visits to Mt Sinai, Dana Farber

We are grateful to our hosts at the Department of Oncological Sciences at Mt. Sinai as well as at the Department of Pediatric Oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute for the opportunity to present our laboratory team's research on rhabdomyosarcoma.  Featured were the studies of Ken, Jinu and Imran.  

NCI funds sarcoma study

We are excited to be part of the program project NF-kB Regulated Metabolic Shifts in Childhood Sarcomas directed by Dr. Peter Houghton at Nationwide Children's Hospital and newly funded by NIH/NCI.  The studies within the project led by Dr. Denis Guttridge in which we will participate will investigate the NFkB signaling pathway in rhabdomyosarcoma.  

Dupont creates new opportunities

The recent change in policy by Dupont with regard to the Oncomouse patent opens the door to academic-pharma collaboration.  It may also be possible to streamline development of novel drug testing by creating a non-profit company or organization for this specific purpose.  Rhabdomyosarcoma, Inc?  Would members of the community have interest in such an endeavor?  

Congratulations to Lara, Nicolle and GH

Congratulations to Lara, Nicolle and GH on their recent manuscript acceptance to Pediatric Blood & Cancer.  In this study, Lara & Nicolle describe a first-approach to canine osteosarcoma (as a model for human osteosarcoma).  Co-authors include Colorado State faculty Bernard Seguin, Oregon State University faculty Shay Bracha, Stuart Hefland, John Mata and Kevin Marley, Druker laboratory members Marc Loriaux and Jeff Tyner, Keller lab alumnist Elaine, and current Keller lab member Jinu.  This work, some of our earliest on canine osteosarcoma, was supported to a great extent by the Scott Carter Foundation and the Thrasher Research Fund.  
  
This study is now available online here and is the cover article of the print version issue.  

Lara's video interview for Damon Runyon Foundation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4ax5y8YlO0&sns=em

We are very proud that Lara is a Damon Runyon-Sohn Fellow.  The Foundation interviewed its fellows recently, and the interview of Lara describing her project can be seen here.  A critical part of Lara's project is a computational approach to determining targeted drug combinations, which is made possible through the innovation of our collaborators, Ranadip Pal and Noah Berlow.  
  
Lara is very passionate about finding new treatments for even the most challenging individual cases of osteosarcoma in pediatric, adolescent and young adults.  It means a lot to have her on our team.  
  

Welcoming Mathew

We are fortunate to have a new physician(surgeon)-scientist training in our laboratory, Dr. Mathew Geltzeiler.  Mathew Geltzeiler first visited Oregon in high school when he descended Mt. Hood for ski race training during the summers.  He then studied neuroscience at Brown University and medicine at Boston University during which time he had numerous publications in clinical prostate cancer research. He is currently a third year resident in Head and Neck Surgery at OHSU.  He has an interest in Head and Neck Oncology and applications of Personalized Cancer Care (his 6 month residency research project in the lab).  In his free time, he continues to ski at Mt. Hood as well avidly hike, camp and photograph nature.

Technology Transfer Achievement Award

Our laboratory is grateful to the OHSU Technology Transfer and Business Development Office for the award of the 2012 Technology Transfer Achievement Award.  It is actually the other way around... the staff at the TTBDO that deserve the award!  The team of Travis Cook, Ruth Epling and (especially) Tommy Pham make possible relationships with businesses and pharmaceutical makers that open new avenues of exploration in the mission to create tangible new therapies for childhood cancer.  This is a unique group of professionals... they are advocates of the children and families touched by these cancers, and this team is integral to our research program.  We thank Tommy, Ruth and Travis for all that they do.