Holly Henderson

• Assessing potential novel therapeutic targets identified through analysis of true cancer-specific DNA methylation changes
• MSci Biochemistry

Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant paediatric brain tumour, with a 5-year survival rate of 70%. There is a need for novel non-toxic treatments which have lesser long-term side effects than current therapies. 

Synthetic lethal (SL) genes are genes which are required for cell survival only in specific subtypes of cancer and not in normal healthy cells.  Drugs which switch off these genes would allow specific killing of cancer cells but wouldn’t affect normal cells. 

We have developed a new method to identify potential SL genes in medulloblastoma, and now need to identify cell lines (specific medulloblastoma cells we can grow in the lab) that can be used to test if these genes work as we predict. 

This project successfully identified cell lines which future studies will use to test the SL genes to see if they are a weakness that can be used to specifically kill cancer cells.

Funded by: Newcastle University Research Scholarship

Project Supervisor: Dr Gordon Strathdee