Prof. Deblina Sarkar has been awarded the ChadTough New Investigator Award. She is one of the four researchers nationwide to achieve this recognition. This award will enable her lab to continue to push boundaries in finding new treatments for aggressive pediatric brain cancers, which are currently intractable with existing technologies.

Prof. Sarkar and her team have been working tirelessly to produce novel therapeutics to treat neurodegenerative diseases and brain cancers that have no cure and are resistant to chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy. By producing nanoelectronics that fuse seamlessly with human biology, the researchers are creating new life-machine symbiosis. Prof. Sarkar’s nanoelectronic therapy is a new frontier in treating incurable cancers such as Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), a devastating diagnosis affecting children and their families.

DIPG is a rare and aggressive brainstem glioma which usually affects children. This pediatric brain tumor is located in the brain stem and is notoriously difficult to treat. The ChadTough Defeat DIPG Foundation is the largest private funder of DIPG research in the world. In addition to supporting some key clinical trials like Car-T cell and the Diffuse Midline Glioma – Adaptive Combinatorial Therapy (DMG-ACT) trial, the foundation attracts new talent to the field through New Investigator Awards. 

Prof. Sarkar and the Nano Cybernetic-Biotrek research group at the MIT Media Lab are grateful for the opportunity to work with the ChadTough Foundation, in their ongoing quest to crush pediatric brain cancers.