Turning Data Into Hope: Rally’s Impact on Pediatric Brain Tumor Research

Since 2022, Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research has played a key role in helping Adam Resnick, Ph.D., at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Children’s Brain Tumor Network advance their mission to find better treatments for kids with brain tumors. Rally Foundation’s support has helped grow this global effort by expanding access to data, improving research tools, and fueling discoveries that bring hope to families everywhere.

The Children’s Brain Tumor Network is a group of more than 30 hospitals and research centers that work together to share tumor samples, clinical data and research tools. These shared resources are managed through the Center for Data Driven Discovery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and allow scientists across the world to learn from every child and make progress faster than ever before.

One of the Children’s Brain Tumor Network’s most powerful resources is the Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas, a large, open-access collection of tumor samples, lab models and detailed genetic and clinical information from children with brain tumors. Researchers use the Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas to study how tumors grow, spread and respond to treatments.

With Rally’s funding, Dr. Resnick and his team were able to prepare, ship and process thousands of brain tumor samples for large-scale data generation, adding four new types of information to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas. These data show how tumor genes are built, which ones are active, how that activity is controlled, and what proteins the tumor produces. Together, this gives scientists a clearer picture of how brain tumors form and how they might respond to treatment.

Rally’s support also improved how clinical data are collected and connected across hospitals. Their funding helped create tools that link MRI scans, lab results and doctors’ notes. This work set the stage for RADIANT, a new ARPA-H pilot project that uses artificial intelligence to predict how tumors will grow and how children might respond to different treatments (ARPA-H, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, is a new federal agency that funds bold, fast-moving medical research projects designed to make major breakthroughs in health care.).

RADIANT started at several Children’s Brain Tumor Network hospitals and is the first project of its kind in pediatrics, paving the way for smarter, faster research across the entire network.

Because of Rally’s continued support, the Children’s Brain Tumor Network is moving faster toward new discoveries, stronger collaboration, and better outcomes for children everywhere.

This is why early-stage research funding matters.

This is the power of philanthropic seed investing.

This is Rally.