A Cure Brain Cancer Foundation–funded researcher has achieved highly promising results in the development of new immune-based treatments for some of the most aggressive childhood brain cancers.
Dr. Alexander Davenport, Postdoctoral Researcher at WEHI, is pioneering innovative approaches designed to harness the immune system to recognise and attack paediatric brain tumours, including highly aggressive Diffuse Midline Gliomas (DMG).
Since receiving an Early Career Fellowship in 2023, Dr. Davenport and his team have made meaningful progress; generating promising preclinical results, building critical new research models, and laying the groundwork for therapies that could transform outcomes for children diagnosed with brain cancer.
Key Research Milestones
During this reporting period, the team has:
- Developed and tested an immune therapy, designed specifically for specific cancer targets. This approach has shown very promising results, eliminating brain tumours in mouse models and showing long-term resistance against tumour recurrence.
- Produced new, paediatric-specific laboratory models to allow for more accurate testing of new therapies against brain cancer. These address a long-standing gap in brain cancer research and are being prepared for sharing with the global research community.
- Established a structured pipeline to screen new CAR T-cell (immune) therapies to further strengthen the field, by accelerating the identification of treatments that are both effective and safe.
Together, these advances deepen scientific understanding of DMG and strengthen the foundation for translating laboratory discoveries into future clinical applications.
“Cure Brain Cancer Foundation support allowed me to take bold, high-risk ideas such as developing entirely new immune-based therapies for childhood brain cancer, and turn them into rigorous, testable science. Importantly, the funding enabled the creation of new paediatric brain cancer models and the screening of novel CAR T-cell therapies. Beyond the science, Cure Brain Cancer Foundation’s investment in me has provided vital career stability at a formative stage, allowing me to build new collaborations, lead independent projects, and generate the high-quality data needed to attract further competitive funding. Their belief in this work has helped position my research program to translate innovative laboratory discoveries into real hope for children and families affected by brain cancer.”
