Latest Update from the Dana Farber Institute

Pediatric neuro-oncologist Mariella Filbin, MD Ph.D. leads the high-grade glioma research lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. A current focus of this research is to use single-cell RNA-sequencing to sift through the many different cell types found within high-grade brain tumors including gliomatosis cerebri.

Single-cell RNA-sequencing provides a vastly-more precise view of each tumor’s complex landscapes than the historical sequencing approach used to interpret a tumor’s genomic profile, which involved pulverizing a tissue sample into a homogenous liquid and subsequently losing all context of the individual cells and their relationships to one another. It was identified at our 2nd International Conference on Gliomatosis Cerebri as an area of focus.

Her recent published research, in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, revealed new discoveries in DIPG tumor cells with the H3K27M mutation. Dr. Filbin’s research lab is using single-cell RNA-sequencing to work to identify if these new discoveries are also relevant in gliomatosis cerebri tumor cells. To know more about this research visit their website at https://www.dana-farber.org/.