by Sarah Gallagher and Alicia Di Rado

ThinkCure events raise funds for cancer research at City of Hope and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. (Photo by Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)

ThinkCure, the official charity of the Los Angeles Dodgers, has awarded $200,000 in research grants to City of Hope and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. The one-year grants continue support for collaborative research projects focusing on brain tumors, blood cancers, neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma.

The grants support these projects:

• Treating brain cancers with neural stem cells – Co-principal investigators Karen Aboody, M.D., associate professor in City of Hope’s Department of Neurosciences and the Division of Neurosurgery, and Rex Moats, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and radiology at Children’s Hospital, along with co-investigator Michael Barish, Ph.D., professor and chair of City of Hope’s Department of Neurosciences of City of Hope, hope to treat childhood’s most common malignant brain tumors by using neural stem cells. These cells are attracted to tumors. The researchers aim to use the stem cells to deliver therapy straight to cancer cells. This strategy may allow physicians to attack tumor cells while minimizing toxicity to healthy tissue.
• Activating immune cells in brain tumors – Brain tumors have tactics they use to suppress the immune system. The team of Behnam Badie, M.D., director of the Brain Tumor Program at City of Hope, focuses on waking up the immune cells to fight cancer through the use of nanoparticles. Preliminary tests are promising, and if successful, this approach could treat brain tumors as well as other cancers.
• Creating resistance to leukemia and lymphoma relapse – Many patients who fight off leukemia and lymphoma see disease return later. A protein called Wilms’ tumor antigen (WT1) has been associated with the relapse of these and other cancers. Don J. Diamond, Ph.D., director of translational vaccine research at City of Hope, and his team have found that patients who show an immune response to WT1 remain disease-free longer. He is now working on strategies to boost immune response against cancer.
• Targeting lymphoma with specialized delivery vehicles – The overproduction of certain proteins is the root cause of various types of cancer, including lymphoma. John J. Rossi, Ph.D., Lidow Family Research Chair and chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at City of Hope, and his team designed their own treatment delivery vehicles to target these proteins. The team found that the strategy successfully blocked production of the proteins associated with lymphoma. Now, the team will work on making these delivery vehicles smarter and able to target cancerous cells.
• Blocking communications between brain cancer cells and normal cells in children – Neuroblastoma is the second most common solid cancer in children. Robert Seeger, M.D., professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital, and Hua Yu, Ph.D., professor of cancer immunotherapeutics and tumor immunology at City of Hope, have shown that interactions between cancer cells and normal cells contribute to its growth. The team developed three strategies to interfere with the communication network between these cells. The team aims to use ThinkCure funding to move the first strategies into clinical testing by the middle of next year.
• Putting the brakes on medulloblastoma – A team led by Anat Erdreich-Epstein, M.D., Ph.D., director of basic and translational pediatric brain tumor research at Children’s Hospital, found a specific protein that seems to fuel medulloblastoma, one of the most common brain cancers in children. Preliminary tests of a strategy to counter the protein successfully slowed the growth of medulloblastoma cells.