How V Scholar Joelle Straehla, M.D. is Pioneering Drug Delivery for Pediatric Tumors
V Foundation grantee Joelle Straehla, M.D., is pioneering new ways to get lifesaving medication to the hardest to reach tumors in children’s brains. As a pediatric oncologist in the Brain Tumor Program at Seattle Children's Research Institute, she saw firsthand the urgent need for more effective drug delivery systems. With her background in engineering, Dr. Straehla is determined to bridge the gap between current therapies and future possibilities, turning inspiration from her patients into a dedicated research lab of her own.
Dr. Straehla’s work today focuses on solving a critical challenge: fewer than 1% of many medications can naturally cross into brain tissue. To address this, she is using nanotechnology to develop personalized drug delivery systems for pediatric brain tumors, improving how treatments reach tumors while reducing side effects. Her goal is to expand treatment options beyond surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Since manufacturing for nanomedicine has improved rapidly in the last decade, she sees a unique opportunity to push this field forward.
As a V Scholar, her research projects aim to design a drug delivery system that can be manufactured and used in the clinic. Each project tackles a specific step to bridge the translational gap, from identifying the right patients to designing clinical trials, and producing medicines for real-world use.
“There’s no way I’d have a lab if I didn’t see patients,” she says. “It’s what brings me into the lab every day. My patients are what drive me.”
Dr. Straehla also believes collaboration is key: “Team science is where it’s at. Being able to have experts work together allows everyone to get further together.”
Private funding is more important than ever for early career investigators like Dr. Straehla, whose cutting-edge ideas may not align with federal funding priorities. Pediatric cancer research receives less than 5% of federal cancer research dollars. Yet, thanks to advancements in research, survival rates have risen significantly with 85% of children (ages 0-14) and 87% of adolescents (ages 15-19) now surviving five years or more after a cancer diagnosis, a dramatic leap from the 1970’s, when survival rates were below 60%. The V Foundation is proud to support game-changing researchers like Dr. Straehla, proving that with teamwork and innovation, we can achieve Victory Over Cancer®.
