Our thanks to the Ethan Jostad Foundation

We are grateful to partner with the Ethan Jostad Foundation for Childhood Cancer in the search for treatments of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma.  This foundation has both patient/family assistance and research as the center of their mission.  We are thankful for the gift of $11,400 that supports the preclinical studies of a specific new agent potentially capable of stopping tumor cell spreading (metastasis).  These studies will specifically employ our genetically-engineered mouse model of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma.  We are honored to be part of Ethan's rememberance.     
  

[ pictured:  Guangheng Li and Charles Keller (left) with Chris and Kim Jostad (right) ]  

Graphics Volunteer Needed

We are hoping to work with a volunteer in the community with graphic arts/communication experience.  The project is about 6 weeks long and may take 8-12 hours a week.  If you have time and interest, please contact Charles at keller (at) ohsu.edu.   with thanks, the Keller Lab team

Congratulations, Ken and Anu!

Congratulations to authors Ken and Anu whose manuscript describing the role of Protein Kinase C iota in rhabdomyosarcoma was accepted today to the journal, Oncogene.  Co-authors include lab alumni Laura and Sheila, UTHSCSA biostatistics collaborators Joel Michalek and Lee Ann Zarzabal, Mayo PKC biology collaborators Capella Weems and Alan Fields, and long-time sarcoma pathologist collaborator Brian Rubin at Cleveland Clinic.  This work was supported by by NIH/NCI grant 1R01CA133229-04 and -05 awarded to the Keller lab and NIH/NCI grant 4R01CA081436-13 and the V Foundation for Cancer Research awarded to Dr. Fields.  
  
For a full list of KellerLab & collaborator publications in the last year and beyond, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/collections/public/10calZ-r8sAIil6mkZzynGqAV/?sort=date&direction=descending .
   
[ 2/22/2012:  Ken's article, Protein kinase C iota as a therapeutic target in alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, is now online here.

Congratulations, Anu!

(01/13/12):  Article entitled, "(18) F-FDG microPET imaging detects early transient response to an IGF1R inhibitor in genetically engineered rhabdomyosarcoma models" is now online here as PMID 22238194.  


(12/17/11)  Many congratulations to lab alumni, Anu, on her study from our lab of PET scan monitoring of targeted therapy responses in alveolar & embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, which has been accepted for publication in Pediatric Blood & Cancer.  Co-authors include current lab member Jinu, lab alumni Laura & Suresh, and collaborators Lee Ann Zarzabel & Joel Michalek (UTHSCSA), Stan McHardy (SWRI), Doug Hawkins (Seattle Children's Hospital) and Suman Malempati (OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital).  
  

JMCCF funds Rhabdomyosarcoma Research

We are grateful to the Joanna McAfee Childhood Cancer Foundation for our new 2012 research grant of $12,000 for the project, "60 by 60: Finding the Very Best Targeted Therapy Combination for Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma".  JMCCF is a very important organization not only for funding research, but also for supporting families of childhood cancer patients in central Georgia and beyond. 
  
We are thankful to our long term partners at JMCCF for allowing us to be part of their mission. 
    

Welcoming Amy!

We are pleased to Amy Paul join our laboratory as a new intern in pediatric oncology translational research. Amy is a recent graduate of the OHSU School of Nursing and will be functioning in important roles for our childhood tumor bank & registry as well as a canine personalized sarcoma therapy trial.  
  
in her own words:

"My interest in working in pediatric oncology first arose in 2008 when I spent my first summer during nursing school as a volunteer camp counselor at a camp for children with cancer. For 8 days, I bonded with 18 middle-school aged girls all affected by cancer in some way either as a patient, survivor or as a sibling, I then realized that this was my hearts calling in life as a Registered Nurse and community advocate for cancer. I then started training for a marathon with a local chapter of Team in Training for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society where I recognized and learned the growing importance for cancer research, which deepened my hearts desire to expand my participation in this field of medicine. The ability to directly work with the children and families at Doernbecher's (Children's Hospital) as well in the research lab is an incredible opportunity that will only add to my knowledge and experience in my future nursing practice as I aspire to be a pediatric oncology nurse."

  

We're excited for Amy to be part of our team and look forward to furthering her career!  

Sincere thanks to ABC2 and CureSearch !

In an incerdible development, ABC2 and CureSearch for Children's Cancer have jointly funded a supplement to the our international collaboration entitled, "Rapid Preclinical Development of a Targeted Therapy Combination for DIPG".  The two new sponsor partners provide $76,000 and $25,000, respectively, for a total of $101,000.  Their new supplement will allow us to exon sequencing of all 16 cell lines, their primary tumor and paired normal DNA via the laboratory of Dr. Paul Spellman (OHSU; see his recent functional genomics paper here). From this data we will prioritize combination drug testing on the most clinically ‘representative’ samples (i.e., samples that have classical DIPG findings which are in order: c‐MET amplification, p53 deletion, PDGFRA amplification, IGF1R/IGF2 amplification, CDK4/CDK6 gain or Shh pathway mutation, EGFR amplification or KRAS/NRAS mutation) or cell lines that are most similar overall to one another (i.e., not outliers).
 
This project is more fully described here and here. This study was originally made possible by a $100,000 grant from TheCureStartsNow. An additional $28,000 supplement from The Lyla Nsouli Foundation for Children’s Brain Cancer Research further allowed our project to expand to the 2 participating European collaborators.  The new $101,000 from  ABC2 and CureSearch for Children's Cancer adds significant new scope to this endeavor.  The interesting aspect is that a large part of the new scope was envisioned by our ABC2 partner's scientific advisory board - an example of the value of scientific and strategic partnership.