2025 WCHRI Summer Student

Less-invasive biopsies for kids with brain cancer

Emma Pilgrim’s research focuses on developing a safer way to detect and monitor brain and spinal cord cancers in children. 

Instead of risky surgical biopsies, her project explores using liquid biopsies from blood or cerebrospinal fluid to find small amounts of tumour DNA. She aims to expand this tool to detect changes that can help in diagnosing and guiding patient-specific medicine for children with brain cancer.

“One surprising thing in research is how often negative or inconclusive results can still lead to meaningful insights. I used to think every experiment had to work to be valuable, but I’ve learned that even when things don’t go as planned, you often uncover new questions that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.”

Goals:

• Develop liquid biopsy analyses to detect tumour DNA in cerebrospinal fluid and plasma.
• Use the data to help diagnose and guide patient-specific medicine.
• Create a less invasive method for monitoring childhood brain cancers.

Potential impact: This research could lead to a safer, less invasive way to diagnose and monitor childhood brain cancers. By providing physicians with a better understanding of a child’s specific cancer, it could help them create personalized treatments with fewer long-term side effects.

Supervisor: Liana Nobre, assistant professor, Department of Pediatrics

Funders: Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation

Interested in doing research to improve the health of women and/or children? Read more about WCHRI’s training awards for students at all levels and generous grants for researchers.