Genomic Landscape of treatment-naive DIPG Biopsy Sample

Yesterday I posted about the first International DIPG conference held in 2009 in Barcelona, Spain.  During that conference,  Dr. Jaume Mora moderated a two hour session discussing proposals for common international/interdisciplinary DIPG research agenda items.    Many things seems to be evolving collaboratively in the European DIPG arena.  The action points of the 2012 Barcelona meeting are impressive (click here to see).

In looking at the SNO/PBTF Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Basic Science and Translational  Research Conference abstracts, I noticed a somewhat unusual abstract.   This abstract (to me) highlighted the internationally collaborative nature of DIPG research today.   The authors were from 4 countries- France, England, Spain and Canada (Vancouver)!

This abstract examined the whole genome sequencing of 20 pre-treatment DIPG samples (all high grade gliomas) obtained by stereotactic biopsy in France.

Although the abstract word limits don't allow for in-depth understand of the work, there were some interesting things.  First,  the K27M mutations was seen in all cases.

It would seem that there were some cases where the initial untreated specimen was compared with a post-mortem sample.   Not really unexpected, the autopsy sample has increased number of mutations.  The authors write conclude that DIPG biopsy provides an opportunity to study the genome and identify possible intervention targets.

Something more fascinating to me - and not part of the abstract - is the question of how did these researcher get together to do this research for this abstract.   I believe the children from Spain might be offered the option of going to France for biopsy.   I believe that the children in the UK were offered that in that past as well.   In addition, Chris Jones was tasked as the responsible member for the biopsy biological studies (for SIOP-E DIPG Network).   In his Barcelona 2012 presentation, Chris Jones talked about "What to Do With Tissue".  In this, he did mention transatlantic collaboration.  

The thing that I wonder about though- is British Columbia.   Sick Kids has been a powerhouse of DIPG research out of Canada.   It would seem that Vancouver might be a place to watch as well.

Reference:
The Genomic Landscape of treatment-naive DIPG Biopsy Sample
https://soc-neuro-onc.conference-services.net/reports/template/onetextabstract.xml?xsl=template/onetextabstract.xsl&conferenceID=3467&abstractID=738496