UNIVERSITY OF IOWA HEALTH CARE STEAD FAMILY CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL JOINS THE CHILDREN'S BRAIN TUMOR NETWORK AS ITS NEWEST MEMBER INSTITUTION

PHILADELPHIA, May 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Children's Brain Tumor Network (CBTN) welcomes University of Iowa Health Care Stead Family Children's Hospital (UI) as a new member institution. CBTN membership now includes 34 leading institutions across Europe, Asia, Australia, and the United States.

Dr. Andrew Groves will serve as CBTN principal investigator for UI Health Care Stead Family Children's Hospital.

"We're thrilled to join CBTN as a member institution to accelerate the pace of discovery on behalf of our patients and families. By partnering with CBTN experts and researchers worldwide, we can better understand and treat these devastating conditions," said Andrew Groves, MD, Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics – Hematology/Oncology at UI Health Care Stead Family Children's Hospital. 

Located in Iowa City, IA, UI Health Care Stead Family Children's Hospital is a leader in family-centered care, which integrates each family as a partner for their child's care. UI Health Care Stead Family Children's Hospital is Iowa's only comprehensive children's hospital, caring for more than 100,000 patients annually.

As a participating CBTN member site, UI Health Care Stead Family Children's Hospital contributes consented samples of childhood tissue to help advance understanding of childhood brain tumor biology.  Each brain tumor tissue sample is deidentified before undergoing genetic sequencing, a process that converts the samples into data to provide the greatest value to researchers worldwide while protecting the privacy of each child. No single institution can collect enough samples on its own, making collaboration through CBTN an essential step towards more effective treatments for children.

"We're happy to welcome UI Health Care Stead Family Children's Hospital to the CBTN community. This partnership is critical to achieve the CBTN mission and improve outcomes for children and young adults diagnosed with brain and spinal cord tumors," shared Brian Rood, MD, CBTN Co-Executive Chair.

About Children's Brain Tumor Network (CBTN)
Children's Brain Tumor Network (CBTN) is a collaborative research effort to accelerate treatments for children with brain tumors. Collectively, CBTN's 34 international member institutions have enrolled more than 6,500 study participants and more than 73,000 biospecimen samples to create the world's most comprehensive repository of childhood brain tumors. CBTN's suite of informatics and analytics platforms enable researchers to collaborate in real-time on behalf of children diagnosed with a brain tumor. Learn more at cbtn.org.

Contact:
Bobby Moulder
Children's Brain Tumor Network
[email protected]
(484) 258-8539

SOURCE Children’s Brain Tumor Network