| Project title | Wainwright Laboratory Research as Part of the John Trivett Fellowship for Brain Cancer |
|---|---|
Grant Amount | $150,000 |
Institution | The University of Queensland |
Investigator Team | Principal investigator Prof. Brandon Wainwright with associate investigators Prof. Nick Gottardo, Prof. James Olson and Prof. Peter Sicinski |
Grant Type | Fellowship |
Years | 2014 – 2018 |
Brain tumours are the most common cause of cancer-related death in infants, children and young adults. Of these, medulloblastoma, a tumour of the cerebellum is the most common malignancy.
Medulloblastoma is routinely treated with surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy and five year survival is less than 50%. Of those who survive the side-effects of the current treatment mean that very few are capable of independent living in the long term. Clearly, we need to improve survival and move away as much as possible from chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
In this project we are investigating a new class of drugs known as “CDK4/6 inhibitors” for their ability to block medulloblastoma growth whilst sparing the normal tissue of the brain and spinal cord. CDK4/6 inhibitors have recently been approved for the treatment of women with breast cancer who are resistant to other therapies.
“We have shown that not only do CDK4/6 inhibitors cross into the brain from the blood but when they do they are capable of significantly blocking medulloblastoma growth and on many occasions actually shrink the tumour, even as a single agent with no other therapy.”
Progress
Although great progress has been made in our understanding of the biology of medulloblastoma we are yet to translate this into new therapies which can improve survival and lower treatment side effects.
Using a new approach we identified a new class of drug (“cyclin inhibitors”) which appears to be very effective against medulloblastoma in animals carrying patient tumours. Before we can progress this to clinical trial we need to identify through biochemical analysis which are the patients who will best benefit from this treatment. Over the next year we expect to have progressed significantly towards this goal.
The Cure Brain Cancer Foundation funding has supported our preclinical models experiments and enabled us to identify genetic factors that influence the response to CDKi.