Molecular Era of Brain Tumours in Childhood – Advances Directing New Tumour-specific Treatments

Topic: Molecular Era of Brain Tumours in Childhood – Advances Directing New Tumour-specific Treatments.

When: August 12, 2023, at 9:00 AM Eastern Time ( US / Canada ).

Speaker: Dr. Raelene Endersby and Dr. Nick Gottardo.

Click here to join the session. 

Prof. Nick Gottardo is a clinician/scientist based in Perth, Western Australia. Prof. Gottardo is a Pediatric Oncologist/Neuro-Oncologist and Head of the Department of Paediatric Oncology and Haematology at Perth Children's Hospital. He is the Co-leader of the Brain Tumour Research Programme at the Telethon Kids Institute. In June 2018, Prof. Gottardo was appointed the Stan Perron Chair in Paediatric Oncology and Haematology at Perth Children's Hospital. The Brain Tumour Research Programme focuses on testing novel therapies using model systems that more closely recapitulate the human disease to test the effectiveness of new treatments for childhood brain tumours so that the most promising therapies can be taken through to the clinic. Prof. Gottardo has established a national and international reputation as an expert in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology and a member of the International Medulloblastoma Working Group. Prof. Gottardo is also the Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Children's Haematology/Oncology Group, the peak professional body for Pediatric Oncologists and Health Professionals who care for children with cancer and the national cooperative clinical trials group for childhood cancer. Prof. Gottardo leads several International clinical trials, including the AIM-BRAIN Project, SJ-ELiOT, and the US-based Children's Oncology Group's front-line clinical trial for WNT subgroup medulloblastoma patients, which investigates therapy reduction for this subgroup of patients who have excellent survival on current therapy.

Associate Prof. Raelene Endersby is co-head of the Brain Tumour Research Program, part of the Telethon Kids Cancer Centre. She joined the Telethon Kids Institute in Perth, Western Australia, in 2011 after a postdoc at St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. Her laboratory works at the interfaces between Mechanistic Cancer Biology, Developmental Neurobiology, and clinically relevant challenges in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology, intending to identify novel therapeutic approaches and rational therapeutic combinations for childhood brain cancers.

Molecular Era of Brain Tumours in Childhood – Advances Directing New Tumour-specific Treatments:
Over the past two decades, Pediatric Neuro-Oncology has revolutionized our understanding of central nervous system (CNS) tumours. Advanced genomic analysis of the entire spectrum of Pediatric Brain Tumours revealed that many of these tumours are heterogeneous and not single disease entities, as originally thought. This has transformed clinical diagnostic practice and risk stratification resulting in the use of novel targeted therapies and increasingly tumour subgroup-specific therapies for children with CNS tumours.

By attending this session, you will be able to learn about the following points:

• Key advances in understanding the common Pediatric Brain Tumours: Medulloblastoma, low and high-grade gliomas, and ependymoma.
• Changes in clinical diagnostic practice and risk stratification.
• Use of novel targeted therapies and tumour subgroup-specific therapies.

Click here to join the session.