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Ethan White first noticed something was wrong at drum practice. A snare drummer in the University of Michigan marching band, he suddenly could no longer feel the muscles in his right hand gripping the drumstick. Weeks earlier, he had marched on the field as the Wolverines won the 2023 national football championship.
Then Ethan tripped while walking up stairs. The university’s health service suggested he see a neurologist. In March 2024, Ethan, then 20, was diagnosed with diffuse midline glioma, or D.M.G., an aggressive type of brain tumor that most commonly affects children and adolescents but can also occur in adults.
D.M.G. is the deadliest pediatric cancer. Children diagnosed with it were historically expected to survive about a year. For decades, they faced the same limited treatments and the same dismal outcomes: Radiation could temporarily slow the tumor and improve symptoms like weakness and double vision. But children inevitably died of the cancer soon after.
In the last several years, though, researchers have made significant progress in understanding D.M.G., identifying a genetic mutation underlying many cases and experimenting with therapies...