Cancer and the Brain with Michelle Monje

Science & Cocktails is proud to welcome neuroscientist Michelle Monje, professor of neurology at Stanford University and recipient of the 2025 Brain Prize for her groundbreaking work at the intersection of neuroscience and cancer. In this talk, organised with the support of the Lundbeck Foundation and the Brain Prize, she shares how recent discoveries are reshaping our understanding of some of the most aggressive and difficult-to-treat brain tumors. 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. Michelle Monje, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Neurology at Stanford University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She received her M.D. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford and completed her residency training in neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School Partners program, and then returned to Stanford for a clinical fellowship in pediatric neuro-oncology. Her research program focuses at the intersection of neuroscience, immunology and brain cancer biology with an emphasis on neuron-glial interactions in health and oncological disease. Her laboratory studies how neuronal activity regulates healthy glial precursor cell proliferation, new oligodendrocyte generation, and adaptive myelination; this plasticity of myelin contributes to healthy cognitive function, while disruption of myelin plasticity contributes to cognitive impairment in disease states like cancer therapy-related cognitive impairment. Her lab discovered that neuronal activity similarly promotes the progression of malignant gliomas, driving glioma growth through both paracrine factors and through electrophysiologically functional neuron-to-glioma synapses. Dr. Monje has led several of her discoveries from basic molecular work to clinical trials. Her work has been recognized with numerous honors, including an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Richard Lounsbery Award from the National Academy of Sciences and election to the National Academy of Medicine. For more science visit: • Website: https://www.scienceandcocktails.org • LinkedIn:   / science-&-cocktails   • Facebook:   / scienceandcocktailscph   • Youtube:    / sciencecocktails   • Instagram:   / scienceandcocktailsglobal