Michelle Monje, MD, PhD

Thanks to the Will Irwin Memorial Fund, PCRF is proud to support the leading-edge research of Dr. Monje at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

“Effective therapy for pediatric high-grade gliomas will require a multi-pronged approach, a battle fought with complementary and integrated lines of attack against both vulnerabilities intrinsic to pediatric brain cancer cells and interactions in the “microenvironment” of the childhood brain that support and enable pediatric brain cancer growth and invasion. In addition to these two fronts, leveraging the power and precision of the immune system against pediatric brain cancers represents a “special forces” strategy with great promise. We have continued to advance our work in all three areas, pediatric brain cancer cell vulnerabilities, microenvironmental dependencies and immunotherapeutic opportunities, making leaps rather than steps in each.  As detailed below, our lab work has laid the foundation for three new clinical trials that will be opening for enrollment in early 2020 for children with pediatric high-grade glial malignancies. Below, I will review major recent progress from the lab and discuss the directions this work is moving. Supporting postdoctoral fellows to train in the Monje Lab would both accelerate research progress and direct the careers of new scientists towards childhood brain tumor research, a result that will pay dividends in the decades to come.

1. Pediatric malignant glioma crosstalk with the normal brain drives cancer progression
2. Immunotherapy for pediatric high-grade gliomas of the brain and spinal cord
3. Pediatric brain cancer vulnerabilities

-Dr. Monje

*If you would like further details or information on Dr. Monje’s work funded by this grant, please contact Jeri Wilson at jwilson@pcrf-kids.org