A pediatric hematologist/oncologist and director of the Isabella Santos Foundation Rare & Solid Tumor Program at Atrium Health Levine Children’s in Charlotte, NC, Dr. Sholler has long specialized in treating children with brain tumors like ATRT. She is known worldwide for her groundbreaking research. The research in her state-of-the-art lab focuses on identifying new therapies for rare cancers that affect young patients and developing precision medicine through testing of novel agents for a panel of cancers including neuroblastomas, ATRT, and other brain tumors. 

“My goal is to help identify new therapies and bring clinical trials to life to impact children today,” said Dr. Sholler. “I’m committed to finding better tolerated and more targeted therapies through precision medicine so children can be cured with less toxic effects than we see with the current chemotherapy.”

As Chair of the Beat Childhood Cancer Research Consortium, headquartered at Levine Children's, Dr. Sholler coordinates the clinical trial efforts of 50+ universities and children’s hospitals worldwide and oversees its ATRT translation research program. The Consortium's launched a new biology study last year that built on their previous research called the LCI-BCC-BIO-001 Specimen Banking with Clinical and Genomic Data Registry with the establishment of Tumor Models for Pediatric Cancers. This study focuses on brain tumor and solid tumor samples from children with a variety of diagnoses, including ATRT. These tumor samples undergo complete genomic analysis, including whole exome and transcriptome testing, to better understand the biology of each child’s cancer. Mutations and pathways active in driving each individual tumor are identified in hopes of developing therapeutic approaches and personalized medicine. In addition, cells from these tumors are being grown in culture and creating xenograft models for high throughput drug screening.

Now a $25,000 grant from the Hope4ATRT Foundation will provide assistance for children with ATRT to enroll in this signature study, underwriting the cost of the sophisticated genomic analysis necessary to the research.