Funded by The Telethon Adventurers, Medulloblastoma Down Under 2013 brought more than 50 oncologists, neuroscientists and researchers to WA to share knowledge, improve drug therapies and the develop new strategies beyond radiation and chemotherapy treatments.
The symposium was co-convened by Nick Gottardo from the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research.
Dr Gottardo said the decision to consider MB a disease with four subgroups (each with its own molecular make-up) was a major step forward in tackling the disease.
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READ NOW‘We can now focus on jointly and more effectively studying their characteristics and developing more targeted treatments and drugs,’ he said.
The group will present their findings to the upcoming World Health Organisation classification of central nervous system tumours. The Telethon Adventurers, whose founder and chairman Rick Parish lost his young son Elliot to medulloblastoma in 2011, have employed a central coordinator to help manage and further develop the global action plan.