Yujie Huang, Ph.D., has been awarded a three-year, $400,000 grant from the Department of Defense for a research project investigating how children’s brain tumors progress. Dr. Huang, who works in Dr. Jeffrey Greenfield's pediatric neuro-oncology laboratory, will be working on “Characterizing and Targeting Bone Marrow-Derived Inflammatory Cells in Driving the Malignancy and Progression of Childhood Astrocytic Brain Tumors.” The research is central to the mission of the Children’s Brain Tumor Project, which is co-directed by Dr. Greenfield and Dr. Mark Souweidane.
Dr. Huang’s project will investigate what causes some low-grade gliomas to progress into high-grade tumors, and what inhibitor drugs can be used to stop the neovascularization — fed by signals from the bone marrow — that allows that growth. The research will use mouse models to demonstrate that the bone marrow is indeed “recruiting” the cells that drive those new blood vessels to form, and that using inhibitor drugs can successfully delay disease progression by impeding this process.
The award is effective September 1, 2013, through August 31, 2016.
