On Dec. 5, 2020, Dr. James Lim and Lakshana Sreenivasan discovered that certain immune signals may help medulloblastoma resist chemotherapy; blocking these could improve treatment for children. The study results were published in Nature.

Medulloblastoma (MB) is a high-grade pediatric brain malignancy that originates from neuronal precursor cells located in the posterior cranial fossa. It is the most common type of brain tumor diagnosed in children with an overall 5-year survival rate of 60–80%, depending on the risk classification. MB was once known as a single disease entity that has since been classified into four distinct molecular variants based on clinical heterogeneity and transcriptome array profiling.

The study demonstrated the functional consequence of targeting autocrine IL-6/STAT3 signaling in development of chemoresistance in Group 3 MB cell lines. The team found that knocking out IL6R or STAT3 was sufficient to circumvent drug resistance, highlighting their potential for targeting in treatment of refractory MB.