Jezabel Rodriguez-Blanco, Ph.D.

My research is focused on the most common malignant pediatric brain tumor, medulloblastoma, and aimed at developing novel therapeutics for underserved patients suffering from this cancer. Because of the significant morbidity that current multimodal therapies have on the developing brains of children, one of my major research lines is focused on finding less toxic targeted therapeutics. Unfortunately, tumors exposed to single agent targeted therapeutics tend to recur. As virtually none of the children whose tumors relapse will live beyond one year, it is critical to identify the mechanisms allowing medulloblastoma to grow back, and design therapeutics aimed at targeting them.