Continuing my work on the “PHOTON” study (AKA PHarmaco-phOspho-proTeO-geNomics), I have been collecting and culturing the many tumour samples required to complete this important work. Of 196 individual high-grade glioma samples, the majority are diffuse midline gliomas, but we also have other types of childhood brain cancers so that we’re able to compare and contrast features across tumour types.

 

Thanks to the support of RUN DIPG, The Kids’ Cancer Project and CureCell, plus institutional support from The University of Newcastle, Australia and Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) , we are looking forward to understanding the genes (genome), proteins (proteome) and protein activity (phosphoproteome) that cause such aggressive and lethal paediatric tumours.

 

This large-scale project builds on our earlier pilot project, assessing the phospho-proteo-genome of a tumour sample from a child with congenital glioblastoma. PHOTON analysis of this single sample has highlighted a number of features that may be driving tumour growth.

 

I am now testing whether drugs known to target these gene or protein features are effective in reducing cell growth in our laboratory model of the tumour. If successful, this may be an approach that can guide oncologists’ treatment selection processes in the future.