Developing personalised treatment for children with neuroblastoma
In 2019, we awarded £236,141 to Dr Suzanne Turner at the University of Cambridge, as part our 2019 research grant round.
Thanks to you support, Neuroblastoma UK is supporting nine new research studies, with a total funding of £1.177 million.
Here we meet Dr Turner and find out more about her three year research project aimed at improving the effectiveness of ALK inhibitors for children with neuroblastoma.
What does the research grant from Neuroblastoma UK mean to you and your team?
This generous research grant is absolutely essential in allowing us to continue and build on our research. We now have the important task of translating this research to the clinic to ensure that patients benefit from our research findings.
We hope that our research will help us get to the stage where no child suffers from toxic chemotherapy regimens, every child survives and goes on to lead a normal, healthy life free of cancer and the side-effects of treatment.
What motivates you in your role at Cambridge?
“I hope that by taking the small steps that we take everyday in our lab, that we will find and develop better approaches towards the treatment of children with cancer. ”
As co-chair of the CRUK Cambridge Centre paediatric programme, my motivation lies in building a research programme in Cambridge that addresses the clinical issues affecting children with cancer in real-time.
Children present with a different range of cancers to adults, mostly cancers of the blood and immune system, brain and those associated with developmental errors.
Why children develop these cancers - when unlike adults, they have not lived a lifetime of exposing themselves to environmental factors which we know drive cancer development (e.g., smoking, sunlight, poor diet, environmental carcinogens and toxins) - is largely unknown.
It seems particularly unfair that children suffer from these diseases. They lose out, not just to the illness, but all the problems that come with it, such as time out of school, lacking social development skills, both short and long term side effects of toxic chemotherapy, and of course, in some cases premature death. A childhood cancer diagnosis also has a devastating effect on family and friends.
This is something that needs to change. I hope that by taking the small steps that we take everyday in our lab, that we will find and develop better approaches towards the treatment of children with cancer.
Why did you choose to research neuroblastoma?
My interest in the oncogene Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK) was sparked during my postdoctoral research positions.
ALK was described to potentially play a role in neuroblastoma development back in 2000. Stronger associations were confirmed in 2008.
Having conducted research proving that aberrantly-expressed ALK can drive lymphoma development in 2003, we set out to apply our discoveries to ALK and neuroblastoma.
I have been leading a research group since 2005 at the University of Cambridge with my lab based at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. We collaborate closely with the hospital’s Department of Paediatric Oncology, specifically with Dr Amos Burke, a long-term collaborator of work in the lab.
Collaboration is absolutely essential to the research we conduct. It helps us to stay focussed on current clinical problems in paediatric oncology and to learn more about the patients we are trying to help with our research.
What will your research involve?
“It can take many years for new drugs to be approved for clinical use, particularly for children. If we can work with drugs that are already approved for other diseases, this may help speed up the process of getting better treatment to children. ”
Our previous work showed that when new drugs called ‘ALK inhibitors’ are used to treat ALK-expressing lymphoma or neuroblastoma, the tumour cells mutate to become resistant.
Sometimes they do this by expressing more of the ALK protein. Other times, the tumour cells mutate the ALK protein, so that the drug cannot bind to it anymore.
We showed that tumour cells sometimes completely re-circuit themselves so that ALK is just not an important protein for them anymore - they activate compensatory mechanisms to bypass ALK.
We were able to identify what these new circuits are and develop therapeutic strategies to counteract them. This proposed two solutions - 1: we kill the tumour cells by targeting the new circuits and 2. we stop these new circuits from developing. This would involve treating patients with the ALK inhibitor and a drug that inhibits the potential new circuits upfront so that resistance does not develop.
With funding from Neuroblastoma UK, we are now in a position to continue this research and validate our findings as viable therapeutic approaches for patients.
Validation of research data takes time as we have to be sure that any therapeutic approach we propose for children is based in sound, reproducible research data. At the same time, we will be running drug screens to look for drugs that might treat neuroblastoma that we have not previously considered for this malignancy - essentially drug-repurposing of already approved drugs.
It can take many years for new drugs to be approved for clinical use, particularly for children. If we can work with drugs that are already approved for other diseases, this may help speed up the process of getting better treatment to children.
How many are you on your team?
We are a small team with one Neuroblastoma UK-funded post-doctoral researcher, Perla Pucci, and four PhD students at various stages of study. We normally average at 6-10 people in the lab.
Funding research. Saving lives.
Our work relies on your generosity.
At Neuroblastoma UK, we fund leading research to deliver new, effective and kinder treatments for children with neuroblastoma. But we can only do this with your support. We rely entirely on donations to continue our work.
Make a donation
Your gift could help fund leading research to deliver new, more effective and kinder treatments that not only increase children’s chance of survival, but also help them to thrive in the future.
And with more money for cutting-edge research, we could find a cure for neuroblastoma sooner. Please donate today and help fight childhood cancer.