Brain tumors arising from different cell types might require
different—and more personalized—treatment approaches. Cancers
arise when a normal cell acquires a mutation in a gene that
regulates cellular growth or survival. But the particular cell
this mutation happens in—the cell of origin—can have an enormous
impact on the behavior of the tumor, and on the strategies used
to treat it. Robert Wechsler-Reya, Ph.D., professor and director
of the Tumor Development Program in Sanford-Burnham’s NCI-
designated Cancer Center, and his team study medulloblastoma,
the most common malignant brain cancer in children. A few years
ago, they made an important discovery: medulloblastoma can
originate from one of two cell types: 1) stem cells, which can
make all the different cell types in the brain or 2) neuronal
progenitor cells, which can only make neurons. Stem cells and
progenitor cells are regulated by different growth factors. So,
Wechsler-Reya thought, maybe the tumors arising from these cells
respond differently to di