SEMINAR: �Childhood brain tumours: From bedside to bench and back�

Dr Raelene Endersby is an Associate Principal Investigator at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research and was awarded the John Lillie Childhood Cancer Research Fellowship in 2011 to co-lead the Brain Tumour Research Program, a collaborative group comprising clinicians, neurosurgeons and laboratory scientists. Her PhD research was in the field of leukaemia and haematology under the supervision of Professor Peter Klinken at the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research and she undertook postdoc training in the Neurobiology and Brain Tumor Program at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital with Suzanne Baker. Her goals are to reduce the morbidity and mortality of children with brain tumours through improved understanding of tumour biology. Her approach uses in vivo and in vitro model systems to identify new therapeutic targets and assess novel therapies, with a particular focus on kinase inhibitors. She also studies genetic mutations underlying the formation of paediatric brain tumours and mechanisms of therapeutic relapse using molecular analyses of primary human tumour samples.