Research

The Children's Memorial Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases is a hub of oncology/hematology research, having led efforts ranging from molecular genetic studies of certain childhood cancers, to the pioneering use of stem cell transplantation in treating and curing sickle cell disease, to the study of a multidrug-resistant gene in cancerous brain tumors.

Research within a national network

Dr. Morris Kletzel, division head of Hematology/ Oncology and Stem Cell Transplant, is also the director of the stem cell transplant processing laboratory. He was one of the founders of the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Consortium and has worked as a member of the neuroblastoma strategy group within The Children's Oncology Group (COG)—both NCI-sponsored organizations. He is also a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Membership in COG allows Children's Memorial to offer the best treatments for our patients and families. Being part of an NCI-sponsored group assures cutting-edge, state-of-the-art treatment approaches and protocols that are rigorously monitored, scientifically sound, and reviewed at many levels, including the NCI. As a member of COG, Children's Memorial has access to new agents that are unavailable elsewhere because they are experimental.

Because of the hospital's involvement with COG, the members of the Division of Hematology/Oncology are aware of every development in cancer research, which means that patients will be among the first to undergo new treatments as they become available.

Research based locally

The Pediatric Oncology Program centers around the clinical and basic research activities of Children's Memorial Hospital, the Children's Memorial Research Center and others in Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center laboratories at Northwestern University. The program's leader is Bento Soares, PhD, highly regarded investigator with distinguished careers in pediatric oncology research and cancer genomics, whose skills and expertise complement each other. The program consists of high quality clinical investigations and unifying laboratory studies centered on the themes of embryonic development, the tumor microenvironment, genomics and epigenomics and pediatric oncogenesis, minimal residual disease and the use of mesenchymal stem cells in the treatment of disease. Both fundamental and translational studies are in progress. In addition, the Pediatric Oncology Program has significant clinical trials activity with innovative investigator-initiated studies at both the institutional and cooperative group level. The program has strong interactions with other basic, clinical and cancer prevention and control programs.

The Pediatric Oncology Program's scientific goals

1. To investigate the relationship between embryonic development and pediatric oncogenesis.
2. To examine the mechanisms by which the microenvironment influences the growth and biology of pediatric cancers.
3. To analyze the relationship between pediatric cancer genomics, epigenomics, and tumor biology.
4. To develop novel therapies that can be utilized in cooperative group and single institutional trials that will enhance survival rates of pediatric patients.
5. To evaluate tests to detect minimal residual disease and the relationship to survival.

Pediatric research efforts have been centralized, new researchers have been attracted to Children's Memorial Hospital and new collaborative efforts such as the following have emerged.

Cancer focus and rationale

Children's Memorial Hospital, a 265-bed free-standing facility, is the major pediatric tertiary care referral center in the Chicago metropolitan area. The program has a 22-bed in-patient facility incorporating six beds for bone marrow transplantation, and a comprehensive, ambulatory pediatric cancer facility consisting of nine examining rooms, phlebotomy area and laboratory space, a reception area, waiting room and play room, satellite pharmacy, two treatment rooms and an adjacent 14-bed day hospital located together on the 4th floor of the hospital, with an additional 5-bed ambulatory stem cell transplant unit. The inpatient and outpatient areas together constitute the Children's Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases and represent a multimillion dollar investment by the hospital, underscoring its commitment to the program in pediatric oncology.

Patient resources and clinical volumes are significant for a pediatric program. The number of pediatric hematology/oncology out-patient visits per year exceeds 13,700, and annual admissions to the day hospital for oncology patients are in excess of 4,800. The average number of new oncology patients seen yearly by this section is approximately 215, and approximately 360 long-term survivors of pediatric leukemia and solid tumors are under active care by members of the program.

Children's Memorial Research Center is the research arm of Children's Memorial Hospital, which itself is the pediatric teaching hospital for Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. The research center opened in June 1995 as a five story, 123,000 square feet building devoted entirely to basic research. The research center comprises seven research programs (Cancer Biology and Epigenomics, Developmental Biology, Experimental Therapeutics, Human Molecular Genetics, Mary Ann and J. Milburn Smith Child Health Research, Molecular and Cellular Pathobiology and Neurobiology), six research centers (Center on Obesity Management and Prevention, Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children, Pediatric Practice Research Group, Special Infectious Diseases, Center for Clinical Trials, and Falk Brain Tumor Center), and a number of shared core facilities (Pritzker Library, Microarray Facility, High Speed Cell Sorting, Biostatistics Core, Vector Core, Microscopy and Imaging Facility, Sequencing Core, Research Histology, Zebrafish Facility and more. These cores have had a positive impact on the Pediatric Oncology Research Program and the cancer center by centralizing pediatric research efforts, by attracting new researchers to Children's Memorial and by creating new collaborative opportunities within the institution. More here on the CMRC.