CHOP Research Leader Named to Brain Tumor Panel

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute’s Tom Curran, PhD, FRS, was recently named to a panel of experts who will advise the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation (PBTF). A pediatric brain tumor expert and Deputy Scientific Director of the Research Institute.

Dr. Curran was one of seventeen volunteers appointed to the PBTF’s newly created Research Advisory Network.

Per a statement put out by the PBTF, the “Research Advisory Network will contribute insights that help shape the PBTF’s funding priorities and evaluate the impact of its research investment on the lives of children diagnosed with a brain tumor, as well as on the disease that threatens them.” Panel members come from several other children’s hospitals—including St. Jude’s, Boston Children’s, and Children’s National—as well as academic centers and industry.

“The members of the Research Advisory Network, or RAN, will provide highly informed perspectives on the biomedical research enterprise,” said the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation’s Dr. Joanne Salcido. According to its website, the PBTF is “the world’s largest nonprofit funder of childhood brain tumor research,” and in addition to funding studies the Foundation hosts events, offers brain tumor-related resources, and offers scholarships.

Before joining Children’s Hospital in 2006, Dr. Curran was the founding chairman of the Department of Developmental Biology at St. Jude’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. In addition to his role as deputy scientific director of CHOP Research, Dr. Curran is also a professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

He is also one of the leaders of the recently established Children’s Brain Tissue Tumor Consortium (CBTTC). A multi-institutional, collaborative research organization dedicated to the collection, annotation, and analysis of children’s brain tumors, the CBTTC’s ultimate goal is to improve outcomes for children with brain tumors. The CBTTC is comprised of CHOP, the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. The consortium’s operations center is housed at Children’s Hospital.

“I am honored to serve as a member of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation’s Research Advisory Network,” Dr. Curran said. “I look forward to working with the Foundation, as well as my fellow Network members, to advance brain tumor research and improve the lives of children with brain tumors.”

To learn more about brain tumors and cancer care at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, see the Cancer Center at CHOP. For more information about cancer research at CHOP, see the Center for Childhood Cancer Research.