Fellowship

Gordon Fellowship in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology

The Neuro-Oncology Program’s Gordon Fellowship in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology has been expanded to a two-year program involving subspecialty rotations in neurosurgery, neuropathology, radiation oncology, and neuroradiology during Year 1 and protected time for pediatric neuro-oncology related research in Year 2. Fellowships in neuro-oncology are critical to the advancement of the field and to improve the quality of care for children afflicted with brain or spinal cancer. The mission of the Gordon Fellowship in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology is to train the next generation of clinician-scientist leaders with the skills needed to embrace the expanding molecular complexity of neuro-oncology and the clinical acumen and compassion to maximize patient outcomes.

The fellow will be expected to assume inpatient and outpatient responsibilities, assess patients referred for second opinion consultations from the California Protons Cancer Therapy Center, and attend weekly multidisciplinary clinical rounds and neuro-oncology tumor boards including the Molecular Tumor Board as well as translational research conferences with faculty members at the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center and the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. In addition, there is a monthly didactic curriculum focused on subspecialty areas within neuro-oncology including tumor-type focused lectures that describe clinical management and the latest research advances.

In addition, the fellow will also be expected to engage in a clinical and/or translational research project. With approval from Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Program leadership to ensure an adequate mentoring plan, the Year 2 research period can be performed at any of several world-class San Diego area research institutions including Rady Institute for Genomic Medicine, UCSD, Sanford Burnham Prebys, La Jolla Institute for Immunology, Scripps Research, Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, and Salk Institute provided the proposed research project is related or has applications to the field of pediatric neuro-oncology.

About the Fellowship

The fellowship was established and is made possible through the Celebrating Futures Fund, founded by Andrew and Denise Gordon to benefit the Peckham Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, hematology/oncology research, and neurosurgery at Rady Children’s. The Gordon’s son, Nathan, was a patient at Rady Children’s since he was 15 months old, after being diagnosed with a rare tumor in his spinal cord. He underwent multiple tumor resections and extensive treatments at the Peckham Center. The goal of the fund, inspired by the care Nathan received, is to sustain and grow clinical programs and advance translational research in the critically important field of pediatric neuro-oncology.

Fellowship Application

Fellowship candidates must have completed training in either pediatric hematology/oncology or child neurology to be eligible for consideration. Interested applicants should send their CV, Personal Statement, and two LORs (including one from the fellowship program director) by October 1st of the year before the July 1st fellowship start date. Please send documents as a PDF to Dr. Jennifer Elster, Fellowship Program Director, at jelster@rchsd.org or contact Dr. Elster if you have any additional questions.

Fellowship Alumni

Publications By Gordon Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Fellows

Circular extrachromosomal DNA promotes tumor heterogeneity in high-risk medulloblastoma.

Chapman OS, Luebeck J, Sridhar S, Wong IT, Dixit D, Wang S, Prasad G, Rajkumar U, Pagadala MS, Larson JD, He BJ, Hung KL, Lange JT, Dehkordi SR, Chandran S, Adam M, Morgan L, Wani S, Tiwari A, Guccione C, Lin Y, Dutta A, Lo YY, Juarez E, Robinson JT, Korshunov A, Michaels JA, Cho YJ, Malicki DM, Coufal NG, Levy ML, Hobbs C, Scheuermann RH, Crawford JR, Pomeroy SL, Rich JN, Zhang X, Chang HY, Dixon JR, Bagchi A, Deshpande AJ, Carter H, Fraenkel E, Mischel PS, Wechsler-Reya RJ, Bafna V, Mesirov JP, Chavez L

3D genome mapping identifies subgroup-specific chromosome conformations and tumor-dependency genes in ependymoma.

Okonechnikov K, Camgöz A, Chapman O, Wani S, Park DE, Hübner JM, Chakraborty A, Pagadala M, Bump R, Chandran S, Kraft K, Acuna-Hidalgo R, Reid D, Sikkink K, Mauermann M, Juarez EF, Jenseit A, Robinson JT, Pajtler KW, Milde T, Jäger N, Fiesel P, Morgan L, Sridhar S, Coufal NG, Levy M, Malicki D, Hobbs C, Kingsmore S, Nahas S, Snuderl M, Crawford J, Wechsler-Reya RJ, Davidson TB, Cotter J, Michaiel G, Fleischhack G, Mundlos S, Schmitt A, Carter H, Michealraj KA, Kumar SA, Taylor MD, Rich J, Buchholz F, Mesirov JP, Pfister SM, Ay F, Dixon JR, Kool M, Chavez L.

Overview and recent advances in the targeting of medulloblastoma cancer stem cells.

Paul MR, Zage PE.

Clinical and Neuroimaging Features of Magnetic Resonance-Guided Stereotactic Laser Ablation for Newly Diagnosed and Recurrent Pediatric Brain Tumors: A Single Institutional Series.

Pehlivan KC, Khanna PC, Elster JD, Paul MR, Levy ML, Crawford JR, Gonda DD.

Characterization of G-CSF receptor expression in medulloblastoma.

Paul MR, Huo Y, Liu A, Lesperance J, Garancher A, Wechsler-Reya RJ, Zage PE.