University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH) Assistant Professor Tianzhong Yang has received a new grant to continue her research aimed at understanding the genetic mechanism for childhood cancers. Collaborating with her colleagues at the UMN Medical School Division of Pediatric Epidemiology and Clinical Research, she has been compiling and analyzing the world’s largest dataset study of hepatoblastoma — the most common type of liver cancer occurring in children. A malignant tumor that forms in the liver tissues of children, most often before the age of three, hepatoblastoma is currently one of the least treatable classes of childhood cancer.

Thanks to funding support from the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, the largest charity funder of childhood cancer research grants, Yang will continue to research factors that may increase a child’s predisposition for cancer.

The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is dedicated to advancing the fight against childhood cancers by supporting the most promising research initiatives. Yang’s grant is part of the foundation’s newest round of research grants, which total $9.4 million and support 23 projects aimed at identifying better treatments for childhood cancers.

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