Funding success: Understanding radio resistance in paediatric brain cancer

LHCS researchers Golding, Crea, Bacon and Stramek have assembled an international team to examine the genetic changes that occur in response to radiotherapy in the highly aggressive childhood brain cancer, known as DIPG. Radiotherapy is the only approved treatment for DIPG, but patients generally fail to respond after a few months and then the disease continues. Tragically, the average survival time for DIPG is only 6-8 months. If we can understand how these cancer cells mutate to evade radiotherapy there may be a chance to prevent this from happening and extend the treatment window, or even develop a cure. The team comprises DIPG experts from Institute of Cancer Research and University of Portsmouth; bioinformatics experts from University of Freiburg and European Bioinformatics Institute; and radiographers from GenesisCare. The Open University has awarded over £23,000 to fund this research.