Funding outcome

Project Summary: As a result of advanced diagnosis and treatment, many children survive their cancers. Although this is very promising, some of these children may develop long-term side effects of the anticancer treatment received during childhood. For instance, doxorubicin (which is a very effective anticancer medication widely used to treat several types of childhood cancers) is known to cause minor injury to the hearts of these young cancer survivors, which can cause more serious heart issues later in life. However, there is very little information available about how doxorubicin causes this injury to the hearts of childhood cancer survivors, and what the best way is to prevent it. Therefore, our team is studying how the heart is injured by doxorubicin treatment and testing strategies that can protect the heart from this injury, thus reducing heart issues later in life. Project Description: We will use our established mouse model of early heart injury to study what changes occur within the hearts of young mice in response to doxorubicin and thus what makes the heart more susceptible to injury later in life. We will use sophisticated equipment to study the role of the production of molecules that are involved in the development of heart injury. Also, we will test if a natural product that is currently available in health food stores (resveratrol) is able inhibit the production of these molecules in the hearts from the young mice when they are given doxorubicin chemotherapy. Overall, this research will provide us with new areas to target with drugs in order to protect the hearts of the young