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Children diagnosed with a brain tumor called diffuse midline glioma (DMG) have no options for a cure. Dr. Ramakrishna and team at Stanford Medicine have developed a new treatment, called CAR T cells, for these children by training their immune system to find and kill cancer cells. Excitingly, children treated on a clinical trial with these CAR T cells have improved symptoms and reduced tumor sizes. Unfortunately, for some patients, tumors grew after treatment, suggesting a need to understand how to improve the treatment. An immune cell, called a myeloid cell, was identified surrounding treatment of the first patients. Dr. Ramakrishna and colleagues will seek to understand these myeloid cells in the context of CAR T cell activity in patients. Modeling these myeloid cells in the lab, Dr. Ramakrishna and team will test approaches to improve CAR T cell activity against DMG cells. This project will improve understanding of CAR T cells in patients and develop new treatments for children with these devastating brain tumors.

Sneha Ramakrishna, MD, is a pediatric hematology-oncologist at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and an assistant professor - University Medical Line in Pediatrics - Hematology & Oncology at Stanford Medicine.

This grant is named for the Pray for Dominic Hero Fund. The fund was established in honor of Dominic Liples who lived with joy. He is remembered for compassion and determination while he faced his own difficult battle with a rare and aggressive brain cancer. The Pray for Dominic fund carries on Dominic's legacy of joy and hope by funding research for high-grade gliomas.