101st Annual American Cancer Research Meeting: April 17-21, 2010 Washington, D.C.

I had the honor of attending this years AACR meeting held in Washington D.C.  During my time there I had a chance to sit in on the New Concept in Organ Site Research meeting.  There, medulloblastoma was discussed.  The headline for the discussion was Medulloblastoma: Genetics and Genomics and was headed by Dr. Martine Roussel from St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis, TN.

Medulloblastoma is the most common solid tumor of childhood; arising in the cerebellum, a hindbrain structure with origins from two distinct germinal zones.  Medulloblastoma tumors therefore show a diversity of signaling abnormalities and stem cell biologies.  Sonic Hedgehog and Wnt pathways drive a substantial fraction of tumors; however, genetic pathways underlying the most aggressive subset of these tumors remain uncertain.

Participants from the meeting discussed the genetic diversity of both tumors and metastases, including forward genetic screens, molecular classifications, and stem cell biology.  Speakers addressed the novel signaling pathways, mouse models and biomarkers, and clinical progress in targeting inappropriate activation of Shh signaling.

In this session I had the privilege of hearing from several medical research scientists.  First up was Dr. Anna Kenney from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.  She spoke to us about the “Interactions between proliferation controlling pathways in the developing cerebellum and medulloblastoma.”  I also heard from Dr. Robert Wechsler-Reya from Duke University Medical Center, Dr. Michael Taylor from the University of Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, and Dr. Philip Beachy from Stanford University.  They all discussed recent advances in the genetics of medulloblastoma and more specifically, they looked at Hedgehog signaling in these childhood tumors.

Overall, the meeting was insightful and inspiring.  In January, 2010 the National Institute of Heath in Bethesda, MD announced that brain cancer will become part of the Cancer Genome Atlas study currently underway.  The research team for TCGA is a collaborative effort funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), both parts of the National Institutes of Health.  TCGA is mobilizing the entire cancer community to find new strategies in detecting and treating cancer faster.  The findings presented at this year’s AACR are just a hint of what we expect to result from the comprehensive data generated by TCGA over the next few years.  It surely is an exciting time for brain cancer research.