Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common bone cancer in children, yet treatments have not improved in decades, especially for patients whose disease spreads to the lungs. OS tumors are extremely unstable at the DNA level, which should activate the immune system, but instead these tumors evolve to create an immune-suppressive environment. Our work suggests that a molecule called ENPP1 plays a major role in this process. ENPP1 normally breaks down cGAMP, a signal that activates the STING pathway and alerts the immune system to danger.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is harder to cure than acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and most other types of childhood leukemia and lymphoma. AML treatments are toxic and requires patients and their families to spend up to a year in the hospital to minimize risks of infection and bleeding. Many children with AML need bone marrow transplantation as part of their initial treatment, and nearly every AML patient will undergo a transplant if their leukemia relapses.

Children with the brain tumor Supratentorial Ependymoma ("ST-EPN") have low survival rates (50% at 10 years) and very high relapse rates (70%). The only effective treatments for ST-EPN are surgery and radiation; sadly, there is no chemotherapy that is known to be effective in this disease. There is a big need for new treatments for ST-EPN, and a need for research to figure out those treatments. Researchers recently discovered that most cases of ST-EPN are caused by a "fusion oncoprotein" called ZRFus, and very little is known about how ZRFus works.

Mentor Name: Eric Sweet-Cordero

Mentor Name: Bo Qiu