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Writer's pictureRob Smith

Nottinghamshire Freemasons support the Children's Brain Tumour Research Centre

Nottinghamshire Freemasons have generously awarded a £250 travel grant to Connor Levers to attend an international conference as part of his research within the Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre (CBTRC) at the University of Nottingham.


Connor is a 2nd Year PhD Student within Prof Beth Coyle’s Research Group, which has a long-standing history of investigating paediatric brain tumours, including medulloblastoma: the most common malignant brain cancer found in children.


The Group’s research currently focusses on developing methods to simulate the tumour and the surrounding environment within a laboratory setting, which would then allow future experiments to more realistically represent how the tumour would genuinely respond within the brain.


Additionally, the Group is investigating the role that nano-sized particles released by cancer cells, known as ‘extracellular vesicles’, play when tumour cells migrate to other areas of the central nervous system (CNS). Connor’s research is specifically investigating microRNAs: small molecules similar to DNA, capable of altering the expression of particular genes, which are packaged inside of these ‘extracellular vesicles’, and the role they play in medulloblastoma cell migration and treatment resistance.


The travel grant awarded by Nottinghamshire Freemasons allowed Connor to attend the International Symposium on Paediatric Neuro-Oncology 2024 (ISPNO 2024), hosted in Philadelphia, USA. Over the duration of the four-day conference, Connor was able to attend talks by world-leading experts, enhancing his understanding of the current state of the paediatric neuro-oncology field and enable further development and refinement of his own research


Furthermore, Connor was able to present his own work to an audience of world-leading expert neuro-oncology scientists and clinicians, facilitating the establishment of a professional network for future collaborative work.


Connor, the Coyle Group, and current and future patients and their families would like to thank Nottinghamshire Freemasons for their kind donation, which allows for the continuation of medulloblastoma research towards the overall goal of developing more effective and definitive treatments for this devastating disease.

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