Gutmann Awarded Three-Year Drug Discovery Grant

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David H. Gutmann, MD, PhD, the Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor and Vice Chair for Research Affairs in the Department of Neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine, was awarded a three-year grant from the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.

The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation award will support Dr. Gutmann’s research on pediatric low-grade astrocytomas (PLGAs), benign brain tumors. In the past, there have been few human PLGA models developed for drug and biomarker discovery research. By utilizing human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) engineering, the long-term goal of this project hopes to develop and characterize a series of human PLGA models that reflect the genetic diversity found in childhood brain tumors. Using hiPSCs engineered with pediatric brain tumor mutations, Dr. Gutmann and his team have generated early phase models of these cancers in mice.

The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation is a nonprofit organization that has provided more than 44 million dollars in grants for childhood brain tumor research.