Fernando Camargo, PhD

Funded by the Dick Vitale Pediatric Cancer Research Fund

Some children with liver cancer do well with treatment, but others have tumors that are hard to cure or come back. Our project focuses on hepatoblastoma, the most common liver cancer in children. We study a growth signal called Hippo-YAP. In normal cells, this signal helps control growth and repair. In some cancers, it can get stuck “on.” This may help cancer cells grow and may also push them into a more aggressive, stem-like state.We want to find the weak points that YAP-driven liver tumors need to grow. We will study this in mice and in small tumor models, called organoids, grown in the lab from patient samples. These models let us test many genes and then focus on the ones that matter most. We will also test new drugs that block TEAD, a protein that works with YAP, to see whether they slow tumor growth or make the cancer cells less aggressive.This matters because children with high-risk hepatoblastoma need better and safer options. Today, treatment often depends on surgery and strong chemotherapy, which can have serious side effects. By learning what these tumors depend on, we hope to identify more precise treatments. Over time, this work could help guide new therapies for children with liver cancer and may also help children with other cancers driven by the same growth signal.