The Keller Laboratory at cc-TDI

Monday, June 9, 2014

Welcoming Renae!

We are excited to have on our team Renae, a Summer student investigating EphB4 and EphrinB2 in childhood cancers.

"I will be starting my second year at Pacific University in the Fall where I am studying biology and will graduate in 2016. After graduating I hope to enroll in a MD/MS program in the hope that it will allow me to build a future career working both in the lab and with patients. I became interested in pediatric oncology in high school and am grateful to now have the opportunity to be working in a lab that is so focused on discovering new and better treatments and hope to do the same in the future."

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Our thanks to the KMGF

The Kyla McCullough Gift Fund graciously provided funds to purchase a very useful new instrument - a multiwell electroporator. We are grateful to Kyla's family and the KMGF community of supporters for making this possible. It really accelerates what we do - and expands the kinds of experiments that can be performed!

lemon wishes

we are grateful that the ALSF and its supporters have shared with us some of the 'lemon wishes'. For the ALSF Spring newsletter, click here.

Friday, May 16, 2014

Banbury Conference on Rhabdomyosarcoma

This past week the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory held a special Banbury Conference to critically examine scientific and translational progress in rhabdomyosarcoma. Through the kind sponsorship of members of the community, an international group of clinicians, cancer scientists and muscle biologists met to discuss driving clinical & biological problems in pediatric, adolescent and young adult rhabdomyosarcoma. From this meeting will come a "white paper" describing prioritizes areas for further development - and collaborative opportunities. We are grateful to the CSHL Banbury staff, as well as the CSHL leadership, for making this very unique meeting possible.

Monday, May 12, 2014

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.

Monday, April 14, 2014

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.

Friday, April 4, 2014

COG Spring meeting

The Fall COG meeting was held in St Louis this past week. The soft tissue sarcoma session, and corresponding Ewing's-Rhabdomyosarcoma Biology session, were very productive.

You Can Participate in our Novel Therapeutics Studies !

One would like to think that tangibly better treatments for rhabdomyosarcoma, medulloblastoma and other childhood cancers can be found in a matter of years, instead of tens of years. Finding new treatments starts with research, perhaps even a new research approach to identifying effective new treatments. The Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute focuses on finding molecules in childhood cancers that can be directly turned off or on by drugs so that the tumor stops growing. Behind our novel approach is the use of genetically-engineered mice. Our Pediatric Preclinical Testing Initiative uses mice modified from before birth so that at a certain age, and in a certain tissue, the same mutations found in a child’s cancer are activated in the mouse. These special mouse models of childhood cancer can be used to test a treatment to see whether the tumor growth and spread (metastasis) can be reversed. The specific aspect of these mice having normal immune systems is a real plus, too, because white blood cells play an important role in how tumors evolve and respond to therapy.

Our program is designed around community participation. Through the Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute, you can contribute directly to this grass-roots initiative. Donations through small gifts or grants will assist in studying compounds that may be effective in treating such childhood cancers as alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, or medulloblastoma (the alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma model was featured by Dr. Keller's long time collaborator and former mentor, 2007 Nobel laureate Mario Capecchi, in his Nobel Prize lecture {see 16 minutes onward}.)

For additional information regarding supporting this program please contact Charles Keller at charles@cc-tdi.org. Results obtained through these studies will be shared with the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program, as well as the Children’s Oncology Group, which designs clinical trials for childhood cancer.