Carryover: Pediatric Brain and Central Nervous System Tumors C2417

Through basic and clinical cancer research, long-term outcomes for pediatric cancer patients have steadily increased over several decades. Whereas cancer in children was almost uniformly fatal, now the majority of children with cancer can expect to survive. However, many patients still die from cancer and long-term toxicities of cancer therapy are serious, life-altering chronic issues for pediatric cancer survivors. More than 200 children are diagnosed with cancer each year in Kentucky. The four projects submitted from the University of Kentucky for funding consideration by the Kentucky Pediatric Cancer Research Trust Fund (PCRTF) combine the synergistic expertise of pediatric oncology physicians with the basic and translational acumen of successful scientists. Most importantly, the diseases that these projects address – leukemia, brain tumors and sarcomas – represent the most common cancers that affect children. Therefore, our goals are to make an impact in the malignancies that affect the most children in Kentucky. At the University of Kentucky, we have identified four projects to reduce the morbidity and mortality of childhood cancer in Kentucky. These projects address critical unmet needs for pediatric cancer patients in our state: (1) a project determining whether there are inherited/genetic factors that might explain the increased incidence of pediatric brain tumors in Kentucky, (2) a pre-clinical translational drug development project to identify new therapeutic options for Ewing sarcoma, (3) a translational study to identify patients at risk of leukemia relapse, and (4) the discovery of biomarkers to predict chemotherapy-induced brain injury in leukemia. These projects represent state-of-the-art team science whose focus spans the range of common childhood malignancies and whose collaborative investigators bring translational strength. Our goal, like that of the PCRTF, is to reduce the burden of disease caused by childhood malignancies in our state.