Dr. Boland’s research focuses on the development and monitoring of novel therapies for the treatment of pediatric brain tumors, specifically high-grade gliomas (pHGG) including diffuse midline gliomas, which are a devastating subtype of pHGG that result in death typically within 2 years of diagnosis. Currently, Dr. Boland is working to delineate how the immune system of a patient changes in response to a serially delivered neo-peptide vaccine that includes the 16 most common neo-epitopes present in diffuse midline gliomas, via a first-in-children phase 1 clinical trial. Through spectral flow cytometry and single cell RNA sequencing on patient samples before and after peptide vaccination, Dr. Boland is determining if there are immune signatures associated with positive response to vaccination to better understand how to harness the immune system to treat pHGG. Dr. Boland received her MD and PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Iowa MSTP studying use of cell-based therapies for treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases and later completed her Residency in Pediatrics at Ann and Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital prior to starting her Brinson Medical Research Fellowship in Pediatric Hematology Oncology.
Lauren Boland
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