Brain Tumor Awareness Month: Why We Go Gray in May

Brain Tumor Awareness Month: Why We Go Gray in May

Each May, Brain Tumor Awareness Month brings attention to the patients, families, clinicians, researchers, and advocates confronting one of medicine's most challenging diagnoses.

What Is Brain Tumor Awareness Month?

Brain Tumor Awareness Month is observed each May to raise awareness for people affected by brain tumors and to support continued progress in brain tumor research, diagnosis, treatment, and patient care. The gray ribbon is the national symbol of brain tumor awareness.

Why We Go Gray in May

Going gray in May is a way to recognize patients and families living with brain tumors, honor those lost to the disease, and support the clinicians and scientists working toward better treatments. At Pitt Neurosurgery, that recognition reflects work that continues every day of the year.

Our Brain Tumor Program is one of the largest clinical and most productive basic and translational brain and spine tumor programs in the country, led by Costas Hadjipanayis, MD, PhD; Kalil G. Abdullah, MD; James Bayley, MD; and Pascal Zinn, MD, PhD. Together with neuro-oncology, radiation oncology, neuroradiology, and neuropathology colleagues at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, our team cares for more than 500 new brain tumor patients each year, translating lessons from every operating room into the next generation of therapies.

Brain Tumor Symptoms That Should Prompt Medical Evaluation

Brain tumor symptoms vary depending on tumor type, size, and location. New or worsening headaches, seizures, weakness, numbness, vision changes, speech difficulty, confusion, balance problems, personality changes, or persistent nausea and vomiting should be discussed with a medical professional, especially when symptoms are progressive or unexplained.

These symptoms do not always mean someone has a brain tumor, but they can signal a neurological problem that deserves evaluation. Brain Tumor Awareness Month is an opportunity to encourage timely care, support patients and families, and advance research into better treatment options.

Surgery You Can See, and Tumors You Couldn't Before

Glioblastoma and other malignant gliomas don't end at the visible tumor edge. Their invasive cells slip into healthy-looking brain, which is why "complete" resections so often aren't. Pitt Neurosurgery has spent more than a decade narrowing that gap.

In 2011, Dr. Hadjipanayis became the first surgeon in the United States to use the imaging agent 5-ALA (Gleolan) to perform fluorescence-guided surgery, helping the tumor itself glow pink under blue light while normal brain stays dark. He went on to lead the U.S. effort that earned FDA approval of Gleolan for glioma surgery in 2017. Today, our surgeons routinely pair 5-ALA with a voice-controlled robotic exoscope, first used for a brain tumor at UPMC Presbyterian in 2023, to bring high-definition, magnified visualization into reach for the entire surgical team.

For tumors deep in eloquent or "inaccessible" regions, our Complex Brain Surgery Program uses High-Definition Fiber Tractography (HDFT), a Pitt-developed advanced MRI technique, to map the brain's white matter highways before a single incision is made. The result: safer corridors into deep, limbic, intraventricular, thalamic, and brainstem lesions that have historically been deemed too high-risk for surgery.

Trials That Bring Tomorrow's Therapies to Patients Today

For most patients with glioblastoma, the standard of care still falls short. That is why the Brain Tumor Program runs an active clinical trials portfolio that is unusually broad for any single institution.

Our Pediatric Neurosurgery ImmunoOncology Lab, led by Gary Kohanbash, PhD, has also received approval to lead a novel clinical trial for patients with recurrent glioblastoma. A new multicenter pediatric trial for fluorescence-guided detection of pediatric brain tumors will also launch this year.

Discovery That Drives the Next Generation of Treatments

Behind every clinical trial is years of laboratory science. Our brain tumor research enterprise spans both adult and pediatric disease, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Walter L. Copeland Fund, and private foundations.

Sameer Agnihotri, PhD, directs the Brain Tumor Biology and Therapy Laboratory, focused on adult and pediatric high-grade gliomas and the rare, devastating childhood cancer DIPG. Baoli Hu, PhD, leads the Laboratory of Brain Tumor Evolution & Therapy, which studies the genetic and epigenetic events that drive how tumors change over time. At UPMC Hillman, the Brain Tumor Nanotechnology Lab under Dr. Hadjipanayis is testing nanoparticle constructs for targeted imaging and a new approach called magnetic hyperthermia therapy, using nanoparticles and magnetic fields to heat and destroy glioblastoma cells. Cody Nesvick, MD, recently launched the Laboratory of Applied Epigenomics at UPMC Children's Hospital, focused on atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor (ATRT) and other deadly pediatric cancers.

A New Target for an Untreatable Childhood Brain Tumor

One of the year's most striking advances in pediatric brain tumor biology came from a study published in Nature in March 2026, co-led by Antony Michealraj, PhD, assistant professor of neurological surgery at Pitt and director of the Brain Tumor Metabolism and Functional Genomics Lab. Working with collaborators at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital, and McGill University, Dr. Michealraj's team set out to answer a question that has stumped researchers for decades: what drives posterior fossa type A (PFA) ependymoma, an aggressive brain tumor of infants and young children that is far more common in boys than in girls and that lacks the genetic mutations typically seen in cancer?

The answer, the team found, is hormonal. Androgen signaling during early brain development keeps cells in the hindbrain, where PFA ependymomas arise, in a less-developed, growth-prone state, enriching the very population of cells that can later give rise to tumor. In laboratory and animal models, androgen supplementation accelerated PFA ependymoma growth, while androgen blockade reduced both tumor proliferation and the stem-like properties that make these cancers so difficult to treat. Critically, the same effect was not seen in other brain tumors, pointing to a specific vulnerability in PFA biology.

For a disease that has had essentially no targeted therapy, the implication is direct: anti-androgen drugs, several of which are already FDA-approved for other indications, may represent a rational treatment strategy. Because androgens are present in patients of both sexes, the approach could potentially benefit all children with PFA ependymoma. The findings open a new clinical avenue for one of pediatric neuro-oncology's most stubborn challenges, and they exemplify the kind of mechanism-first science that defines our pediatric brain tumor research program.

Tailoring Treatment to Each Patient's Tumor

Among the program's most patient-specific research efforts is the work of Pascal Zinn, MD, PhD, director of the Adult Neurosurgical Oncology Program at Pitt. At his lab at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, Dr. Zinn's team grows patient-derived brain organoids: miniature, living "avatars" of each patient's own tumor, used to study how that specific tumor behaves and to test how it might be treated before any therapy reaches the patient. The same lab is also developing personalized, biologically-adaptable virus-based therapies for brain cancer, with the goal of matching the treatment to the tumor rather than the average.

The clinical practice that complements this research is just as patient-tailored. Dr. Zinn specializes in awake brain surgery for tumors in eloquent regions, stereotactic radiosurgery, and laser ablation therapy for brain tumors. He trained in tumor biology and neurosurgical oncology at Dana-Farber/Harvard and MD Anderson Cancer Center before joining Pitt in 2019.

Care That Treats the Whole Person

A brain tumor diagnosis upends more than a body. Our patients have access to a weekly multidisciplinary neuro-oncology tumor board, where neurosurgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, neuroradiologists, and pathologists review each case together, alongside care navigators, social workers, and dietitians who help families manage the stretch of life beyond the operating room. The Center for Image-Guided Neurosurgery (CIGNS), directed by Dr. Hadjipanayis, brings additional minimally invasive options into that continuum: stereotactic radiosurgery via Gamma Knife, MRI-guided focused ultrasound, laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT), and magnetoencephalography for functional brain mapping before surgery.