Congratulations, Mat!

Mat's manuscript on head & neck pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma was accepted today to Frontiers in Oncology, Pediatric Oncology. Co-authors include lab alumni Jinu and GH.  This work was supported in part by the Ethan Jostad Foundation.  stay tuned for the e-release of the paper!
  
[ 03/19/2015 update:  Mat's article is now published online here ]

Be a Dog's Best Friend

Can finding new treatments for dogs with soft tissue sarcomas also help develop new drugs for children and adults with soft tissue sarcomas?  This possibility is raised by today's publication by collaborator Milan Milovance entitled, Comparative Pathology of Canine Soft Tissue Sarcomas: Possible Models of Human Non-rhabdomyosarcoma Soft Tissue Sarcoma.  Co-authors of this study include Charles, as well as long time collaborator adult sarcoma pathologist, Atiya Mansoor.  [ pictured: undifferentiated sarcoma (also called UPS, or MFH) in dog and human ]  

Muscle Differentiation as Rhabdomyosarcoma Therapy

Matthew from our lab wrote this commentary in Cancer Cell, which frames the question of how soon myo-differentiation therapy will be feasible for childhood muscle cancer.  The commentary discusses the article here.  Graphic illustration by Nick Escobar. 

congratulations, Jinu!

[07/14/14]  The article, Lineage of origin in rhabdomyosarcoma informs pharmacological response, is now available here.  
   
[06/03/14]  Congratulations to Jinu whose paper was recently accepted for publication to Genes & Development.  This work was funded in part by NIH as well as the Scott Carter Foundation.  Clinical translation is hopefully possible, and thus additional preclinical studies with cooperative group and pharmaceutical partners are in discussion.  We are grateful to all our collaborators, especially Atiya Mansoor (OHSU), Joel Michalek and Ben Ehler and Monica Suelves (IMPPC).  

Congratulations, Noah!

Congratulations to Noah, visiting engineering student from the Pal laboratory, whose manuscript, "An integrated approach to anti-cancer drug sensitivity prediction" is now published in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics.  

Imran's paper published in PNAS

Many congratulations to Imran for his publication, PDGFRβ reverses EphB4 signaling in alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.  This study was a collaboration of the Tyner, Druker and Keller laboratories - highlighting some key growth factor receptor targets in this disease.  This study was funded in part by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Cancer Institute, and the Joanna McAfee Childhood Cancer Foundation.       

Ken's paper highlighted in Nature Reviews Cancer!

Please see the February 2014 Nature Reviews Cancer for a Research Highlight of Ken's paper that appeared last month in PLoS Genetics.  The highlight written by written by NRC chief editor, Nicola McCarthy, is entitled "Flexibility could be important".  

Nanocourse publication

Congratulations to the 2012 Participants of the OHSU Pediatric Cancer Nanocourse whose peer-reviewed commentary, "A Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma Roadmap: Guiding Research Toward a Cure" is published in the journal, Pediatric Blood & Cancer.  
  
It should be emphasized that this scholarly work is that of members of the community: parents, survivors and students.  We are grateful to have been able to work with this talented and insightful group of individuals.  

Tumor Cells in a Hurry: Duct Tape will do!

In alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, 70-75% of tumors carry the Pax3:Foxo1a oncogene.  This oncogene seems to account for a large difference in the response to chemotherapy and radiation relative to rhabdomyosarcomas that do not carry this fusion gene.  

  

In a report just released in PLoS Genetics, Ken from our lab reports that Pax3:Foxo1a levels fluctuate during tumor cell replication, and that a primary function of Pax3:Foxo1a seems to be “checkpoint adaptation” – the process of giving the cell permission to continue cell division despite damage from therapy… with the hopes that this damage can be later repaired, simply tolerated – or may offer an advantage to the tumor cell as a result of newly gained mutations/properties. The paper is freely available online at:  http://www.plosgenetics.org/doi/pgen.1004107. 

Congratulations, Ken!

Ken's recent paper on a fascinating and clinically-relevant aspect of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma biology has just been accepted to PLoS Genetics. Co-authors included lab alumnist Imran Aslam (now a medicine resident at Johns Hopkins), OHSU collaborator Wolfram Laub, UTHSCSA collaborator Joel Michalek, Harvard collaborators Simone Hettmer and Amy Wagers, JHMI collaborators David Loeb and Bree Wilky and Cleveland Clinic collaborator Brian Rubin.

This is Ken's 8th paper (and 6th first author paper) from his 2 year postdoctoral fellowship in our lab (with one additional first author manuscript soon to be submitted). Amazing productivity for Ken, who is now faculty at Uji Takeda Hospital and Kyoto Prefectural University.
 
The study above was made possible by funding from the NCI.

Congratulations, Ken and Eri!

Eri & Ken's co-first author study of the role of the retinoblastoma gene in rhabdomyosarcoma has been accepted to the journal, Skeletal Muscle.  Co-authors include lab members Noah, Jinu and Matthew; lab alumni Olivia, Elaine and Koichi; as well as collaborators Ayeza & Atiya (OHSU Pathology), Sherrie (Univ of Utah), Paul & Sean (NCI), Harry, Lee Ann Chris, Yidong and Joel (UTHSCSA), Brian (Cleveland Clinic) and Monica (IMPPC, Barcelona).

  

This work was made possible by a gift from the Nylund estate and fellow funding to Jinu and Koichi by the Scott Carter Foundation.

[update 11/25/2013:  the manuscript Rb1 loss modifies but does not initiate alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma is now available online here.]

Fish & Rhabdo

Congratulations to our MGH collaborators, Eleanor & Dave, on their embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma gene discovery study just published in PLoS Genetics.  A takehome of this study is that genetic models such as zebrafish may have different modes of gene amplification, but cross-species comparisons help filter out the key factors rather readily. 

Congratulations, Imran & Simone!

Imran and Simone's study on the curious, ectopic behavior of surface growth factor receptors has been accepted for publication in Molecular Cancer Research.  Co-authors include lab member Jinu, lab alumni Elaine and Anu, Druker lab collaborators Dorian and Jeff, Wager lab members Simone, Shuyu and Amy, and statisticians Martin and Joel.  
  
These studies were funded in part by the Ethan Jostad Foundation for Childhood Cancer and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  
  
To see the Online First publication. click here. 

Congratulations, Noah!

Congratulations to Noah, whose 'personalized cancer math' paper is now published in BMC Bioinformatics. Co-authors include Keller lab member Lara, Colorado State University collaborator Bernard Seguin.  The study was anchored by senior author Ranadip Pal at Texas Tech University.  

GH's paper accepted to Stem Cells

Congratulations to lab alumnist, Guangheng, whose paper on rhabdomyosarcoma - satellite cell (muscle stem cell) interactions has been accepted for publication in StemCells.  Co-authors include lab members Ken and Megan, lab alumnist Ken, and long time collaborator Brian Rubin at the Cleveland Clinic.  Our sincere thanks to Matthew for his technical assistance on these studies. 
  
For this project, GH was supported by a fellowship from the Scott Carter Foundation and study reagents were made possible by support of the Patrick M. Callahan Memorial Fund.    
  
[07/30/2013:  The manuscript entitled, "IL-4 receptor blockade abrogates satellite cell - rhabdomyosarcoma fusion and prevents tumor establishment", is now available online. ]    

epub now available: review of rhabdomyosarcoma differentiation

a review by collaborator Denis Guttridge and our lab addressing approaches to cellular differentiation in rhabdomyosarcoma now appear in the FEBS Journal. 

cancer math (for personalized medicine)

Many congratulations to Noah, a graduate student in the laboratory of our collaborator, Dr. Ranadip Pal, on his recently accepted paper in BMC Bioinformatics.  This paper builds upon the laboratory-based and computational pipeline for solid tumor combination therapy we are studying for dogs (and eventually, humans) with sarcomas.  Noah's paper is the successor to his original published study, Pubmed ID 22174290. 

  

Co-authoring the study is veterinary surgical oncologist Dr. Bernard Seguin at the Flint Animal Cancer Center, Colorado State University. 

Congratulations, Ken!

Ken's paper on sclerosing rhabdomyosarcoma is accepted for publication.  This paper entitled, "MDM2 Amplification and PI3KCA mutation in a Case of Sclerosing Rhabdomyosarcoma" is now available online here.  Co-authors include Dr. Atiya Mansoor, an expert on sarcoma pathology.  We thank Jonathan Hart and Peter Vogt for key reagents for these studies.  We also thank the patient and his family who made this Legacy Gift possible.

Congratulations, Mumtaz!

Congratulations to collaborator Mumtaz Yaseen in the laboratory of Dr. Denis Guttridge whose exciting work on sarcoma biology has recently been accepted to Science Signaling.

Congratulations, Stefano!

Congratulations to Stefano Biressi in the Rando laboratory at Stanford on a fabulous lineage study of muscle progenitors accepted by the journal, Developmental Biology.  This paper is entitled, "Myf5 expression during fetal myogenesis defines the developmental progenitors of adult satellite cells" and is available online here.  Co-authors from our lab include alumni member, Koichi Nishijo.