International Childhood Cancer Day: Overcoming Unique Research Challenges

February 15th is International Childhood Cancer Day, a global campaign to raise awareness about cancers affecting children. This year, we are highlighting research on pediatric cancer conducted at the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute (GCI) and the unique challenge it poses.

Hannah Hosein, a gradate student at the GCI under the supervision of Prof. Sidong Huang, is leading a research project focused on a cancer predisposition syndrome called DICER1 syndrome. DICER1 syndrome is a genetic condition which increases the risk of pediatric and adolescent patients of developing tumors at several sites throughout the body. While the cause of DICER1 syndrome has been identified as mutations that occur in the DICER1 gene, how these mutations cause cells to become cancerous is not understood.

This gap in scientific knowledge is the focus of Hannah’s research. She aims to discover how mutations in DICER1 lead to biological changes in cells and identify how these changes cause cancer to develop. Understanding the mechanism behind DICER1 driven cancer will enable the development of treatment strategies that target these tumors. Hannah explained how she aims to improve treatment options for patients: “Currently there are no targeted therapies for DICER1 syndrome patients. My work will hopefully identify new therapeutic options for patients that will have minimal effect on healthy tissue as the therapies will try to exploit genetic mutations that occur only in cancerous cells.”

There are many practical and methodological difficulties that childhood cancer researchers like Hannah face. Like many pediatric cancers, DICER1 syndrome is rare, which makes generating the large datasets that scientists need to power research difficult. In addition, model systems to study DICER1 syndrome in the laboratory have only been established very recently. These models are essential to test drug candidates and research the disease. Hannah is supported in facing these challenges by the collaborative research ecosystem at the GCI, as well as by funding from Alex’s Lemonade Stand, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Fonds de Recherche du Québec, and the Défi Canderel.

Projects like Hannah’s, which aim to overcome significant knowledge gaps and technical limitations, rise to the challenge of improving outcomes for childhood cancers. Through significant community support, and the excellent caliber of science conducted by graduate students at the GCI, we are advancing our quest for the #knowledgetocure.