- I have two boys, and they're around the same age.
They're five and eight, and they're around the same age
that is the average age for children diagnosed with DIPG.
- [Woman] Probably the most difficult conversation
that we have to do as neurosurgeons
is to let the parent know that this tumor exists.
- You know, to have this bomb dropped on them,
and I know what it's like to sit with a kid in your lap,
I know what it's like to sit in an emergency room.
What must be going through their head?
That often catches, sort of knocks the wind out of me.
- [Woman] Probably one of the most poignant statements
that one of the children made to me was,
"I want my life to matter."
- [Male] What we have to do is channel that angst
into actually motivating us to actually go forward.
(Uplifting music)
- It's... I don't know where to start.
It's just been exciting on every front.
- [Rajen Mody] In the last 18 months of two years
of the existence of this effort,
I would say we have made progress
that we had not made in the last 10 years.
- Where we're at right now is, to me,
where I thought we would have been
more five to 10 years from where the movement started.
- And I would say that even within the last year,
the changes, the understanding about the biology
of these tumors that we have now found,
has really made a huge difference.
- We're really turning up the pace
at which we're going to beat this thing.
[Inspirational Music]
- This is because we are creating an environment
that really promotes the interaction between
different scientists
- We are partnering with all the leaders in the field,
in DIPG and in Toronto, in Stanford, and in Germany.
- One of the most significant things that is happening
to help, has been the willingness of families
to allow us to get samples of tumor.
- Taking that tumor and banking it, keeping it,
developing cell lines, developing tumor models around it,
becomes extremely important to developing
ways to treat tumors.
- And so some of the tumors that we have,
we have sent tumors to other institutions to do analysis
- For example, Chad Carr's tumor was studied by
more than 20 different researchers across the world.
- We discovered that his tumor was driven by...
- The gene called PTEN
- [Rajen Mody] PTEN is what we call a tumor suppressor gene
- It slows the breaks on tumor growth.
We could tell that it was an important part of the
story of his tumor in the entire tumor,
not just a small part of the tumor,
and that allows us to really make a case to the field,
to say PTEN is an important part of that,
and you should consider using therapies that other fields,
like the breast cancer field, are developing.
And we are still gathering information, and each patient
is obviously different, but we have a number of patients
who we are very optimistic about how they're doing
on those treatments.
- So there's many facets of basic research,
that we believe very fundamentally
will point to new therapies for the future.
- It matters that we care about why tumors metabolize
certain drugs, certain sugars in certain ways,
because the amount of food consumed by cancer cells
is 100 fold higher than normal cells,
we can actually take advantage of this,
to now come up with metabolic strategies
to actually inhibit these pathways,
to kill cancer cells.
- We want to get rid of those cells,
those cells are growing where they are not
supposed to grow, and they are spreading
throughout the brain,
and so we need to find a way to get rid of those cells.
- About 5 years ago now, there... people studying
ways that cells die, realized that there is a new
form of cell death that's called ferroptosis.
Ferroptosis is an iron dependent form of oxidative
cell death, in which, effectively, the cell
oxidizes itself to the point where it explodes.
(Inspirational Music)
- Well, we're interested in killing cancer cells,
we're interested in killing DIPG cells, and by triggering
specific molecular components within a cell,
we're able to activate the process of ferroptosis.
- [Luigi Franchi] The way in which we are inducing
cell death, by inducing ferroptosis,
we believe that it will promote immune responses
against DIPG.
- [Rajen Mody] I am just excited, I am just seeing
the wheels in motion for DIPG
- [Woman] I think we've turned a corner.
- So we start with a baseline high level excitement
- Like sometimes hard to sleep we are so excited,
and you have so much data, that you want to go back
to work, and design new trials, and new therapies,
and then put those discoveries into play
- And when an idea like this,
when an idea about ferroptosis,
when we saw the data come out of the lab and that
really stuck, that's exciting, that's high level excitement.
- It's a real, reasonable prediction to say
that we are going to...
- To keep this going, to keep the momentum going forward
- And that within our career, get to that cure that
we're all looking for.
- That's what I hope, and I know that will happen.
(Upbeat Music)