Ryan’s setting a course to change childhood brain cancer
2025-03-06
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Ask Col Reynolds Fellow, Ryan Cross what he wanted to be as a child, and a smile will beam across his face.
“I wanted to be a scientist when I was a child, I was in love with dinosaurs. I wanted to recreate Jurassic Park and have a dinosaur as a pet.”
While he didn’t end up in that field, he is indeed a scientist at WEHI, intent on finding a cure for the most aggressive brain cancer of all – Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG).
It’s something he always wanted to do, once he realised that he was better served researching childhood cancer as opposed to recreating prehistoric beasts.
“I always wanted to have an impact and to change the world in a positive way, and for the work that I do to have meaning,” he says.
“As I shifted further into my career, I knew that I wanted to work on cell therapy, and I saw paediatric brain cancer as one of the areas with the highest unmet need.”
A DIPG tumour wraps around the part of the brain that controls a child’s motor function. It’s completely inoperable, and being a stiff solid piece of tissue, it’s difficult for drugs to penetrate and treat.
Upon diagnosis, many families are instructed to make memories in the time they have left with their child. An effective treatment, let alone a cure, is yet to be discovered.
The Melbourne-based researcher hopes to turn the aggressive cancer into a manageable condition via providing effective, safe and personalised treatments to kids with the disease.
“What I'm working on is a living cell therapy which will be able to get into the nooks and crannies of all the different tissues and find these cells specifically to hunt them out and kill them,” he says.
“I’m quite optimistic that the field and therapies I’m working on do have the potential to change lives long term.”
Ryan is our research ambassador for the 2025 edition of Pirate Day, which sees people strap on an eyepatch and grab a sword, setting a course to a world where no child dies from brain cancer. He regards the ambassadorship as an honour.
“I think Pirate Day is a lemonade from lemons situation. We’re taking something which is quite common – the physical impediments of brain cancers – and looking to raise awareness.
“As someone who grew up enjoying International Pirate Day, it's good to hark back to when I was younger.”
And as for those who are already on board the ship?
“A massive thank you. I think it needs to be reiterated that many hands make light work and all donations, small and large, have an effect in the aggregate.
“Thank you so much for what you do and the security that it’s provided me to be able to do further research into this devastating disease.”