New Investigator Grant Awarded to Jamie Anastas

More children die of brain tumors than any other form of cancer, yet treatment options for pediatric glioma have not improved in decades and few drugs are specifically designed to treat pediatric cancers. Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) are some of the most challenging cancers to treat, and there are no effective therapies for these aggressive brain tumors. One reason that DIPG are so difficult to treat is that tumor cells can adapt or evolve so that they no longer respond to therapies, especially when only a single drug or treatment is given to a patient. Treating patients with multiple drugs simultaneously in the form of a combination therapies may be more effective than providing a single drug at a time. Recently, drugs targeting signaling molecules called cyclin dependent kinases (“CDK”) have shown promise in animal models and are under investigation in clinical trials for DIPG, yet it is not known if drugs targeting CDK will be effective on their own. Furthermore, several drugs targeting CDK have been developed recently, but these new compounds have not yet been evaluated as potential treatments for DIPG.