News: Brain Tumors

The Sonic hedgehog protein plays a crucial role in the development of brain cells that may be the source of some types of pediatric brain tumors, a recent study reports.

A new study by Dai Chung, MD, and colleagues reports that a protein, called SIRT6, plays an important role in the growth of neuroblastoma and suggests that SIRT6 may be a target for new therapeutics for the disease.

A new study by Lola Chambless, MD, and colleagues shows that tumor volume is the most striking single predictor of tumor grade in atypical meningioma — aggressive tumors that form from the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. The finding may help guide surgical planning and patient counseling.

A grant from cancer research nonprofit Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation is allowing a Vanderbilt chemical and biomolecular engineering doctoral student to join the fight against pediatric neuroblastoma. Kyle Garland is spending his summer on a project titled Immunotherapeutic Targeting of the STING Pathway to Combat Neuroblastoma. He’s working with John Wilson, assistant professor of chemical […]

Neuroblastoma – a cancer that starts in nerve tissue outside of the brain – is the third most common cancer in children and accounts for about 15 percent of pediatric cancer-related deaths. MYC proteins drive neuroblastoma tumorigenesis in part by promoting the expression of key glycolytic enzymes such as LDHA to induce aerobic glycolysis (a […]

Neuroblastoma is a neural crest cell-derived extracranial solid cancer that affects infants and young children. The most vigorous of these cancers spreads through self-renewing cancer stem cells. Knowing the nature of these cells is essential to understanding the progression of neuroblastoma and devising the right treatment strategy. Reporting in the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research […]

Neuroblastoma – a pediatric cancer of the sympathetic (“fight or flight”) nerve ganglia and adrenal glands – is thought to originate from the cells that give rise to the developing sympathetic nervous system. Amplification of the MYCN oncogene is associated with risk in this disease, but its role in the early steps of neuroblastoma initiation […]

Anti-cancer drugs are typically tested on one type of cancer at a time. But an international consortium of cancer investigators, including Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) researchers, simultaneously tested an existing therapy in patients with several different forms of cancer that all exhibit the same tumor gene mutation. The new clinical trial showed promising results in […]

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have discovered a new way to inhibit Hedgehog (Hh) signaling, an important regulatory pathway for vertebrate development – and cancer. Abnormal regulation of this pathway leads to several human malignancies, including small cell lung cancer and pancreatic cancer, and therefore it is a potential drug target for cancer. Small molecules have […]

A new tool to observe cell behavior has revealed surprising clues about how cancer cells respond to therapy – and may offer a way to further refine personalized cancer treatments. The approach, developed by investigators at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, shows that erlotinib – a targeted therapy that acts on a growth factor receptor mutated in […]