Dr. Catchpoole visits from Australia

It was an absolute pleasure to have had Dr. Daniel Catchpoole visit GCCRI from the Childhood Cancer Research Unit at the Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, Australia. Dan presented results of his studies of novel topoisomerase inhibitors that have specific efficacy in rhabdomyosarcoma. Part of this work was done in collaboration with our laboratory as well, with more studies together to come. If you have time, please visit Dan's childhood cancer tumor bank website. Dan is one of the key people across the world working to increase the access that researchers have to tumor material -- so that scientific discovery and better treatments are found more quickly.

[ above right, top:  Dan is a cave guide.  Here he is braving a very narrow passage at Jenolan Cave, Australia ]

[above right, bottom:  Dan at the Far Country Cave, Australia ]

Welcoming Dustin !

We are happy to welcome graduate student Dustin Green for a rotation in our laboratory. Dustin graduated with a MS in Biology from Louisiana Tech University where his research in the lab of Dr. Mark DeCoster utilized a novel molecular printer to spatially control glial cell line growth. Dustin’s career goal is to perform research at the forefront of translational, bench-to-bedside approaches.

Holiday Fun

It's hard to say how exactly this Halloween-related movie got composited, but it represents our lab's complete postdoctoral team. and yes, that is actually Koichi's real hair.

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 ]