Investigators
Alison McDonnell, Linda Wijaya, Annie Ryan, Neha Jain, Joost Lesterhuis, Jesse Armitage, Omar Elaskalani, Darcy Pirotta
Project description
Neuroblastoma is a complex childhood cancer of the nerve cells and the most common solid tumour in children outside of the brain. The average age of diagnosis is 1-2 years and tragically 50% of children with high-risk neuroblastoma lose their battle within five years. Children who do survive, suffer detrimental life-long side-effects that are unavoidable consequences of current toxic radiotherapies and chemotherapies. Our research will address the urgent, unmet need for more effective and less toxic treatments to improve outcomes for children with high-risk neuroblastoma. We are using the latest genomics technologies to examine the tumour immune microenvironment before and after standard of care chemotherapy in kids with high-risk neuroblastoma to identify biomarkers that will predict which kids will respond to treatment and identify new targets for therapy. We will then transfer this knowledge to our child-specific mouse models of neuroblastoma to develop new immunotherapies that boost the anti-neuroblastoma immune response in children and prevent relapse.
Funders
Channel 7 Telethon Trust, CCWA