Yale Cancer Center is partnering with the National Brain Tumor Society to launch a flagship research initiative focused on DNA damage, the cancer center said Feb. 22.
The project, named the DNA Damage Response Consortium, will bring together the expertise of adult and pediatric researchers to investigate potential treatments that can target a brain tumor’s DNA damage response network. The work is set to begin immediately, according to a Yale Cancer Center news release.
"The DNA damage response is a highly conserved network utilized to repair broken DNA in the genomes of our normal cells," stated Ranjit Bindra, MD, PhD, scientific director of the Chênevert Family Brain Tumor Center at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center.
"Members of this consortium and others have discovered that the DDR is often dysregulated in brain tumor cells, which reveals novel vulnerabilities that can be exploited for a therapeutic gain, thus allowing us to selectively target tumor over normal tissue," Dr. Bindra added.