Kate Amato Foundation Awarded Projects
Elucidating the Role of Extracellular Vesicles in Ewing Sarcoma Metastasis
Project Goal: The future goal of this project is to develop treatments that prevent and cure the spread of Ewing sarcoma to other parts of the body.
Institution: Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
Researchers: Ingrid Lekk, PhD
Year Awarded: 2025
Type of Childhood Cancer: Ewing sarcoma
Project Description:
Ewing sarcoma (EwS) is a tumor of bone and muscle in children and young adults. Most patients in whom EwS has metastasized (spread from the tumor to other sites in the body) will die despite intensive therapy. Therefore, it is important to understand why some cancer cells leave the tumor and survive in new locations. To study this process, we are injecting human EwS cells into zebrafish and imaging the migration of these cells in the fish. We aim to look at small vesicles that cancer cells shed from their surface. These vesicles influence the surrounding tissues to support cancer cell survival. As the fish are small and transparent, we can image cancer vesicles in live fish. What is more, analyzing the content of these vesicles gives us information on what signals the tumor is sending to the surrounding tissues. The future goal of this project is to use this information to develop treatments that prevent or cure the spreading of EwS in the body.
