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 The neuroscience of brain cancer

Hosted by: Professor John Bekkers

Abstract

Brain cancer is a devasting disease. Primary brain cancer (glioma) affects almost 2000 Australians each year and despite significant research efforts, survival rates have changed little in the past 20 years and the disease remains universally fatal. Glioma cells integrate into neural networks, receiving synaptic input from nearby neurons which has been shown to drive tumour growth. The discovery of this so-called neuron-glioma synapse represents a paradigm shift in our understanding of brain cancer, highlighting the imperative need for a neuroscience-based approach to understanding brain cancer. Here, I will discuss the work in my laboratory which investigates the neuron-glioma synapse and the role neural activity plays in brain cancer using both in vitro and in vivo approaches. For our in vitro study, we perform patch clamp electrophysiology from neurons and glioma cells in human tissue from patients diagnosed with different severities of brain cancer. We also developed a xenograft mouse model of glioblastoma and perform two-photon calcium imaging in vivo to assess how glioma infiltration influences neural activity. By understanding the important role the brain plays in glioma function and proliferation, our results will transform our understanding of brain cancer and provide new therapeutic neuroscience-based targets.

Biography

Professor Lucy Palmer is an ARC Future Fellow and NHMRC L1 Investigator who heads the Neural Network Laboratory at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Australia.  She completed her Master of Science at the University of Minnesota, USA and Ph.D at the Australian National University, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern, Switzerland and Charite University, Berlin. Her research uses advanced techniques to investigate brain function, focusing on the cellular basis of learning and memory, as well as the role of neural activity in brain cancer.