Over the past few months, Shauna has been studying some Gliomatosis cell lines shared from colleagues in Rome, Italy. These lines are a rare resource cultivated by Dr Mara Vinci and her team (Bambino Gesu Hospital) and being able to study them in the lab has provided opportunity to see how these cells grow, move and interact with one another. This will help us understand more about this disease in comparison to other brain tumours.
She has also continued speaking to collaborators across the world and has helped to collect more samples for the study from Europe, exceeding initial projections for the number of samples we could collect. These samples are currently in Boston awaiting work to start up again after this pandemic.
On 16th March, Shauna was scheduled to fly out to Boston to begin her work with Dr Mariella Filbin (Dana-Faber Cancer Institute). In Boston, it was planned that Shauna would be learning a technique called single cell-RNAsequencing, which would have hopefully given us more insight into the composition of Gliomatosis Cerebri tumours. Due to Covid-19 this trip has had to be postponed for the time being.
In the meantime, during lockdown, Shauna is continuing her reading of current literature and using the time for additional training and skill acquirement to the best of her ability. She is looking forward to lock down restrictions being eased, so that she can return to the lab. She cannot wait to go to Boston to begin her work there.
The Rudy A Menon Foundation and its supporters have already made so much progress possible through their generous support. Shauna and the team very much look forward to sharing news of further advances as the project develops.
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