“Difficult Separations” of Brain Cancer Cells

Photo by Anat Erdreich-Epstein, MD, PhD, from The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles 

In December 2013, Anat Erdreich-Epstein, MD, PhD, and colleagues were the first to link the level of RNA in the PID1 protein to brain tumor growth. Erdreich-Epstein found that PID1 inhibits the cell growth in the 2 most common brain cancers: medulloblastomas and gliomas. In addition to reducing the proliferation of malignant cells, higher levels of PID1 also promoted brain tumor cell death.