Eli Bar has written a review on how the lack of oxygen commonly found in malignant brain tumors affects their growth. He focuses on the role of hypoxia in promoting “cancer stem cells” within the tumor, as these are thought to be critical for therapeutic resistance and long term growth. The article was featured on the cover of the journal Brain Pathology.
Our study recently published in Clinical Cancer Research shows that combining drugs that target a variety of developmental cell signaling pathways may do a better job of killing deadly brain tumors than single drugs that target one pathway at a time. The combined therapy approach reduces tumor resistance to anti-Notch chemotherapy.The link to a press release describing this work is below.
Karissa Schreck successfully defends her thesis on the role of Notch in brain development and tumorigenesis! Karissa is an MD PhD student and will return to the hospital for two more years of clinical training. She will be greatly missed.
Laura Asnaghi and Karisa Schreck both won awards for their poster presentations at the Pathology Department Young Investigators Day. Karisa was judged to have the best poster in the Translational Research category, and presented her work at Pathology Grand Rounds.
Xing Fan and Charles Ebehart published a paper in the journal Stem Cells showing that Notch pathway blockade can deplete stem-like cells from glioblastoma neurosphere, significantly slowing the growth of tumors in culture and in mice. A short new report and a link to a video of Dr. Eberhart discussing these exciting findings is below.
The poster by Karisa Schreck on cross-talk between Notch and Hedgehog won an award at the Medical Student Research day. Her abstract on this topic was also chosen by the scientific review committee for an oral presentation at the Notch Meeting in Athens, Greece.
Drs. Eberhart and Bar used array CGH to look for genetic changes in pilocytic astrocytomas, the most common low grade gliomas in children. They found that more than half have chromosomal gains that activate BRAF, suggesting that drugs targeting this oncogenic pathway may be useful in a treating patients with these tumors. This work was made possible by support from parents and a local pediatric cancer foundation (link to story below).
A presentation by Xing Fan on targeting glioblastoma stem cells via Notch blockade at the 2007 Society for Neuro-Oncology Annual Meeting won the Genentech Translational Research Award
A Journal of the NCI news report on novel cancer therapies targeting Notch cites the Eberhart laboratory (article link below).
