Since 1998, Hyundai Hope On Wheels has been making donations to hospitals across the country to help support the further training and/or research of childhood cancer specialists. Hope On Wheels has designated these doctors and medical professionals as Hyundai Scholars. Since 1998, Hyundai Hope On Wheels has been making donations to hospitals across the country to help support the further training and/or research of childhood cancer specialists. Hope On Wheels has designated these doctors and medical professionals as Hyundai Scholars. Since 1998, Hyundai Hope On Wheels has been making donations to hospitals across the country to help support the further training and/or research of childhood cancer specialists. Hope On Wheels has designated these doctors and medical professionals as Hyundai Scholars.

Dr. Alex Huang - Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital

This new exciting project in Dr. Huang's laboratory utilizes precise lineage-specific molecular targeting mouse models and cutting-edge high-resolution single-cell live animal imaging technology to address the critical question of how Cdk5, a novel molecular target in lymphocytes whose inhibitors are currently being evaluated in Phase I and Phase II cancer clinical trials, influences the development and metastasis of acute T-lymphoblastic leukemia in the bone marrow and the central nervous system. Success in this new area of research will chart a new course in the development of novel therapies against T-cell leukemia.

 

Dr. Ann Dahlberg - Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Cord blood transplantation and intensive chemotherapy delay recovery of cells of the immune system including neutrophils, placing patients at high risk of significant, life-threatening infections. This project aims to generate cord blood cells in culture that can significantly improve time to neutrophil recovery with the goal of decreasing life-threatening infections and allowing for more intensive chemotherapy to be given in high-risk leukemias and other malignancies.

 

Dr. Anne Kirchhoff - Primary Children’s Medical Center

Pediatric cancer patients require early and regular follow-up care in the years after their cancer diagnosis and treatment. By developing an electronic tool to assist pediatric oncology physicians with providing cancer treatment summaries to their patients, our study will improve the long-term care for pediatric oncology patients as they transition back to their primary care providers.

 

Dr. Barbara Miller - Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital

Transient receptor potential channel TRPM2 is an ion channel which modulates cell survival through regulation of cation influx and ROS production. Here, we will determine if the TRPM2 channels represent novel targets to enhance sensitivity of cancer therapeutics for neuroblastoma as well as other pediatric cancers.

 

Dr. Charles W. M. Roberts - Dana Farber Cancer Institute

This proposal seeks to discover and therapeutic vulnerabilities for several types of pediatric cancer that carry mutations in genes encoding subunits of a specific cellular protein complex, the SWI/SNF complex. This work also aims to pursue pre-clinical testing so that new, targeted treatments can rapidly reach these pediatric cancer patients.

 

Dr. Chindo Hicks - University of Mississippi Medical Center

B-Precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) should have a central role in the national cancer research priorities because it remains the leading cause of cancer-related death in children. The overarching goal of this study is to dissect the molecular basis of health disparities in pediatric B-ALL between Americans of African ancestry and Americans of European ancestry, and to identify aberrant pathways and potential clinically actionable biomarkers. This goal will be achieved by leveraging recent advances in genomics and sequencing technologies.

 

Dr. Christopher Porter - Children’s Hospital of Colorado Foundation

This project aims to provide critical laboratory evidence of the important role of Wee1 in the development of leukemia and drug resistance. The results of these studies will provide critical information for the planning of clinical trials testing Wee1 inhibition in leukemia.

 

Dr. Corinne Linardic - Duke University School of Medicine

Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma is an aggressive cancer of skeletal muscle characterized by the PAX3-FOXO1 mutation. Our research is studying how PAX3-FOXO1 shuts down the Hippo pathway, an evolutionarily conserved biochemical pathway that ordinarily tells cells and organs when to stop growing, with the hopes that re-activating this pathway could halt tumor growth.

 

Dr. Craig Byersdorfer - University of Michigan C.S. Motts Children's Hospital

This proposal seeks to improve the treatment of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a lethal complication following bone marrow transplantation (BMT), through a detailed study of the metabolic pathways operating in pathogenic lymphocytes. This novel approach will likely lead to innovative targets for future therapies. As our treatment of GVHD improves, BMT will become a much safer and more attractive therapy, allowing us to treat a greater number of children with high-risk malignancies.

 

Dr. Denise Rokitka - Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo Foundation

Survivors of childhood and adolescent cancer are at risk for long term physical and emotional sequelae as a result of their cancer diagnosis and treatment. This study aims to look at the frequency of executive function deficits and their affects on the incidence of depression in young adult cancer survivors when compared to healthy age matched controls without a history of cancer or depression.

 

Dr. Don Coulter - Children’s Hospital and Medical Center of Omaha

Our proposal will identify neuroblastoma stem cells, and will study autophagy as a mechanism for neuroblastoma resistance. We plan to use agents targeting both mTOR and SHH to identify novel therapeutics that can be used alone or combined with chemotherapy to treat children with metastatic disease.

 

Dr. Don Small - Johns Hopkins University

Dr. Small will use an animal model his lab has generated to discover new ways to attack one of the most aggressive, deadly forms of pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML) at the molecular level.

 

Dr. Donald Durden - Rady Children’s Hospital

The primary goal of our research proposal is to develop potent PI-3 kinase inhibitors or dual PI-3 kinase/MEK inhibitors to target mycN dependent pediatric malignancies, medulloblastoma and neuroblastoma. An important and innovative component of our project is the commitment of SignalRx Pharmaceuticals and the Durden laboratory to bring these agents into pediatric Phase I and Phase II trials in this targeted disease setting in the near future.

 

Dr. Edward Attiyeh - The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Using state-of-the-art deep sequencing technologies, we are finally at a point where we can begin to dissect the complexity of tumor heterogeneity. This will lead to future studies that will vastly improve our ability to select targeted agents to improve childhood cancer care and outcomes.

 

Dr. Emmanuel Volanakis - Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt

T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia is an aggressive blood cancer that strikes both adults and children. We are investigating how the cancer cells hijack normal developmental processes, in order to develop new molecularly targeted treatment strategies.

 

Dr. Gregory Friedman - The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Our proposed studies with clinically-ready viruses will develop essential preclinical data on the ability of oncolytic engineered herpes simplex viruses to kill pediatric medulloblastomas. These translational studies will be used to bring this cutting-edge therapy from the bench to the clinic with the goal of improving outcomes and reducing toxicities in children with these deadly cancers.

 

Dr. James Mulloy - Cincinnati Children's Hospital

Targeting the leukemia stem cell has emerged as a critical component of anti-cancer therapy. The proposed work will build on studies that have shown the Cdc42 protein to play a critical role in leukemia stem cell survival, self-renewal and maintenance in the bone marrow environment. Our novel drug will be tested in mouse pre-clinical models of AML to determine efficacy alone and in combination with standard chemotherapy approaches.

 

Dr. Joshua Rubin - St. Louis Children's Hospital

Group 3 medulloblastoma is the most aggressive and deadly type of medulloblastoma, affecting twice as many boys as girls with the worst outcomes among boys. This study will examine the mechanisms by which gender affects tumor biology and response to treatment with radiation and chemotherapy.

 

Dr. Julia Bender - Columbia University Medical Center

The purpose of this project is to address the technical, ethical and practical challenges of implementing a comprehensive precision cancer medicine program based on whole genome sequencing (WGS) within pediatric oncology.

 

Dr. Kavita Dhodapkar - Yale School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics

Development of personalized vaccines for the treatment of pediatric brain tumors.

 

Dr. Lamis Eldjerou - University of Florida

An open-label, phase I, dose escalation trial using lenalidomide orally as maintenance therapy after allogeneic HSCT to determine a maximally tolerated dose (MTD) in pediatric patients with hematologic malignancies (ALL, AML & MDS) with positive minimal residual disease (MRD) at the time of HSCT.

 

Dr. Logan Spector - University of Minnesota Medical Center - Fairview

Osteosarcoma may be due to new mutations rather than those inherited from parents. We will compare the genes of 85 case-parent trios to find new mutations and determine if they cause osteosarcoma.

 

Dr. Matthew H. Porteus - Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital

Infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia (infant-ALL) remains a type of leukemia with a poor cure rate. We propose to develop a novel state of the art model for infant ALL in order to better understand how this disease develops and to identify new therapeutic strategies.

 

Dr. Michael John Joyce - Nemours Children’s Clinic

Using commercially available software, we will design a system that interfaces across multiple electonic health records and with the Center or International Bone Marrow Transplant Research. We will further build in pediatric relevant quality specific measures that will benefit the safe administration of care.

 

Dr. Michele Redell - Texas Children’s Hospital

The goal of this project is to learn more about how the bone marrow environment affects the way leukemia cells repair the damage that chemotherapy causes. If we can understand this process, we can develop new strategies to reverse the process and make chemotherapy work better.

 

Dr. Monika Davare - Doernbecher Children’s Hospital Foundation

To enable advances in targeted treatment for children with high-risk medulloblastoma, Dr. Davare will experimentally test if the recently identified mutations in the protein ROS1 are cancer-causing events and if the FDA-approved drug crizotinib inhibits these ROS1-mutations, indicating the therapeutic potential for treating ROS1-driven medulloblastoma.

 

Dr. Muna Qayed - Aflac Center of Children’s Healthcare Atlanta

A study to evaluate the effectiveness of sirolimus in combination with low dose chemotherapy in children with relapsed solid tumors, or tumors that do not respond to conventional chemotherapy.

 

Dr. Philip E. Neff - Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas

This proposed research will investigate molecular changes in cancer cell metabolism in response to medications, which could predict outcomes and allow for optimized care and personalized chemotherapy treatments. Results of this exciting bench research will provide the first step towards the development of new strategies for cancer therapy design based on the innovative use of ‘omics’ data that could advance international change in pediatric cancer treatment and bring better outcomes to patients.

 

Dr. Reuven Schore - Children’s National Medical Center

Despite the overall excellent outcomes for children with leukemia, certain children have a significantly worse prognosis and are often treated with blood and marrow transplantation (BMT), and more than 30% of those children experience a return of the leukemia following BMT. The goal of this study is to determine the safety and tolerability of an innovative combination of medications, pravastatin and bortezomib, as therapy for post-BMT relapsed leukemia.

 

Dr. Richard Bram - Mayo Clinic

This research focuses on validating a new potential "Achilles Heel" of cancer cells that may lead to novel treatments for childhood leukemia.

 

Dr. Robert Johnson - Nationwide Children’s Hospital

The current project is designed to take the first critical steps in uncover the mutational events responsible for the formation of ependymoma, the third most common pediatric brain tumor. The data obtained will be key to the future development of therapeutic approaches designed to improve the current dismal cure rate of 60%.