Researchers from the SU2C-St. Baldrick’s Foundation Pediatric Cancer Dream Team found that if medulloblastoma, a brain cancer more common in children than adults, recurs after treatment, it is likely to be genetically different from the original disease. This could open new avenues for better treatment of the recurrent tumors.
Other scientists on the pediatric team demonstrated ways to improve the process through which T cells, the immune cells needed for adoptive cell therapy (the powerful immunotherapy that has saved the lives of children with leukemia), are collected and modified in the laboratory before they are returned to the patient.