Science & Cocktails: Michelle Monje

In this talk, she shares how recent discoveries are reshaping our understanding of some of the most aggressive and difficult-to-treat brain tumors. All this after Casper Clausen, front man of the illustrious band Efterklang, plays dense textures and swirls of sound into tales of alienation and love.

Why are brain cancers so aggressive and so hard to cure? How can neuroscience help us better understand the nature of these diseases? Could insights into how the brain and tumors interact open the door to new treatments, or even a cure? What happens when cancer doesn’t just grow in the brain, but becomes part of its communication system?

Brain cancers such as glioblastoma (GBM) and diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) are devastating diseases that have remained highly resistant to standard therapies. But new research is beginning to provide insight into why these tumors are so challenging. It turns out that their growth, spread, and resistance to treatment may be driven in part by the brain’s own activity.

Monje’s work has shown that brain cancer cells can hijack signaling processes normally involved in functions like learning and memory. Neurons, the electrically active cells of the nervous system, can support tumor progression by releasing activity-regulated growth signals and forming synaptic connections with malignant cells. In this way, brain cancers don’t just grow in the brain; they become part of its circuitry.

This emerging understanding is changing how scientists approach these diseases. Studying and treating brain tumors now requires insights from both cancer biology and neuroscience. This shift in perspective may help pave the way for future breakthroughs in how we understand and treat these devastating cancers.