Cancer HealthCast: New Pediatric Cancer Therapies Hinge on Better Data Sharing

Pediatric cancers require better treatments, and developing better treatments necessitates innovative technology that supports collaborative data sharing. This Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, National Cancer Institute leaders Dr. Nirali Shah and Dr. Christine Heske from the Center for Cancer Research break down some of the novel new therapy developments targeting b-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia and other rare cancers that affect children. Standard therapy, they said, is not working and tends to be very toxic. The researchers describe their focus on prevention — meaning early detection opportunities for cancer. Underlying these efforts in therapy development includes the technology that enables critical access to and collaboration with data. This includes the Molecular Characterization Initiative that is sharing data publicly with doctors, families and researchers to better inform them on treatments and participation in clinical trials. Shah and Heske describe how tech is "moving the needle forward" for researchers to access high-quality specimens and pre-clinical trial models to develop new therapies and new methods to detect cancer markers early.