The Scientific Centre of Monaco has received a €50,000 boost from the Savchuk Foundation, which will help further its research into treatments to stop brain cancers in children before they take hold.  

Brain cancer’s most aggressive forms prey on young children, sometimes infants, and many types remain uncurable, leading to heartache and heartbreak over the tragic loss of young life.  

CSM’S SPECIALISED DEPARTMENT 

The Scientific Centre of Monaco (CSM) has a special Stem Cell and Brain Tumours team within its medical biology department, and one of its principal focuses is looking at ways to reproduce the early events, such as a blockage in an embryonic state, that lead to brain cancer in children in a controlled laboratory setting.  

Headed up by Doctor Vincent Picco, the research could lead to increased understanding on how these cancers start, as well as provide real treatment and prevention solutions.   

““We use human neural stem cells whose properties are very similar to those of embryonic cells which will form the brain. In particular, they have the ability to proliferate and specialise in the different cell types found in the brain,” Dr Picco explains. “However, when we experimentally deprive them of their ability to specialise, the cells thus stuck in a proliferative embryonic stem state become capable of forming tumours.” 

The new techniques developed at the CSM are helping its scientists to understand the early phases and specificities of paediatric brain cancers, assist in the creation of revolutionary therapeutic approaches and allow the centre to conduct the necessary studies to find ways to fight these very specific cancers. 

Though the developments are promising, investment is needed to take these studies to the next level.  

FUNDING INJECTION 

Enter the Savchuk Foundation, an organisation that backs projects of this kind, and which recently held a fundraiser at the CSM. The event brought in an incredible €50,000, making it possible to continue and even accelerate the current stages of the overall project.  

The Savchuk Foundation promotes “educational, sporting and scientific projects where everyone’s energies are combined in order to go ever further in the mobilisation against disease”. It was created in tribute to Aleksandr Savchuk, who died in 2014.  

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 Photo source: CSM