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Research

Chemotherapy is included in treatment regimens for many solid cancers, but when administered as a single agent it is rarely curative. The addition of immune checkpoint therapy to standard chemotherapy regimens has improved response rates and increased survival in some cancers. However, most patients do not respond to treatment and immune checkpoint therapy can cause severe side effects. Therefore, there is a need for alternative immunomodulatory drugs that enhance chemotherapy.

Research

Infants with KMT2A-rearranged B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have poor outcomes. There is an urgent need to identify novel agents to improve survival. Proteasome inhibition has emerged as a promising therapeutic strategy for several hematological malignancies. The aim of this study was to determine the preclinical efficacy of the selective proteasome inhibitor carfilzomib, for infants with KMT2A-rearranged ALL.

Research

Infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is characterized by a high incidence of KMT2A gene rearrangements and poor outcome. We evaluated the value of minimal residual disease (MRD) in infants with KMT2A-rearranged ALL treated within the Interfant-06 protocol, which compared lymphoid-style consolidation (protocol IB) versus myeloid-style consolidation (araC, daunorubicin, etoposide/mitoxantrone, araC, etoposide).

Research

The bone marrow microenvironment (BMM) plays a key role in leukemia progression, but its molecular complexity in pre-B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), the most common cancer in children, remains poorly understood. To gain further insight, we used single-cell RNA sequencing to characterize the kinetics of the murine BMM during B-ALL progression.

News & Events

Researchers have identified key differences between cancers that respond to immunotherapy and those that do not.

News & Events

The WA Kids Cancer Centre has secured $1.1 million in funding from the Medical Research Future Fund’s (MRFF) Paediatric Brain Cancer Research Stream 2 to develop more effective and less toxic treatments for rare brain cancers in infants.

News & Events

Cancer researchers have narrowed-down the field of immunotherapy drugs which could be used to tackle a form of childhood brain cancer.

Research

Gliomas account for nearly 30% of all primary central nervous system (CNS) tumors in children and adolescents and young adults (AYA), contributing to significant morbidity and mortality. The updated molecular classification of gliomas defines molecularly diverse subtypes with a spectrum of tumors associated with age-distinct incidence.

Research

Dysphagia, one of the most common complications in head and neck cancer (HNC) treated with radiotherapy, can severely affect patients’ quality of life. Currently, because no “gold standard” treatment exists, swallowing exercise remains the main rehabilitation strategy for dysphagia. However, patients’ compliance with long-term swallowing exercise is only 40%, thus, greatly compromising outcomes. This article aims to analyze thefactors influencing swallowing exercise compliance in patients with HNC and explains strategies developed to date for improved rehabilitation outcomes.

Research

There are few options for patients with relapse/refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, thus this is a major area of unmet medical need. Here, we reveal that inclusion of a poison exon in RBM39, which could be induced both by CDK9 or CDK9 independent CMGC (cyclin-dependent kinases, mitogen-activated protein kinases, glycogen synthase kinases, CDC-like kinases) kinase inhibition, is recognized by the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay pathway for degradation.