor Name: Pratiti Bandopadhayay

Brain tumors are the leading cause of cancer related morbidity and death in children. Therapeutic approaches that target the mutations that make tumors grow stand to increase the effectiveness of our treatments. The goal of this project is to develop strategies that target mutations in a gene called FGFR1 which we have found to occur across pediatric gliomas.