All over the world, there are many researchers working tremendously hard to create a brighter future for children with cancer. In the UK and Ireland, over 100 of these researchers have been funded through CCLG.
We fund our own research, and we also support other charities to fund research through the CCLG Charity Research Funding Network. Our goal is to enable childhood cancer charities to fund the research that is important to them, but with the support of our rigorous and accredited research process and our specialist expertise. This makes sure that funding is used for high quality research that is likely to have a real impact.
But what does this impact look like? Let’s take a trip to the University of Cambridge to find out about some of the projects we have been involved in funding there…
Developing a new understanding of the genetics of a rare lymphoma subtype - Professor Suzanne Turner
Suzanne leads six research projects funded through the CCLG network: four projects funded by The Little Princess Trust, and two by CCLG.
Last year, she finished a project investigating a rare subtype of blood cancer called anaplastic lymphoma kinase negative (ALK-) anaplastic large cell Lymphoma (ALCL). This is a type of blood cancer that affects one type of white blood cell. In ALK-ALCL, the cancer cells don’t have the ALK gene activated, which makes a huge difference to how the cancer behaves and how it can be treated.
The project was funded by a Special Named Fund at CCLG called ‘Super Ru’. Ru was just two when he was diagnosed with ALK- ALCL. At the time, his doctors said they had never seen ALK- ALCL in a child so young, and relied on support and advice from international experts. Ru’s family set up Super Ru to fund research into ALK- ALCL to help make sure other children had more options in the future.
They were able to fund Suzanne’s project in 2020, which aimed to find genetic markers in ALK- ALCL that could tell doctors more about a patient’s cancer. Genetic markers are sections of DNA that can be used to help doctors diagnose types of cancer, or can be used to decide which treatment would work best for that patient.
Suzanne looked for DNA errors that might be driving ALK- ALCL in children and young adults that could be used as markers. Her team found two types of genetic error were present: one which affects how the lymphoma cells interpret the DNA code, and one which allows the cancer cells to break the rules that keep cells in check and grow out of control. Both of these errors allow the cells to ‘go rogue’ and grow out of control.
These findings are positive because they could help doctors diagnose and treat ALK- ALCL more effectively. There is also the option of finding treatments that target these errors directly, which could be kinder and more effective than current treatment options.
The next step will be to find out if this type of targeted treatment can kill the tumour cells in model systems, and to collect more ALK- ALCL cancer samples to validate Suzanne’s findings.
Confirming bloodstream markers of children’s kidney cancer - Professor Matthew Murray
Matthew is working on two projects funded through CCLG: one funded by The Little Princess Trust and one by CCLG Special Named Funds.
He started work on the Special Named Fund project at the very start of 2023. His project is also about markers, but for Wilms tumour, a type of kidney cancer. This cancer has a fantastic cure rate of 93%, but there are still some children whose cancer comes back after treatment. This can be difficult for doctors to predict and can make treatment harder.
This is why we need markers that doctors can use to identify high-risk patients through blood tests. Markers could show which patients are high-risk, improve diagnosis speed, and see whether a treatment is working.
Prof Matthew Murray said:
“At the moment, most children in Europe start chemotherapy treatment when doctors suspect that they have a Wilms tumour based on the typical clinical picture – including consideration of factors like the child’s age and scan findings. Whilst this assumption is correct in the majority of patients, this is only confirmed when the tumour is removed, which normally happens four to five weeks after starting chemotherapy.
We believe that the test we are developing, which requires less than half a teaspoon of blood, will one day help to confirm that the child has Wilms tumour at the time of initial presentation.
“We anticipate that it will also allow careful monitoring of the tumour’s response to chemotherapy and identify patients early on who might need a different treatment approach. This would improve survival outcomes for young cancer patients.”
Matthew’s team are looking at tiny pieces of genetic code (called microRNA) released from tumours into the blood stream. Lab tests can detect small amounts of microRNA in the bloodstream, and this can tell doctors more about tumour makeup and genetic differences. They have already found potential markers and will be looking at whether these can be detected in blood or urine samples taken from real patients.
At the moment, the team are focusing on making sure these markers can be used for lots of children with Wilms tumour. They also hope to see what the markers can tell them about a patient, such as the subtype of Wilms tumour, by the time the project ends in 2024.
Repurposing antihistamines to reduce treatment-related toxicity for children with WNT-medulloblastoma - Dr Jessica Taylor
Our final University of Cambridge researcher for this blog post is Jessica. She is working on a type of childhood brain tumour called medulloblastoma and finished her Little Princess Trust project last year.
Jessica’s work is focused on the WNT subtype of medulloblastoma, which is another childhood cancer with an excellent survival rate. However, WNT-medulloblastoma survivors have had so much surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy that it can have a significant impact on their quality of life. That’s why Jessica is working on a new treatment, using antihistamines, that she hopes will be kinder and more effective. Her work is part of a growing focus on the long-term effects of cancer treatment, which you can read about in our ‘Life after childhood cancer - what issues do survivors have to manage?’ blog.
Jessica’s proposed treatment uses antihistamines to make cancer cells self-destruct by overloading a part of the cell called a lysosome. All cells have these little sacs, which act as the cleaning crew in the cell. Lysosomes contain enzymes which clear up waste inside cells and digest unnecessary components. Cancer cell lysosomes are especially fragile and antihistamines can overload and burst the lysosome lining, killing the cancer cell. Healthy cells don’t have the same response, because their lysosomes have stronger linings.
Whilst Jessica’s project has finished, her work on this treatment is ongoing. In lab models, this project showed that adding antihistamines like Clarityn to WNT-medulloblastoma treatment could reduce the amount of chemotherapy given. It made treatment more effective at a lower dose, so could spare patients some of the serious long-term effects on quality of life.
Jessica said:
“Including loratadine in standard of care chemotherapy would be a cost-effective and simple way of reducing chemotherapy dose for WNT-medulloblastoma patients, which we believe would vastly improve long-term quality of life in children who survive this disease.
Our research is helping to demonstrate that there is a kinder way to tackle cancer in children. If we want children with cancer to live long and happy lives, we must design drugs with optimism and thoughtfulness planning for the life of the child after cancer.
She hopes that her findings will help fast-track this treatment to the clinic through collaborations with the Children’s Brain Tumour Centre of Excellence and St Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Read next: What even is a ‘targeted therapy’ anyway?
Ellie Ellicott is CCLG’s Research Communication Executive.
She is using her lifelong fascination with science to share the world of childhood cancer research with CCLG’s fantastic supporters.
You can find Ellie on Twitter: @EllieW_CCLG