Hyundai Hope on Wheels Award to Doernbecher & the PCB Program

Our research team in the Pediatric Cancer Biology Program is grateful for this opportunity to further childhood cancer research on behalf of Hope on Wheels, Hyundai and their dedicated employees.  The effect of Hope on Wheels can be tangibly seen across the nation, not only through the distinctive handprint cars, but through the innovative research that has been sponsored at so many academic hospitals and centers. 

We are honored to have this chance to do our part.
     
    

for the KATU TV story, click here .

Congratulations to Sachiko!

We are excited that Sachiko's cell and biochemical studies for IGF receptor inhibition in medulloblastoma have been accepted to Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications.  Co-authors include Tohru and Laura.   A key aspect of this study is the use of primary cell cultures maintained under neural stem cell conditions.  In general, our lab and others are trending away from the use of traditional cell cultures for medulloblastoma, especially when sonic hedgehog signaling might be important.


Again - many congratulations, Sachiko!
 
 
[ Aug 10, 2010:  the manuscript is now available online here. ]
    

News feature on Jackson's Ride the Gorge

We were honored to participate in a news piece tonight by Deb Knapp at KATU in Portland about a sarcoma fundraiser, Jackson's Ride the Gorge.  This event is conducted by the NW Sarcoma Foundation this year and past years in memory of Jackson, a young man who lost his battle with osteosarcoma.  For the online video link, see http://www.katu.com/home/video/99592974.html .  

To register for the Ride, click here. 

Scientific Presentations in Scottsdale and Princeton

It was an exciting week for the Keller laboratory, with three presentation;  1 on rhabdomyosarcoma (Charles) & 1on satellite cells (Tohru) at the FASEB Muscle Satellite and Stem Cell Conference in Carefree (Scottsdale), Arizona, and 1 on rhabdomyosarcoma (Charles) at the Molecular Therapeutics Cancer Research Association Conference at Princeton University.  All three presentations were received well, and what we hope is that more muscle stem cell biologists, and more pharmaceutical industry scientists, will become interested in rhabdomyosarcoma biology and therapy.  In there, somewhere, was a red-eye flight, but it was certainly worth the extra effort.
  
  
[  above right:  FASEB meeting with Michael Kyba (Univ of Minnesota), Charles and Andrew Brack (MGH/Harvard)  ]
[  below right:  CMTRA meeting at Princeton University  ]
  
  

Tohru's FASEB Muscle Stem Cell Talk

Congratulation to Tohru whose work in our lab on "The Role of Rb in Skeletal Muscle Stem Cell Pool Homeostasis" has been selected as platform talk for the upcoming FASEB Muscle Satellite and Stem Cell Conference in Carefree, Arizona.

Welcoming Jen

We would like to welcome Jennifer Alabran as an important staff scientist and lab manager for the Keller lab at OHSU.  Jen received a B.Sc. in Biology from Allegheny College, then went to the National Cancer Institute as a Cancer Research Training Award Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. John Letterio.  When Dr. Letterio's laboratory moved to Case Western Reserve University, Jen enrolled in graduate school and received a M.Sc. in Pathology and Cancer Biology.  From these studies, Jen is first author of the report of a synthetic trierpenoid therapeutic for neuroblastoma.  Most recently Jen has been developing a preclinical cancer model in the T cell biology laboratory of Dr. Mark Jutila.  Jen has a strong commitment to children with cancer in and out of the laboratory, and volunteers annually at camp for children with cancer in Montana.  

Welcoming Monika!

Dr Monika Davare will be joining our laboratory on September 1 as a staff scientist and as our pediatric brain tumor research projects leader.  Monika has strong research portfolio, to be sure.  In the Keller laboratory, she will lead our team investigating factors responsible for medulloblastoma progression and leptomeningeal metastasis.  We look forward to having Monika as a member of our team!

"  I received my PhD from the Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology Program at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. While in Madison, in Johannes Hell’s laboratory, I identified novel signaling complexes associated with CaV1.2 voltage gated calcium channel and demonstrated spatio-temporal regulation of the channel via associated adrenergic signaling complex. We published these data in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and in Science. In our PNAS paper we show the molecular mechanism for calcium channel upregulation that likely contributes to the calcium dysregulation in aging neurons correlated to age related neurodegeneration.

  

As a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Thomas Soderling (at the Vollum Institute, OHSU), I have characterized the novel signaling complexes associated with calcium/calmodulin regulated kinases, including CaMKK and CaMK1g and identified the role of these kinases during neuronal development, including axonogenesis, activity regulated dendrite/spine formation as well as synaptic plasticity. These data were published as primary and secondary author papers in Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Biological Chemistry, PNAS and Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience. With my extensive background in neuronal signal transduction, I am now highly motivated to focus research efforts on understanding the histogenesis and dissemination of brain tumors, particularly medulloblastoma and glioma.

  

As such with the Knight Cancer Foundation’s Career Development Award, I am exploring the role of calcium kinase signaling during medulloblastoma migration.   In the coming year, I hope to intensify and focus these efforts, casting a wider net for putative therapeutic targets in Charles Keller’s laboratory. "