Brain cancer recently passed leukaemia as the deadliest cancer for children. Yet there hasn’t been much progress over the years when it comes to understanding causes and finding treatments. Some don’t respond to chemotherapy. Also, available brain cancer treatments can have harsh and long-term effects on kids.
Now researchers at the Dayton Children’s Hospital are keeping a growing collection of donated pediatric brain tumours alive in a “bank” and sharing data around the world. The researchers can essentially “wake up” the tissue they have in storage in liquid nitrogen and grow it.
One tumour at the hospital’s biobank can be propagated into 100 tumours or more. That tumour can be shared with researchers all over the world, again and again.
“They’re immortal. They’ll grow until the end of time now,” Lober said.
Click here to read more.