B.C. researchers bringing hope to children with hard-to-treat cancers

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and a team at BC Children’s Hospital is giving new hope to kids suffering from cancers that are difficult to treat — with help from eggs.

A research method developed by the team at the Michael Cuccione Childhood Cancer Research Program uses proteomics — the study of proteins — and a chicken egg to quickly find weaknesses in a child’s tumour, and the best drug to treat it.

“We really developed a new platform — a new way of finding additional treatments for children when we are running out of options,” said Dr. Philipp Lange, an investigator with the program.

“With the chicken egg model – even the smallest pieces of cancers or tumour that is taken from a child can be grown on the egg in a very quick manner. In this case, within about two weeks, you can take it from growth to drug modelling or drug testing,” added Dr. James Lim, another investigator.

Time is critical when a child is battling cancer, and the team aims to help a vulnerable group of pediatric patients.

“It’s for those patients which have resistance, or which are not responding to a conventional treatment approach,” said Tariq Bhat, referring to treatments like chemotherapy.

The research was made possible by donations to the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation.

“This is by no means limited to children. So what we learned here can also be applicable to adult cancers, and we’ll certainly make some headway there as well.”

Lange says the research group is working with clinicians and scientists across Canada, but more funding and support will be needed to bring this into standard health care.