Research Group Ana Guerreiro Stücklin

Keywords

Brain tumors, Children & Adolescents, Precision Neuro-Oncology, Oncofusion-driven gliomas

Summary & Mission statement

Our research bridges the gap between basic research and clinical care, to improve the therapies for children and adolescents with brain tumors.

Overview

Brain tumors are the most common cause of cancer-related death and morbidity in infants, children and adolescents. Cancer genomic studies provided us with a detailed mutational landscape of pediatric brain tumors. Moving forward, the main challenges lie in using that knowledge to improve therapies, patient survival and quality of life.

We tackle some of these challenges and use functional studies to decipher how novel oncogenic gene fusions drive tumor formation. Oncofusions are key drivers and excellent drug targets, providing an opportunity for therapeutic innovation. Nevertheless, multiple escape mechanisms can promote drug resistance and tumor relapse. As such, we strive to understand how tumors become drug resistant, in order to design better combination therapies and prevent treatment failure. Given the young age of our patients and potential impact of therapy in the developing central nervous system, we further study the health-related outcomes and long-term impact of therapies in pediatric patients with brain tumors.