What is neuroblastoma?
Neuroblastoma is a childhood cancer which often starts in the abdomen, from the adrenal glands (there is one gland on top of each kidney), or from the nerve tissue found along the spinal cord. We still don’t know what causes neuroblastoma to develop. Depending on how the cancer behaves, patients are divided into 3 groups: low, intermediate, and high-risk disease. About 50% of patients develop high-risk disease, the most aggressive form, and we urgently need to develop new treatments for these children, as only about half of them will currently become long-term survivors.
Wanted to continue to study
After completing my PhD in 2017, I joined Dr Karin Straathof’s lab at the UCL Institute of Child Health, as I wanted to continue to study and to develop new immunotherapies, but with a focus on childhood cancers, as cancer is still the most common cause of death in children. Moreover, childhood cancers are different from cancers that occur in adults, so they have to be studied separately.
