Improving our understanding of the mechanisms of resistance in neuroblastoma

This project was selected in the framework of our European call: FIGHT KIDS CANCER 2021. It is jointly financed by Imagine for Margo, Kriibskrank Kanner Fondatioun and KickCancer.

It is thanks to your participation in RUN TO KICK 2021 that this innovative project is funded!

Click here to watch Dr. Lucas Moreno explain this innovative FIGHT KIDS CANCER project.

Neuroblastoma is one of the most common solid tumours in children. It is characterised as an extracerebral malignancy because it develops from the nervous system but is not located in the brain (mainly in the abdomen, sometimes along the spine or in the adrenal glands).

Today, the treatment options available for patients who do not respond to standard treatment or who relapse are not satisfactory. The BEACON-BIO project aims at improving them in the medium term.

Despite intensive treatment, more than one in two patients relapse after frontline treatment and the chances of survival for these patients are below 10%. It is therefore important to improve our understanding of the growth and resistance mechanisms of neuroblastoma to develop more efficient treatments.

To this end, this international collaborative project will attempt to allocate patients into risk groups defined on the basis of their molecular specificities (or biomarkers) and treatment resistance.

A biomarker is an objectively measurable and evaluable characteristic found in blood, body fluids or tissues that can be used as an indicator of the presence of a disease, its progression or response to treatment.

In particular, this project will study the impact of genetic and epigenetic factors in relapse and resistance. Epigenetics is the science that explains why cells with the same genetic code have different functions inside someone’s body.

Finally, this project will seek to identify new combinations of molecules in the hope that they will be more efficient.

These combinations will then be evaluated in the upcoming European platform trial in relapsed and refractory neuroblastoma the European collaborative research groups are currently setting up.

This project aims at identifying news treatment options for children with neuroblastoma. As a result, the project will benefit all children (Belgian, European and beyond!) if the study’s conclusions are encouraging.