Dr Taylor is the director of the Neuro-oncology Research Program at Texas Children’s Hospital. He was previously working as a paediatric neurosurgeon and senior scientist at University of Toronto affiliated Hospital for Sick Children. His research centres on the molecular genetics of medulloblastoma and ependymoma, two of the most common malignant paediatric brain
tumours. He has published over 375 peer-reviewed publications, many in high-impact journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Cancer Cell, and Lancet Oncology. His publications have been cited over 45,000 times and his findings adopted to improve clinical practice. His group demonstrated that medulloblastoma is comprised of at least four distinct diseases and that there is clinically significant heterogeneity in metastatic medulloblastomas. His team recently showed that cerebellar tumours are a disorder of early brain development, that CAR-T-cells are an effective pre-clinical treatment for Group 3 medulloblastoma and PFA ependymomas and that PFA ependymomas have a unique metabolic program which leads to a phenotype that appears to be unique among mammalian cells. Michael is collaborating with the CRUK-CBTCE on several projects and is a part of the international New Roads Team for Innovative Approaches to Curing Brain Tumours as well as The Virtual Child proposal to lead a revolution in the way the world studies and treats childhood solid tumours.
