Wow! Medulloblastoma breakthrough!

[Elizabeth Allen]

I just wanted to take a moment to share an amazing article that I found the other day; you can find a link in the article to the scientific paper itself, which my inner-science-nerd finds incredibly cool, haha. Basically there has been a major breakthrough in figuring out how exactly medulloblastoma (a type of brain tumor) manages to replicate and "take over" the tissue surrounding it. Researchers have discovered the actual pathway for the growth and spread of this type of tumor, along with the molecules involved. This is a huge accomplishment, because now we can target drugs to those specific molecules and (theoretically) stop the growth of such tumors. Pediatric trials haven't begun yet, but since medulloblastoma treatments have basically stayed the same since before I was treated in 2004, it's pretty big news!

http://hms.harvard.edu/news/new-target-childhood-brain-cancer-2-28-...

[Elizabeth Allen]

I really hope this will help develop to develop new treatments! Who knows with the current budget problems, though.

And haha, my inner-science-nerd would love to be friends with your inner-science-nerd :)

[Jennifer Toth]

I think my inner-science-nerd and your inner-science-nerd would be good friends :)

This is so cool! Breakthroughs like this seem to be few and far between for childhood cancer so they're always such good news when they do happen. Now hopefully people will spend the time and money to translate this into new treatments!