Category: News Story

David H. Gutmann, MD, PhD, the Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor and Director of the Neurofibromatosis Center at Washington University, was recently inducted into the Association of American Physicians (AAP). The AAP is an honorary medical society founded in 1885 by Sir William Osler for “the advancement of scientific and practical medicine”. Election to the AAP is […]

Children with Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) are prone to the development of brain tumors, specifically low-grade gliomas of the optic nerve, called optic pathway gliomas (OPGs). These tumors contain a mixture of cancer and non-cancer cells, each important for tumor formation and growth. However, all of our current therapies focus on cancer cells with variable […]

The future of personalized medicine and its application to children and adults with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) relies on the establishment of risk factors to better predict what clinical features are most likely to develop in any given individual. Working with scientists in the Washington University Institute for Informatics (link: https://informatics.wustl.edu/), researchers in the Neurofibromatosis […]

The relationship between brain injury and brain tumor formation is unclear. To determine whether brain injury can result in the later development of a type of brain tumor, called a glioma, the research laboratories of two Washington University neurologists are joining forces. Dr. Terrance Kummer, an expert in traumatic brain injury and a clinical specialist […]

Amanda and Brian Walk hosted their annual NFunFest event this fall to support research at the Washington University NF Center. Despite the challenges of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Walks have continued to be ardent supporters of the work ongoing in the center to understand why specific medical problems arise in children and adults with NF1, as […]

  Corina Anastasaki, PhD was recently promoted to the rank of Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Anastasaki obtained her PhD from the University of Edinburgh before completing her postdoctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of David Gutmann. During her postdoctoral fellowship training, she pioneered […]

by Tamara Bhandari (WUSM News Release) Mouse study IDs immune cells as link, points to potential therapeutic approaches There’s not much good that can be said about asthma, a breathing disease in which the airways become narrowed and inflamed. But there’s this: People with asthma seem to be less likely to develop brain tumors than […]

The Washington University NF Center in collaboration with Dr. Mohamed Abdelbaki in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology has initiated a virtual International Tumor Board to discuss the management of children and adults with NF. For these quarterly meetings, we leverage the expertise of dedicated specialists in the NF Center, including those in Adult and Pediatric Neurosurgery, Adult and […]

Neurodevelopmental disorders are often caused by losses of large pieces of chromosomes containing many genes. This is also true for a subset of individuals with Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) who have severe developmental delays and intellectual disabilities. These NF1 patients often harbor a large deletion involving the NF1 gene on chromosome 17q11.2, termed a total […]

Light triggers formation, feeds growth of optic nerve tumors Seeing, hearing, thinking, daydreaming — doing anything at all, in fact — activates neurons in the brain. But for people predisposed to developing brain tumors, the ordinary buzzing of their brains could be a problem. A study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in […]

Dr. Angela Hirbe led a multi-investigator research effort to generate a large collection of patient-derived tumor lines from NF1 patients with the most deadly NF1-associated cancer – malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs).  These human cancer lines were developed from actual human tumors in order to identify the genetic changes that cause these tumors. This […]

Dr. Michael Fisher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Dr. David Gutmann from the Washington University NF Center spearheaded an internal consortium effort to define the genetics of low-grade brain tumors in children with NF1. In their study, involving 25 centers worldwide, they characterized the genetic changes seen in these tumors, and analyzed the importance […]

Anna Wilson graduated summa cum laude from Washington University and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Anna completed her honor thesis work in the laboratory of Dr. David Gutmann where she studied sex differences in neurons in mice with a genetic mutation in the neurofibromatosis type 1 gene. Following graduation, Anna will return […]

The Gutmann laboratory recently was awarded a grant from Ian’s Friends Foundation (IFF) to develop better models of human NF1 low-grade brain tumors (gliomas). In their proposal, this team will be investigating what cells and signals allow human pediatric gliomas to grow in the mouse brain, eliminating a major barrier to the development and deployment […]

The NF Clinical Trials Consortium recently published a study examining vision in children with NF1 and optic pathway gliomas (OPGs) following treatment with Everolimus. Leveraging preclinical studies from the Gutmann laboratory demonstrating that mouse Nf1 optic glioma growth is controlled by activated RAS operating through the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) protein.  Everolimus is an […]