Post-doctoral Fellowship Grant Awarded to Chen Shen

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG, is an incurable brain cancer that mostly strikes young children. The
median survival rate is less than one year after diagnosis. To date, there are no chemotherapeutic or targeted
agents that have proven to be beneficial for treatment of these cancers. Dr. Becher’s lab uses mouse models
of DIPG to study the function of proteins that drive tumor growth and to determine how novel anti-cancer drugs
can inhibit tumor growth. His lab’s goal is to identify the most effective drugs against this type of brain cancer
and then translate these findings by testing the drugs in clinical trials for children afflicted with this type of brain
cancer. ATRX is a protein that is commonly inactivated in both childhood and adult brain cancers and has
recently been implicated in repair of our DNA, or genetic code. As ATRX is inactivated in a subset of DIPGs,
Chen Shen, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Becher lab, will study its function in driving tumor growth
and determine whether ATRX loss impacts the tumor’s response to radiation therapy, the primary treatment
currently used to treat children with DIPG. A better understanding of the role of ATRX loss in DIPG formation
may open up new therapeutic options.