Our Research

Research has always been at the core of our charity objectives as we strive to increase survival rates and improve the quality of treatment that brain tumour sufferers face on a day to day basis. We pride ourselves on the strength and impact of the research that we funded over the years. 

The principal aim of our research is to improve the survival rate of children with Brain tumours whilst reducing the toxicity and late effects of treatment through improved understanding of tumour biology.

We hope to achieve this goal by:  

• Conducting extensive genomic analyses of Children’s Brain tumours to identify cancer causing genetic abnormalities.
• Developing model systems in order to better understand; where Children’s Brain tumour come from, how they develop resistance to treatment and study what effect  the abnormal genes driving cancer have in normal cells.
• Identifying novel markers for predicting treatment response and determining prognosis
• Translating knowledge of tumour biology into effective new cures for brain tumours through pre-clinical and early clinical trials of molecular targeted therapies.

We have projects running in our laboratory  using cutting edge  genetic techniques to provide comprehensive assessment of tumour biology, studies using cell lines to optimise of drug selection and CNS targeting.

We are also investigating the application of novel imaging, clinical trials of novel therapies, classification of specific brain injury syndromes and techniques for their limitation as well as the development and application of methods for measuring health outcomes during and after treatment as experienced by children and young people. 

The research we fund is conducted by a team of highly professional and well trained staff with a wide variety of backgrounds and skill sets. Take a look at the team here. 

We are proud of the research we have funded. Take a look the research that has in-part or entirely been funded by The Joseph Foote Trust.