She is always available, supportive and encouraging, and provides all the help her student needs. She gives insight into the world of biobanks, which is a great help in understanding oncological diseases in children. In October, Dr. Eszter Tuboly was named Supervisor of the Month (Year 2-3) at the Centre for Translational Medicine.
Eszter Tuboly, Head of the Biobank of the Hungarian Pediatric Oncology Network, joined the CTM Ph.D. program as a supervisor three years ago. “I became involved in the Center's training when my student, Dr. Petra Varga, started her doctoral studies. She is a resident at the Heim Pál pediatric hospital, and I assist and guide her research. As a supervisor, I am very active, I participate in all meetings and discussions. I do not have my own laboratory, I am involved in data-driven research. The idea for our research topic was inspired by the fact that although childhood cancers are much more treatable than adult cancers, there are still some types with a very bad prognosis. I started thinking about how I could reform the diagnosis and prognosis of childhood cancers as a biobanker. Prognostic accuracy is crucial for improving precision therapies and thus, survival.”
Eszter Tuboly started comparing the prognostic accuracy of different prediction models used in childhood cancer with her student. They hypothesized that artificial intelligence based models already perform better than the next-generation sequencing (NGS) based scores. “We have published our meta-analysis on this topic in a D1 journal. We currently have two other projects running on this topic. One of them is to compare methods that use artificial intelligence to support the work of pediatric oncologists. In our second project, we aim to develop a predictive model based on real-world data. This prognostic model would be web-based and could be used to help clinicians around the world make therapeutic decisions. This project is still in the planning phase, we need to collect a lot of data for it, even from abroad. Being a biobanker is helping us to achieve this, because I have contacts with many biobanks around the world. Next January, I will join the professional internship program at the WHO/IARC (International Agency for Cancer Research) Biobank. I hope I will gain information from the WHO oncology experts that we can implement in our projects.”
(Emese Szabó)