Summer fellowship shines spotlight on promising pediatric cancer researcher

This summer, rising college senior Megan VanGarven is returning to MUSC Hollings Cancer Center with a nationally competitive award in hand. VanGarven received a Summer Fellowship Award from the St. Baldrick’s Foundation to study pediatric sarcomas under the mentorship of Casey Langdon, Ph.D., who has a dual appointment at Hollings and the Darby Children’s Research Institute at MUSC.

The $5,000 award from St. Baldrick’s supports undergraduate students working on pediatric oncology research projects. The funding will support VanGarven’s ongoing work examining a devastating group of childhood cancers called pediatric sarcomas.

Pediatric sarcomas are rare and aggressive cancers that form in the bones or soft tissues, such as fat, muscles, nerves and blood vessels, of children and adolescents. This broad group of cancers can be challenging to treat due to the biological complexities related to them. Not only do sarcomas grow and spread quickly, but there are dozens of subtypes.

"Success for me is gaining knowledge. No matter what I find, it’s something new. Even an unsuccessful finding provides important information that can inform next steps.”

Megan VanGarven

Unfortunately, progress in treating sarcomas has been slow. In many cases, conventional therapies do not work. And current treatments can be debilitating, often involving complicated drug regimens or invasive surgeries.

“Treatments for childhood cancers have not seen as many successes as those for adults,” Langdon said. “For youth, who often react differently than adults, those treatments can wreak havoc on their growing bodies and dramatically impede their quality of life.”

New therapies able to destroy cancer cells with fewer side effects are urgently needed. That is why researchers like VanGarven and Langdon are focused on developing safer, more effective therapies that can strike cancer cells from multiple angles.

“Childhood cancer is rare – but has an outsized impact,” Langdon said. “Our lab is invested in identifying targeted therapies with a more favorable toxicity profile and fewer long-term effects.”

Langdon's lab works to uncover the basic biology driving childhood cancers and develop combination therapies that can better treat them. Combination therapies are just that – they involve using more than one treatment to shrink and eliminate cancer cells.

VanGarven’s summer project examines whether and why these combinations work for pediatric sarcomas and compares their effectiveness across subtypes.

“I’m digging deeper into how combination therapies affect different tumor cell types,” VanGarven said. “We hope that understanding the ‘why’ behind their effectiveness can lead to better and safer treatments for kids.”

VanGarven, a student at Northwestern College in Iowa, was part of MUSC’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) last year. She has already shown enormous productivity. Langdon described VanGarven as a standout student who hit the ground running, advancing projects that needed an extra jolt of energy and contributing to at least a half-dozen poster presentations in a single summer.

“Megan was highly prolific in our lab,” Langdon said. “This fellowship is a great way to bring her back and support her professional development while advancing important work in the field.”

Also on the docket is adding new skills to her scientific toolbox; most notably, learning to use the lab’s flow cytometry machine, a valuable technical skill that would allow her to examine sarcomas at a deeper level and analyze their immune responses, cell profiles and/or treatment effects.

In addition, the fellowship offers opportunities beyond the lab bench. VanGarven is gaining experience in scientific communication and research mentoring – essential skills for a future she hopes will include a doctoral degree and a career in science. Winning a competitive award like the St. Baldrick’s grant brings her closer to both goals.

“Being recognized by a national foundation like St. Baldrick’s is incredibly validating,” she said. “It makes me even more motivated to continue this important work.”

"We want students like Megan to come away from their time here with a deeper understanding of how research translates into real-world impact. And we want to support those students in building careers that make a difference."

Casey Langdon, Ph.D.

For Langdon, mentorship is central to his lab’s mission.

“We want students like Megan to come away from their time here with a deeper understanding of how research translates into real-world impact,” he said. “And we want to support those students in building careers that make a difference.”

No matter what the science ends up showing, VanGarven knows this summer will be well worth it.

“Success for me is gaining knowledge. No matter what I find, it’s something new. Even an unsuccessful finding provides important information that can inform next steps.”

Langdon sees this summer as being a success if VanGarven expands on the skills she gained last year and becomes confident as a mentor herself. In the bigger picture, he looks forward to one day seeing this basic science translated into the clinic, where it can help patients and their families.

As pediatric sarcomas continue to pose challenges to clinicians and patients, research like VanGarven’s offers hope.

“At MUSC, we’re dedicated and actively working to solve the problem of childhood cancer. That’s a critical part of our mission here – finding a therapy with broad applications,” Langdon said. “Progress is being made, and young scientists like Megan are a critical part of that story.”

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