Hunter (lab alumnist) travels to Copenhagen

As a workstudy student, Hunter was a valuable member of our laboratory this past year, especially where we were interfacing biology, engineering and bioinformatics. Having recently graduated from UTSA, he naturally headed oversees to get a broader world view. Of course, we're sure his next step should be graduate school - although that would be a loss to the music field, Hunter's other passion.

Scientific Exchange with Mayo Clinic Jacksonville

We are grateful to Dr. Al Copland and colleagues for the opportunity to share our work on Overcoming Resistance to RTK Inhibitors in Rhabdomyosarcoma with the outstanding group of 8 faculty in the Cancer Basic Science Research program at Mayo Clinic - Jacksonville. This group of highly accomplished scientists has, in a short number of years, created a highly synergistic and productive research unit with some of the most interesting work in cell & molecular signaling and tumor microenvironment work in cancer research. Charles is especially appreciative of his colleague, Al, for this invitation to present our work and share ideas on addressing key issues in rare (and sometimes not so rare) cancers.

[ above right: Charles & Al ]

Student Alumnist Grant Chen at UCSF

It is exciting to see that our past 2007 Summer Student intern, Grant Chen, is doing well now as a medical student on a sabbatical research year at UCSF conducting modeling of stroke and arterio-venous malformations (in mouse models). We are proud that Grant is following in the physician-scientist tradition!

[above right: Grant and his fiance ]

Medulloblastoma studies presented at PBTF Conference

Sachiko and Charles were excited to have presented our work, "Bortezomib inhibits Progression in Medulloblastoma" at the Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Basic & Translational Research Conference in Ashville, NC. This conference was jointly sponsored by the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation and the Society of NeuroOncology. We are grateful for this opportunity to have presented our work (our medulloblastoma model development was originally developed with a grant from the PBTF), and to exchange ideas with the other thought leaders in the field of childhood brain tumor research.

[above right: Sachiko with Dianne Traynor, Director of Research Funding and Advocacy of the PBTF ]

Welcoming Xiaolan

We are excited to have Dr. Xiaolan Yi join our team as a research scientist. Xiaolan graduated from Hunan Medical University and worked as a physician for many years before coming to the U.S. to do research in 2000. Most recently Xiaolan was a valued member of the neuroscience laboratory of Dr. Lori Redmond in the Department of Pharmacology at the Medical College of Georgia. Xiaolan is interested in research that bridges clinical medicine and basic biomedical science... a great fit for our laboratory. Welcome, Xiaolan!

Childhood Cancer Research presented at Millennium Pharmaceuticals

Sachiko and Charles were privileged to be able to present our basic and therapeutic research at the R&D Grand Rounds at Millennium Pharmaceuticals this week. In our presentation, "Pediatric Tumors and the Millennium Pipeline" we were able to have a bidirectional dialogue on how drugs developed for adult cancer could be used to improve the treatment of cancer in children. We are grateful for the warm reception and genuinely insightful comments made by Millennium scientists.

[above right: Sachiko and Charles with Dr. Owen Lockerbie, Medical Science Liason - Oncology at Millennium Pharmaceuticals ]

Congratulations Again, Suresh !

Our biomedical engineer team member, Suresh, seems to be on a roll this year. Today we received notice that his paper on the crimson carrier contrast agent for studying muscle injury & regeneration, as well as muscle cancer, has been accepted to Muscle and Nerve. Many thanks to co-author collaborators Carlo Martinez, Joel Michalek, Linda McManus, Brian Rubin and Paula Shireman, as well as Keller lab members Jinu Abraham and Mandy McCleish (emeritus).

It is worth noting that this is Suresh's 6th paper accepted or published in the last year, and his 3rd first-author paper in the same period. In addition, Suresh also has one other co-authored paper in review as well as a mature draft of another first-author paper in preparation. Congratulations, Suresh, your hard work is paying off.