Making Headway Foundation

08/28/2026

The Monday Night NFL Football Pool To Benefit Making Headway is Back!

Join our football pool for a chance to win while helping children diagnosed with brain and spinal cord tumors.

Buy Your Box Today at https://wl.donorperfect.net/weblink/weblink.aspx?name=E5676&id=38

Please feel free to forward this to your friends. The more people who participate, the more we raise for Making Headway.

This game is a standard 10X10 grid with 100 boxes. Each box is $100 and will cover every Monday night football game this season. At the end of each game, there will be one winner determined by the final score, and that person wins $250. There is no deadline to sign up, but if you sign up before week 1 (September 14), you will have the most chances to win.

08/24/2026

Consensus Roadmap Guides Clinical Trials for Rare Childhood CNS Tumors.
https://bioengineer.org/consensus-roadmap-guides-clinical-trials-for-rare-childhood-cns-tumors/

Rare childhood central nervous system tumors have exposed one of the most stubborn weaknesses in modern oncology: science can move faster than the clinical-trial systems needed to test it. The paper focuses on a problem that affects thousands of children worldwide but involves so many biologically distinct tumor types that conventional trial design often fails before recruitment even begins.
https://bioengineer.org/consensus-roadmap-guides-clinical-trials-for-rare-childhood-cns-tumors/

Rare childhood central nervous system tumours have exposed one of the most stubborn weaknesses in modern oncology: science can move faster than the clinical-trial systems needed to test it. A new

08/21/2026

DIPG Close to Home: Beyond Radiation, The Research Seeking a Future for Children with DIPG

In the first installment of DIPG Close to Home, The Citizen told the story of Rosalie, who was given nine months to live after her diagn ...

08/03/2026

With partial support from Making Headway Foundation, a new report was just published, in the medical journal Neuro-Oncology Pediatrics, titled Pre-treatment Monocytosis in Pediatric H3K27M-Mutant Gliomas.

This is the first study to identify pre-treatment monocytosis and elevated MLR in pediatric H3K27M-mutant gliomas, highlighting a novel systemic immune phenotype with potential implications for biomarker discovery and immunotherapeutic targeting.
Click here for the full report visit: https://makingheadway.org/published (it is the most recent listing)

Layman's Summary (AI generated)
This study found that children with H3K27M-mutant diffuse midline gliomas had significantly higher monocyte counts in their blood before any treatment compared with children who had pilocytic astrocytomas, a less aggressive brain tumor. These findings identify monocytosis as a potential biomarker for H3K27M-mutant gliomas and suggest that immune system changes may play an important role in the disease, warranting further research into targeted immunotherapies and improved prognostic tools.

Special Thanks to all the authors, especially our friends at NYU Langone (Eveline Teresa Hidalgo, Matija Snuderl, Jessica Clymer, Devorah Segal, David Harter, Hannah Weiss, and Eric A. Grin).

AbstractBackground. Systemic immune dysregulation is well-characterized in adult high-grade gliomas but remains underexplored in pediatric population. Amon

07/14/2026

Making Headway Foundation is co-sponsoring NYU Langone's first-ever teen and young adult survivorship event for those diagnosed with a brain or spinal cord tumor. This is a one-day event, scheduled for Sunday, August 2, 2026, 8:00 am–4:30 pm.

Learn more or sign up at https://nyumc.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_25gg6tla6Qyp35c?cid=qr_print_pcc_bst-survivorship-event_registration

Get the latest info for teens and young adults with a brain or spinal cord tumor:
• Lectures on Brain Health, Cancer and Family Planning, Living with Disability
• Patient Experience Panel
• Patient and Caregiver Support Groups

There is no cost to attend this event. A light breakfast and box lunch will be provided. If you were not treated at NYU, you are still invited to attend.

Sunday, August 2, 2026
8:00 am–4:30 pm
NYU Langone Health
550 First Avenue, New York, NY

07/10/2026

Please enjoy a wonderful video from Making Headway Foundation's 2026 Family Fun Day.
https://youtu.be/c3_EzUDKeeA?si=1he0HkHm6-DhidAz

For 30 years, Making Headway has hosted a free Family Fun Day for families of children diagnosed with a brain or spinal cord tumor. To learn more or donate to support our work, visit www.MakingHeadway.org.

For 30 years, Making Headway has hosted a free Family Fun Day for f...

07/08/2026

06/13/2026

Gio Reyna SCORES for the USA in the World Cup!
Making Headway is very proud of GIO, who supports the Foundation in memory of his brother Jack, who died of a brain tumor at the age of 13. Gio was 9 at the time.
Even during his busy World Cup season, Gio got soccer balls donated for Making Headway’s upcoming Family Fun Day!
Be like Gio! Support Making Headway and SCORE by helping kids with brain tumors.
https://wl.donorperfect.net/weblink/weblink.aspx?name=E5676&id=3

06/01/2026

As Brain Tumor Awareness Month comes to a close, our work is far from over.

Brain tumors remain the leading cause of cancer-related death in children, yet pediatric brain tumors continue to receive only a fraction of the attention and research investment devoted to many other diseases. For thousands of children and families, the challenges do not end when May ends. They face complex treatments, long-term health effects, educational disruptions, financial burdens, and an uncertain future every day.

At Making Headway Foundation, we are honored to stand alongside these children and families throughout their journeys. We are grateful to everyone who helped raise awareness this month, shared a story, supported a family, advocated for research, or helped shine a light on this critical issue.

Awareness is important, but action is essential. We must continue to push for increased research funding, better treatments, improved quality of life, and stronger support systems for children living with brain tumors and the survivors who carry the effects of treatment for years to come. Together, we can continue to make headway.

05/29/2026

A precision pediatric oncology study unmasked a dual-targeting therapeutic strategy to stop the relapse of medulloblastoma, the most common malignant childhood brain tumor. While initial treatment survival rates are encouraging, roughly 30% of patients experience a devastating recurrence driven by a highly resistant subset of slow-dividing, self-renewing tumor cells.

The research demonstrates that an FDA-approved compound, pyrvinium, can successfully halt this relapse mechanism. By activating a critical protein controller, the therapy simultaneously shuts down two independent survival pathways, effectively trapping the tumor cells and preventing them from engineering a recurrence. Read more at...

A new study leverages a modified pyrvinium hybrid to block GLI and WNT pathways, halting pediatric medulloblastoma relapse.