Skip to content

Search

Childhood leukaemia in Down's syndrome primed by blood-cell bias

An in-depth investigation of gene regulation and cell populations at sites of fetal blood-cell production provides clues as to why children with Down’s syndrome are predisposed to developing leukaemia.

Advancing CNS tumor diagnostics with expanded DNA methylation-based classification

DNA methylation-based classification is now central to contemporary neuro-oncology, as highlighted by the World Health Organization classification of central nervous system tumors. This expansion is a result of newly identified tumor types discovered through our large online repository and global collaborations, underscoring CNS tumor heterogeneity.

Flt3L-mediated tumor cDC1 expansion enhances immunotherapy by priming stem-like CD8+ T cells in lymph nodes

Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) evokes antitumor immunity through the reinvigoration of T cell responses. T cell differentiation status controls response, with less differentiated cells having an enhanced capacity to proliferate after ICB. Given that conventional type 1 dendritic cells (cDC1) maintain precursor exhausted T cells (TPEX), we hypothesized that expansion of cDC1s with Flt3L could enhance responses to ICB. 

Incidence and survival for childhood cancer by endorsed non-stage prognostic indicators in Australia

Nick Gottardo MBChB FRACP PhD Co-Head, Brain Tumour Research team; Head of Oncology and Haematology, Perth Children’s Hospital nicholas.gottardo@

Combining CRISPR-Cas9 and TCR exchange to generate a safe and efficient cord blood-derived T cell product for pediatric relapsed AML

Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is an effective treatment for pediatric patients with high-risk, refractory, or relapsed acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, a large proportion of transplanted patients eventually die due to relapse. To improve overall survival, we propose a combined strategy based on cord blood (CB)-HCT with the application of AML-specific T cell receptor (TCR)-engineered T cell therapy derived from the same CB graft.

Tumor site-directed A1R expression enhances CAR T cell function and improves efficacy against solid tumors

Citation: Sek K, Chen AXY, Cole T, Armitage JD, Tong J, ……… Waithman J, Parish IA, et al. Tumor site-directed A1R expression enhances CAR T cell

Histone methyltransferase PRDM9 promotes survival of drug-tolerant persister cells in glioblastoma

Chemotherapy often kills a large fraction of cancer cells but leaves behind a small population of drug-tolerant persister cells. These persister cells survive drug treatments through reversible, non-genetic mechanisms and cause tumour recurrence upon cessation of therapy. Here, we report a drug tolerance mechanism regulated by the germ-cell-specific H3K4 methyltransferase PRDM9. 

IDH mutant high-grade gliomas

Gliomas are the most common type of malignant primary central nervous system (CNS) tumors, resulting in significant morbidity and mortality in children and adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients. The discovery of mutations in isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) genes has dramatically changed the classification and understanding of gliomas.  IDH mutant gliomas have distinct clinical, pathological, and molecular features including a favorable prognosis and response to therapy compared to their wildtype counterparts.

Long-Term Outcome of Young Infants With Suspected Neuroblastoma following Observation as Primary Therapy: A Report From the Children's Oncology Group

Several studies have established that patients with localized perinatal neuroblastoma can be safely observed; however, long-term outcomes have not been previously reported. We evaluated long-term outcomes of infants with suspected perinatal neuroblastoma enrolled on the Children's Oncology Group ANBL00P2, which included an expectant observation approach. 

Transcriptional rewiring in CD8+ T cells: implications for CAR-T cell therapy against solid tumours

T cells engineered to express chimeric-antigen receptors (CAR-T cells) can effectively control relapsed and refractory haematological malignancies in the clinic. However, the successes of CAR-T cell therapy have not been recapitulated in solid tumours due to a range of barriers such as immunosuppression, poor infiltration, and tumour heterogeneity.