Stanford University
Stanford, California, United States
Claudia K. Petritsch, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Research at Stanford University School of Medicine. I am a trained stem cell biologist with a dedicated focus on stem cells in brain cancer for the past 15 years. In my lab, significant efforts are directed towards the acquisition, processing, and analysis of fresh neurosurgical tissue from epilepsy and brain cancer patients. An important objective is to develop high-fidelity patient-derived brain tumor models, with the ultimate aim of modeling each pediatric brain cancer subtype and use these models to find a cure for brain cancer. As director of the Stanford Pediatrics Cancer Model Development Center, I oversee the development of solid cancer models and part of this effort, my team has generated and validated 20 patient-derived cell lines models for challenging gliomas. Building on my previous success in leveraging access to primary brain tissue to functionally characterize stem cells in brain cancer, I am currently focused on a study aimed at defining the role of asymmetric cell division in suppressing gliomagenesis. This research seeks to outline a strategy for targeting stem cells in glioma, both in their roles as tumor propagating cells and pro-glioma niche generating cells. Notably, my team has identified asymmetric cell divisions as a novel mechanism governing growths of therapy resistant glioma cells. Additionally, our discovery that asymmetrically dividing stem cells in glioma require Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) activity has revealed a novel therapeutic vulnerability in pediatric gliomas, highlighting the potential for synergy between MAPK pathway inhibitors and PLK1 inhibitors on the tumor immune infiltrate. Additional ongoing research activities involving our novel syngeneic mouse models for low grade gliomas are i. investigating the effects of molecular targeted therapies on the glioma immune microenvironment, and ii. the dysregulation of stem cells in glioma as therapeutic opportunity.
