More than 10 years after UCSF docs started consortium of research institutions, Stanford University joins fold
One of the Bay Area’s leading children’s hospitals has joined another in a group dedicated to eradicating brain cancer and tumors in children. Stanford Medicine’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital entered the Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium earlier this month as one of more than 40 participating sites.
UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco serves as the “mission control center” coordinating the research and clinical trials across all the involved institutions, according to a statement the nonprofit foundation supporting the consortium issued earlier this month. UCSF Drs. Michael Prados and Sabine Mueller co-founded the consortium in 2012, convincing a handful of other West Coast hospitals to join together to advance research of childhood brain cancer and tumors. They did so amid frustration that “the outcomes for kids hadn’t changed in over 50 years, which is really unacceptable,” said Bruce Campbell, who founded the nonprofit Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium Foundation in 2013 to raise money to support the consortium’s work.“Sounds like a crazy idea that nobody was collaborating,” Campbell said. “But unfortunately, you know, research doesn’t always reward collaboration academically or financially. So if anything, it’s disincentivized in some ways.” Since its founding, the PNOC has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of two therapies for childhood brain cancer. Campbell said he hopes such successes will only continue with Stanford now joining the fold. The two university hospitals have previously collaborated in an unofficial capacity, with patients being referred to each depending on the expertise and availability of staff. Stanford is a leader in immunotherapy treatment for children with brain cancer, Campbell said.Not all brain tumors are cancerous, but brain tumors are the most common cancerous masses diagnosed in children under the age of 14, according to the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation. About 4,000 cases are diagnosed in the U.S. each year. Ex // Top Stories Restaurateurs, neighborhood leaders’ 2025 takeaway? SF ‘has bounced back’ ‘It’s like there’s a renewed excitement on the street,’ Palmer’s Tavern owner Sam Fechheimer said SF faith leaders renew sanctuary efforts under second Trump administration The City’s congregations have a deep history of turning their houses of worship into safe houses for those in need These five SF bars are your perfect escape from the holidays No matter your motivation, these establishments offer an ideal respite between Christmas and New Year’s Eve Dr. Michelle Monje, a professor in the Department of Neurology at Stanford and an investigator at Stanford’s Howard Hughes Medical Institute, said the partnership came at the right time, The university had previously been a part of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, which will lose its National Cancer Institute funding by March due to federal cuts. “So it’s especially wonderful to be able to join forces between Stanford and UCSF, and we’re so grateful that we’ve been welcomed into this consortium,” Monje said. Stanford brings a long history of innovation and research in childhood brain cancer to the table with the consortium, Monje said, with the goal of understanding what therapies are best to prioritize for clinical trials. “We also have a robust pediatric neurooncology clinical group that is well-versed and used to running clinical research trials,” she said. “So we’ll bring both clinical and basic translational science to the consortium to add to the already excellent science there.” Mueller said Monje’s expertise in diffuse midline glioma — which is often found in the spinal cord of children aged 5-10 — is especially valuable. “That’s a tumor that occurs mainly in children and really has a devastating outcome with really no long-term survivors at this point,” Dr. Mueller said. “We are all beyond excited to see how we can really improve outcomes, specifically for that really hard-to-treat entity.” Dr. Monje said her lab is excited to grow and continue working on research in how the brain itself works and using that information to better understand the tumors that grow in the brain. “There’s a very crucial relationship between neurons in a neuronal activity-dependent way and pediatric brain-tumor growth, invasion, and likely treatment resistance,” she said. Monje said her goal is to further study and target the interactions between neuron cancer cells, develop corresponding clinical trials and add to the study of diffuse midline gliomas with UCSF. “For many years, both Stanford and UCSF have been institutions that have been leaders in the pediatric brain tumor space,” Monje said. “It’s just wonderful to get to collaborate and join practical and conceptual forces.”
Stanford University Cancer Pediatrics
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
NFL MVP Cases: Top Week 17 Plays From 5 Leading Candidates As Race Heats UpJosh Allen, Trevor Lawrence, Drake Maye, Matthew Stafford and Caleb Williams continued building their MVP cases with the regular season winding down.
Read more »
Harry and Meghan’s Stanford grad publicist quit to ‘save face’ after Kardashian fiasco: reportsThe departure of Harry and Meghan’s 11th publicist in five years has renewed focus on the challenge of working for a couple who are famous for their self-inflicted P.R. disasters.
Read more »
Rangers blow lead in OT loss to Metro-leading Hurricanes as they hit disappointing halfway pointHalfway through the 2025-26 season, the Rangers probably are half the team they want to be.
Read more »
Kings can’t keep up with league-leading AvalancheJoel Armia and Corey Perry score for the Kings, but Nathan MacKinnon scores his NHL-best 32nd goal and Colorado prevails, 5-2, winning its eighth straight game and remaining nearly unbeatable at ho…
Read more »
Looking back at the sports gambling controversies throughout 2025, with NBA and MLB investigations leading wayFox News Channel offers its audiences in-depth news reporting, along with opinion and analysis encompassing the principles of free people, free markets and diversity of thought, as an alternative to the left-of-center offerings of the news marketplace.
Read more »
Meet the ‘rockstar CEO’ leading Bay Area’s unprecedented Super Bowl-World Cup back-to-backZaileen Janmohamed is ‘perfect person’ to oversee host committee as Levi’s Stadium becomes first venue to hold Super Bowl, World Cup in same calendar year.
Read more »