Duke University received another $6 million grant today from The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation — the second from the foundation since it created an institute at Duke in 2003 dedicated to researching brain tumors that afflict children.

“The grant to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation Institute at Duke from the foundation is very emblematic of their role in moving childhood brain tumor research forward in the United States and worldwide,” Dr. Darell Bigner, director of the PBTF Institute at Duke, said in a prepared statement.

Since the foundation's initial $6 million grant five years ago, scientists at Duke have focused on developing gene-based therapies, vaccines and other novel treatments for childhood brain tumors, which are the leading cause of cancer death in children and adolescents. Four out of ten children with brain tumors die within five years of diagnosis.

“Science is moving very fast now and the technology that’s available today simply wasn’t around even five years ago,” Bigner said. “We are now able to develop new therapies that not only will be effective but won’t damage the nervous systems and brains of these children. The grants from the foundation have really been the catalyst to make a lot of this work possible, not only at Duke but at the three other institutions where similar institutes are housed.”

Duke's institute is part of a larger collaborative effort. The foundation also supports three other institutes: Children's Hospital Los Angeles; the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada; and the University of California, San Francisco. The PBTF has given a total of $13 million to its three institutes since 2003.

The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Asheville, is the world’s largest non-governmental funder of childhood brain tumor research.