$6M Grant Funds Research of Pediatric Brain Tumors

“‘We are in the most progressive nation in the world and we can’t save these children with brain tumors. We can get people on the moon, but we can’t cure these kids.’ I had those thoughts in 1983 as I watched my friend, whose 5-month-old daughter was battling a brain tumor,” says Mike Traynor, president of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation (PBTF). “It was devastating, and I began to realize just how big this battle was. I knew that the only way we were going to save these children was to fund research so that we could find out the causes of this disease.”

Established in 1984 by Traynor and his wife Dianne, the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation is the world’s largest non-governmental funding organization for childhood brain tumor research. Its programs include free educational information about brain tumors, Internet conferences, college scholarships for brain tumor survivors, and Ride for Kids charity motorcycle events and programs.

In 2008, the PBTF awarded a second gift of $6 million to Duke to fund brain tumor research in children. In 2003, the Foundation established the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation Institute at Duke with an initial gift of $6 million. The Institute’s primary goal is to develop innovative and less invasive clinical treatments for children diagnosed with brain tumors.

“The grant from the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation is very emblematic of their role in moving childhood brain tumor research forward in the United States and worldwide,” says Darell Bigner, MD, PhD, director of the PBTF Institute at Duke. “On behalf of Duke and on behalf of all of our childhood brain tumor patients, I want to thank the foundation for the support and the opportunity to help these children.”

Since Duke received the initial $6 million grant, PBTF-funded research at Duke has focused on projects aimed at developing gene-based therapies, vaccines and other novel treatments for common childhood brain tumors, including medulloblastomas and astrocytomas.

“When we first established the foundation, children with brain tumors had a dismal chance of survival,” says Dianne Traynor, the Foundation’s director of research funding and advocacy. “In 1983, the child of Mike’s friend had medulloblastoma and was given a 98 percent chance of not surviving. Today, we are seeing children with medulloblastoma who are given a 60 percent of survival of 5 years. That’s wonderful progress, but there’s so much more to do.”