Funded by The Little Princess Trust and administered by CCLG
Lead investigator: Prof Deb Tweddle, Newcastle University
Award: £93,074.38
Funded November 2016
Curing children with high-risk neuroblastoma remains extremely difficult, with those that do survive often suffering from long-term toxicities as a result of current treatment protocols, which use intensive high-dose chemotherapy and radiotherapy. There is an urgent need to identify and develop new treatment options not only to improve survival but also with fewer long-term side-effects.
New drugs known as ‘targeted therapies’ are designed to specifically target genetic abnormalities present in tumours but not normal cells, and are less likely to cause the side-effects associated with the non-tumour specific action of current therapies. When drugs are used in optimal combinations, this can lead to more effective tumour-specific killing, than using any of the drugs alone, which reduces the chances of tumour cells becoming resistant to the drugs.
MDM2-p53, ALK and MAPK inhibitors are targeted drugs that are currently being developed for clinical use. Although they work in different ways, they all aim to cause cancer cells to die. This study will investigate different combinations of these drugs in a laboratory setting, to evaluate the best combinations to use in future clinical trials for children with neuroblastoma.