11,000 Samples Strong: The Largest “Family Photo Album” of Brain Tumors
Susanna Fletcher Greer, Chief Scientific Officer at the V Foundation, shared on LinkedIn:
“The most common childhood brain tumor just got its biggest “family photo” ever, 11,000 samples strong, published by the V Foundation grantee Dr. Pratiti (Mimi) Bandopadhayay whose research reveals clues to smarter, safer treatments.
Every new blueprint brings us closer to therapies that protect a child’s future as fiercely as we fight their cancer.
This is the largest “family photo album” of brain tumors ever assembled.
Low-grade gliomas are the most common brain tumors in children. “Low-grade” doesn’t mean harmless, these tumors often grow slowly, but they can cause serious, lifelong problems. Treatments like surgery and chemotherapy can save lives, but they can also affect a child’s memory, vision, movement, and learning for decades to come.
A new study from the V Foundation grantee Dr. Pratiti (Mimi) Bandopadhayay and lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute studied over 11,000 brain tumor samples from both children and adults. Think of it like pulling together the largest “family photo album” of brain tumors ever assembled.
Their goal: to find patterns that could help doctors match each child’s tumor to the best possible treatment.
The results? Here’s what stands out in this VERY cool paper:
- Nearly 1 in 10 pediatric gliomas had changes in a growth switch called FGFR, a protein that tells cells when to grow.
- These changes seem to act like a broken “off” button, keeping the growth signal stuck on.
- Treatments exist that can block FGFR signals. Stability can mean a child gets more time feeling well, to go to school, travel, or just be a kid.
- The exciting part of this study is that Dr. Bandopadhayay and team have now built new models of these tumors, so they can start testing smarter, more targeted treatments that cross into the brain better and have fewer side effects.
Bottom line: Low-grade gliomas may grow slowly, but they can steal decades of a child’s future. This study gives us a sharper picture of which tumors have FGFR changes, how they behave, and how they might be stopped. It’s not the cure, yet, but it’s a blueprint for next, and better, steps.
And with every blueprint that we add to the map, we get closer to building what kids with brain tumors really need: treatments that protect their futures as fiercely as we fight their cancer.
Read the paper at “A diverse landscape of FGFR alterations and co-mutations suggests potential therapeutic strategies in pediatric low-grade gliomas | Nature Communications” and find the lab at Pratiti (Mimi) Bandopadhayay, MBBS, PhD – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute | Boston, MA.
Title: A diverse landscape of FGFR alterations and co-mutations suggests potential therapeutic strategies in pediatric low-grade gliomas
Authors: April A. Apfelbaum, Eric Morin, Dominik Sturm, Georges Ayoub, Jeromy DiGiacomo, Sher Bahadur, Bhavyaa Chandarana, Phoebe C. Power, Margaret M. Cusick, Dana Novikov, Prem Prabhakar, Robert E. Jones, Jayne Vogelzang, Connor C. Bossi, Seth Malinowski, Lewis M. Woodward, Tania A. Jones, John Jeang, Sarah W. Lamson, Jared Collins, Kelly Y. Cai, Jacquelyn S. Jones, Sehee Oh, Hyesung Jeon, Jinhua Wang, Amy Cameron, Patrick Rechter, Angela De Leon, Karthikeyan Murugesan, Meagan Montesion, Lee A. Albacker, Shakti H. Ramkissoon, Cornelis M. van Tilburg, Emily C. Hardin, Philipp Sievers, Felix Sahm, Kee Kiat Yeo, Tom Rosenberg, Susan N. Chi, Karen D. Wright, Steven Hébert, Sydney Peck, Alberto Picca, Valérie Larouche, Samuele Renzi, Sara J. Buhrlage, Tejus A. Bale, Amy A. Smith, Mehdi Touat, Nada Jabado, Eric S. Fischer, Michael J. Eck, Lissa Baird, Olaf Witt, Claudia L. Kleinman, Quang-De Nguyen, Denise Sheer, Sanda Alexandrescu, David T. W. Jones, Keith L. Ligon, Pratiti Bandopadhayay
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