Julia Glade Bender, MD cares for children, adolescents, and young adults with solid tumors, particularly neuroblastoma, sarcoma, germ cell tumors, and other rare tumors. She has special expertise in the treatment of young patients with cancers that have become resistant (refractory) to treatment or have relapsed (come back) after therapy.

Dr. Bender is attracted to the intellectual and emotional challenges of diagnosing, understanding, and treating complex illnesses. There's much to be learned about tumor biology and the growth pathways involved in cancer that can be translated into better therapies for children. Her goal is to apply the results of her clinical experience and research to improve the care of young people with cancer, using more effective therapies with fewer side effects. For most patients, standard chemotherapy using existing anticancer drugs will continue to be the best approach. But for others, there's great hope that the newer biologic and targeted therapies being developed today may have activity against childhood cancers. Dr. Bender is also intrigued by genetics and the new sequencing technologies that allow for the exploration of the differences between tumor cells and normal cells in an individual child with cancer.

At NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, Dr. Bender serves as medical director for the Precision in Pediatrics Sequencing (PIPseq) Program, which works to identify the molecular drivers of each patient's cancer and use this information to personalize his or her treatment using novel, biologically targeted investigational agents. She also directs the Developmental Therapeutics Program, which explores the safety and effectiveness of new cancer therapies in children with refractory disease through clinical trials. The center is the only pediatric oncology program in New York selected to participate in the Children's Oncology Group (COG) Phase I Consortium, a group of 21 institutions in the country designated by the National Cancer Institute to conduct Phase I pediatric clinical trials - the earliest phase of studies for patients. The Developmental Therapeutics Program also serves as a home for industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated trials supported by data generated by laboratory research partners. For patients with refractory or relapsed cancer who are not participating in clinical trials, Dr. Bender and her team work to assemble a combination of existing drugs that is customized to each patient's disease.