CBTP 'Summer Sprint' Adds Another Researcher, Thanks to Carlos Colon

The Children’s Brain Tumor Project (CBTP) has been given the opportunity to add another researcher to our ambitious “Summer Sprint.” Carlos Colon, a committee member of the Cristian Rivera Foundation, has pledged $5,000 to support this additional summer research position to supplement our already ambitious effort.

Thanks to our generous supporters, the CBTP lab had already hired six summer researchers to work on testing new drugs and drug combinations against DIPG, GC, and other rare brain tumors; using PET imaging to evaluate these drugs; studying the transformation of low-grade gliomas into malignancies; and procuring samples of thalamic gliomas from other labs around the country. (See more about these projects.) The seventh researcher, Fatima Nathalia Morales, will be working on the team supporting Dr. Souweidane’s DIPG clinical trial, validating the method for monitoring brain tumor and distribution volumes in patients enrolled in the trial.

Fatima, an undergraduate student at Columbia University majoring in biology with a minor in mathematics, is spending the summer in the CBTP lab as part of the Travelers Summer Research Fellowship Program.  The support from Carlos Colon and the Cristian Rivera Foundation makes it possible for us to provide her with the equipment and supplies she needs to do her work.

We are extremely grateful to Carlos Colon for the gift, and to John Rivera and the Cristian Rivera Foundation for the tireless efforts on our behalf.

Clinical Trial Update: Now treating patients at its seventh and final dose level, the trial of convection-enhanced delivery (CED) should conclude this summer. Fatima will be helping to evaluate data from more than four years of that trial.

More about the Children’s Brain Tumor Project

More about the Cristian Rivera Foundation

More about the Travelers Summer Research Fellowship Program

Weill Cornell Medicine Neurological Surgery 525 East 68 Street, Box 99 New York, NY 10065 Phone: 866-426-7787