Scientific Advisors
Our distinguished network of advisors includes a collective of brilliant minds committed to ending the devastating impact of pediatric brain tumors. Advisors meticulously evaluate grant applications, prioritizing the most groundbreaking projects poised to propel scientific understanding. Each advisor brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the field, ensuring a comprehensive and informed approach to steering research towards transformative breakthroughs that will advance us closer to a cure.
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Matt Dun
University of Newcastle, Australia
Dr. Dun is a medical biochemist and Professor of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. He also serves as a Deputy Director of the HMRI Precision Medicine Research Program. Dr. Dun’s research focus is on targeting novel signaling pathways for the improved treatment of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, and his endeavors have led to the first, high-resolution, quantitative proteomic analysis of the disease. Dr. Dun’s daughter Josephine lost her life to DIPG at age 4 in 2019.
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Praveen Raju
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Dr. Raju is an Associate Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics and co-Director of the Mount Sinai Pediatric Brain and Spinal Tumor Center. In addition to his clinical duties, Dr. Raju runs a translational research lab focused on medulloblastoma and other pediatric brain tumors and has been recently working on nanomedicine-based drug delivery approaches to bypass the blood-brain barrier with the goal of enhancing drug efficacy and minimizing treatment-related side effects.
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Tobey MacDonald
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
Dr. MacDonald is a Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine and serves as Director of the Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Program at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. His primary research focuses on the PDGFR/Stat3 pathways in medulloblastoma metastasis and treatment resistance, molecular genetics of childhood brain tumors, nanotechnology for drug screening, and drug delivery for brain tumor treatment.
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David Daniels
Mayo Clinic
Dr. Daniels is a pediatric neurosurgeon who specializes in pediatric brain tumors. He spends his clinical time managing patients with complex brain tumors, both in the operating room and in the outpatient setting. His research aims to improve the prognosis of children with malignant brain tumors through early diagnosis, novel surgical approaches for pediatric brain tumors and targeted therapies based on the unique molecular underpinnings of individual brain tumors.
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Carl Koschmann
C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital
Dr. Koschmann is a pediatric neuro-oncologist and the Clinical Scientific Director of the University of Michigan Chad Carr Pediatric Brain Tumor Center, and cares for children and young adults with brain tumors. He specializes in the research and treatment of high-risk brain tumors, including high-grade glioma, diffuse midline glioma, and diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. Dr. Koschmann also serves as the Co-Scientific Chair of the Children’s Brain Tumor Network, which is the largest pediatric brain tumor data and sample repository.
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Soma Sengupta
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Dr. Sengupta is a board-certified neurologist and neuroscience-oncologist, a fellowship-trained, sub-specialty board-certified neuro-oncologist, and is fellowship-trained in integrative medicine. She is a physician-scientist, clinical trialist specializing in brain tumor treatment and research with over 80 publications on clinical trials, case reports, lab-based research, and healthcare policy. Her primary area of lab-based research looks to improve patient outcomes for brain tumor patients.