Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer

This grant supported research to understand how the bone marrow microenvironment influence the response of acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells to drug treatment. We used multiple laboratory approaches and identified multiple new proteins and cellular pathways that mediate drug resistance. We also identified a population of leukemia cells that acquire stromal-like properties on engagement with bone marrow stroma. We used this information ro identify and validate a new therapeutic approach to overcome resistance, which is potentially translatable to the clinic.

Background

Background

Neuroblastoma (NB) is one of the most common solid tumors of childhood. Despite multimodality therapy, nearly half of patients with high-risk neuroblastoma will die of this disease. High-risk neuroblastoma typically has many DNA copies of the MYCN gene. I recently identified a group of six proteins which work together to form a network to drive neuroblastoma. Disrupting any one of these proteins causes all to be lost and the tumor cells to die. Unfortunately, there is no known way to target MYCN or these other proteins right now.

Background

Many survivors of childhood leukemia have problems with attention and learning after completing therapy that cause difficulty in school and at home. Survivors are monitored with cognitive testing that starts during therapy and continues after therapy in order to identify these problems early. Researchers have studied the results of this testing to learn which children are at greatest risk for problems and have designed interventions to will slow down or eliminate problems.