Making a difference for children with cancer means getting laboratory scientists and clinicians to work together. As pediatric neuro-oncology Kelsey Bertrand, MD, Department of Oncology, describes it, “our clinical team comprises physicians, advanced practice professionals, nurses, pharmacists, coordinators and host of other specialties. Together, we are working to provide the best possible care for children with brain tumors. To improve outcomes and offer patients new therapies, we also need scientists on our team.”
Bertrand aspired to be a laboratory researcher herself, up until she decided that the right path for her was actually medical school and direct patient care. But the time she spent working in a lab while pursuing a Master’s degree was still valuable and formative.
“A colleague [from back then] I still work with is Stephen Mack, PhD, St. Jude Department of Developmental Neurobiology. While earning his PhD, Stephen found two different molecular types of posterior fossa ependymoma, one of the tumors we both now focus on. I didn’t realize it then, but while I was in the lab, I was meeting people who would become valued team members later. Not to mention that, personally, I met my future husband — Stephen and I married in 2012,” says Bertrand.
Bertrand is also clinically focused on ependymoma, the third most common malignant pediatric brain tumor. These tumors can occur anywhere in the central nervous system (the brain or spine), but two-thirds of cases occur in the posterior fossa, in the cerebellum at the back of the brain. The overall survival at five years after diagnosis is around 75%; however, at 10 years after diagnosis, survival is closer to 50% — this decrease is because ependymoma often relapses after a longer period than other tumors.
Despite new discoveries about the underlying biology of ependymoma, researchers still haven’t found novel therapeutics that will push survival curves further. But Bertrand and Mack are trying to change that.
The researchers are working on preclinical trials and testing different targeted treatment approaches in the lab. Targeted therapies lock on to a protein or other factors in the cell that the tumor needs to survive. They are more specific than whole-body treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy, and thus, may have reduced systemic side effects. Based on findings in the lab, Bertrand is now developing a clinical trial protocol to create the first up-front ependymoma clinical trial in the history of St. Jude.