Funded by CCLG and CCLG Special Named Fund Little Lady A
Lead investigator: Dr Alison Whitby, University of Nottingham
Award: £13,854.02
Awarded February 2024
Ependymoma is a type of brain tumour that affects around 30 children per year in the UK. Whilst many children can be successfully treated, the cancer comes back around half of the time. This is because some of the cancer cells were not killed by treatment. If doctors could diagnose relapsed ependymoma sooner, children could start treatment earlier.
This could be achieved with biomarkers. These are tiny molecules released by the cancer cells as they create energy and build components for the cell. If researchers could detect these biomarkers, they could show that there are living cancer cells in the brain.
Dr Alison Whitby and the team at the University of Nottingham have already found some biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), a liquid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. These biomarkers are present at very different amounts in ependymoma than they are in healthy CSF.
In this project, Dr Whitby will investigate whether nine biomarkers can be found in CSF from relapsed ependymoma patients. She will also look at when during treatment these relapse biomarkers are first identified, and how many of the markers there are. If the biomarkers are found only in the patients who relapse, only after the end of treatment and only in relapsed tumours, the team can be sure that the presence of these biomarkers is connected to a relapse.
Dr Whitby plans to create a test which can tell doctors whether a patient is relapsing after their treatment has ended. This would help diagnose relapsed ependymoma faster, which could allow earlier treatment and perhaps a better outcome for the child. The biomarkers identified in this project could also point to important metabolic processes for ependymoma cells that could be targeted with new treatments.
Project updates
Download the announcement PDF here.