When she is not in the lab, you might find Capucine Van Rechem playing the little-known sport of underwater hockey. She says it requires a lot of the same teamwork skills she uses while searching for a cure for DIPG, an incurable form of pediatric brain cancer.

After emigrating from Taiwan at the age of 12, Clark Chen chose his first name based on his admiration of Superman. Now he uses his superpowers to fight for those battling brain cancer.

Dissatisfied with the tools and techniques used to examine what happens inside the brain, Mikhail Shapiro, a professor of chemical engineering, set out to create the tools. Mikhail’s lab is combining techniques like ultrasound that can penetrate into the brain with molecular and cellular engineering to bring new technologies to the field.

As a preschooler in rural Ohio, Kyle Walsh was aware that Amish students were overrepresented in his school’s classrooms for the developmentally handicapped. Curious why, his mother, explained: “It’s genetics, sweetie.” Kyle left preschool convinced that he needed to learn about this “genetics” stuff. He now applies population genetics to understand the origins of cancer-associated gene mutation.

Paul Northcott was an All-Star baseball player in high school and a collegiate scholarship athlete. He uses the same focus and drive to eradicate medulloblastoma, one of the leading causes of cancer-related death in children.