Dr. Prajwal Rajappa, Precision Medicine Fellow in Dr. Jeffrey Greenfield’s pediatric brain tumor research lab, was selected to present his abstract, “Precision Sequencing Algorithm for Pediatric Neuro-Oncology,” at the 2nd Pediatric Precision Oncology Conference held earlier this week in Scottsdale, Arizona. Dr. Rajappa’s abstract was chosen through a competitive selection process, and his participation was made possible by a travel award from the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.
The four-day conference, co-chaired by Jeffrey Trent, Ph.D., of the Translational Genomics Research Institute and Javed Khan, M.D., of the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Research, brought together internationally recognized experts in pediatric oncology to discuss the latest developments in genomics, epigenetics, immune therapy, and big data. The meeting also included a keynote speech from the new director of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Norman Sharpless.
Dr. Rajappa’s presentation focused on the use of precision sequencing algorithms in the Weill Cornell Medicine precision medicine program. This sequencing, which provides valuable data with regard to the molecular characterization of the disease, has become an addition to the standard of care offered to all pediatric patients with tumors of the central nervous system. This approach is designed to help identify patients who are good candidates for targeted therapy and reveal information that may hold clues to a patient’s prognosis.
The program is the result of the lab’s partnership with the Weill Cornell Medicine Englander Institute for Precision Medicine (EIPM), which uses genetic sequencing, tissue banking, and computational biology to match personalized therapies to patients based on their individual characteristics. Dr. Rajappa’s mentor, Dr. Greenfield, was recently invited to become a standing member of the EIPM, where he will join the elite team working on the frontiers of patient-specific, targeted therapy.
Dr. Greenfield and Dr. Mark Souweidane are co-directors of the Weill Cornell Medicine Children’s Brain Tumor Project, which is dedicated to finding new treatments for rare and inoperable brain tumors that typically strike children and adolescents. Dr. Rajappa has worked alongside both Dr. Greenfield and Dr. Souweidane for the past five years and has co-authored high-impact manuscripts with each of them on topics ranging from glioma progression and biomarker-based imaging of diffuse tumors to precision medicine for pediatric brain tumors.
More about Dr. Greenfield and the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine
More about Dr. Souweidane
More about the Children’s Brain Tumor Project
