Because of You, This Research Is Possible

DIPG is an aggressive paediatric brain cancer that most often affects children under the age of ten. By the time symptoms appear, the tumour has already developed into a highly complex and treatment-resistant disease. For families, the diagnosis is sudden, life-altering, and heartbreakingly limited in treatment options. Despite decades of effort, survival rates have not meaningfully improved.

This is precisely why your support matters so profoundly.

Thanks to the support of Meagan Bebenek Foundation and donors like you, our team is launching a project focused on understanding how DIPG tumours begin — the earliest biological changes that allow this disease to form and grow. Using advanced gene editing tools, we will investigate the genetic drivers that initiate tumour development, long before the disease reaches its most aggressive stages. By identifying these earliest events, we can begin to map a new scientific roadmap toward therapies that target DIPG at its root, rather than attempting to treat it only after it has become resistant.

This approach represents a shift in thinking. Instead of asking how to fight an established tumour, we are asking how to stop it from gaining its foothold in the first place. MBF’s commitment to funding courageous, early-stage research makes it possible to pursue high-impact ideas that challenge convention, uncover new biological insights, and accelerate the development of more effective, targeted treatments for children facing this devastating disease.

Your generosity is directly enabling research that offers real hope — hope for earlier intervention, new therapies, and ultimately, better outcomes for children and families facing DIPG.

Thank you for your compassion, trust, and commitment to changing the future of paediatric brain tumour research.

With sincere appreciation,

Dr. Cynthia Hawkins

Senior Scientist & Neuropathologist

The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids)

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About Dr. Hawkins

Dr. Cynthia Hawkins, is an internationally recognized Neuropathologist-Scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) where she is Head of the Division of Pathology, Medical Director of Translational Molecular Pathology and a Senior Scientist at the Research Institute. She is a Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto, holds a Garron Family Chair in Childhood Cancer Research and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

Her research interests include molecular pathogenesis and therapeutics for pediatric glioma and clinical implementation of novel diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic markers for pediatric brain tumors. She has more than 400 peer-reviewed publications, is a member of the editorial team for the WHO CNS tumour classification and contributes to multiple committees advancing precision medicine in pediatric neuro-oncology.