At CureSearch, we invest in bold science because children with cancer cannot afford to wait on incremental progress. Our newest Young Investigator Award recipient, Kathryn Taylor, PhD, embodies exactly the kind of researcher this program exists to support: innovative and relentlessly focused on translating discovery into real-world impact.
Dr. Taylor is an Assistant Member in the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program and Department of Pediatrics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), where her lab studies the intersection of neuroscience and cancer. Her new CureSearch-funded project will focus on diffuse hemispheric glioma, H3G34-mutant, an aggressive brain tumor that primarily affects adolescents.
This cancer forms in the cerebral hemispheres, the areas of the brain responsible for thinking, speaking and movement. Standard treatments like surgery, radiation and chemotherapy rarely stop the disease from progressing, and average survival is just 18 to 22 months. Despite accounting for more than 30% of pediatric or adolescent hemispheric high-grade gliomas, this subtype remains understudied, with little known about how to effectively treat it.
That gap is exactly what Dr. Taylor is working to change.
When Cancer “Listens” to the Brain
Recent discoveries have revealed something astonishing. Some brain tumors do not grow on their own. Instead, they connect directly with nearby neurons and tap into the brain’s own electrical activity. These cancer cells essentially “listen in” on the same signals that allow us to think, speak and move, and then use these signals to fuel their own growth.
Dr. Taylor’s research asks a powerful question: If tumors are using neuronal signals to survive and spread, can we disrupt that communication?
With CureSearch funding, her team will use advanced neuroscience techniques and donated patient tumor tissue to study how diffuse hemispheric glioma cells respond to electrical signals and form connections with active neurons. The goal is not only to understand how this process works, but to determine how to stop it.
Repurposing What Already Exists
One of the most promising aspects of this work is speed. Dr. Taylor aims to identify neuromodulatory drugs that already exist and are being used to treat other conditions. If these drugs can interfere with the communication between neurons and cancer cells, they could potentially be repurposed much faster than entirely new therapies.
That means fewer years of waiting. Fewer years of uncertainty for families. And a faster path from discovery to treatment.
“It’s an honor to receive a CureSearch Young Investigator Award,” Dr. Taylor shared. “This support allows my team to pursue new ways of understanding how the nervous system shapes the development of aggressive pediatric brain cancers like high-grade gliomas. This funding will push forward our work toward neuromodulatory treatment strategies that we hope will lead to more effective therapies for children, adolescents, and young adults facing this devastating disease.”
Why Young Investigators Matter
Early-career scientists often face the steepest funding barriers right when their most promising ideas are taking shape. CureSearch Young Investigator Awards aim to remove that barrier.
We provide researchers not only funding, but also visibility, resources and momentum at a critical point in their careers. The result is a pipeline of bold science that might otherwise never move forward.
Dr. Taylor’s work is a powerful reminder of what is possible when donors invest early, trust innovation, and stand behind the next generation of pediatric cancer researchers. Progress like this does not happen by chance. It happens because a community chooses to believe in science, in researchers, and in the children who need better options.
