Our thanks to Marathoner Jennifer Rebeles!

Our sincerest thanks go to Jenny, who ran the Las Vegas Rock & Roll Marathon on December 6 in support of the GCCRI Pediatric Preclinical Testing Program.  Jenny's family and friends provided a substantial contribution that furthers research on novel compounds that might be one day used in the treatment of childhood cancers.  Jenny is also a staff member at the GCCRI, and directing manager of our advanced instrumentation resource facility.  It is very kind of her to support our research and programs in childhood cancer research in so many ways.  Thank you, Jenny! 

[ top right:  photos from Jenny's Marathon.  We think she must have passed that person in front of her!  ]  

Sachiko Presents to the Texas Oklahoma Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium

Today Sachiko presented her work on, "The Ubiquitin-Proteasome System as a Therapeutic Target in Medulloblastoma" to the multi-institutional Texas-Oklahoma Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium.  Her presentation was well received and considered promising as an approach for a clinical trial.  The greatest value, of course, was in the multi-disciplinary exchange between clinicians, clinical researchers and basic scientists. 

Congratulations again to Sachiko on an excellent presentation.

McAfee Foundation funds Preclinical Therapeutic Study for Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma

We are grateful to the Joanna McAfee Childhood Cancer Foundation for their 2nd grant in amount of $8,538 to evaluate a novel new compound for efficacy in a genetically-engineered mouse model of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma.  This study is done as part of the Pediatric Preclinical Testing Initiative at the our institution... an effort to speed discovery of clinically-feasible agents that can be moved to clinical trials for childhood cancer.


To learn more about JMCCF, and Joanna's & her family's story, click here.

Aislynn's Study accepted for Publication

Many congratulations to Aislynn on the acceptance of her medulloblastoma study for publication.  Aislynn graduated in May 2009 with a Master's Degree, having worked in our laboratory on neurophysiological assessment of therapeutic response in our genetically-engineered mouse model of medulloblastoma.  Her paper will appear in Transgenic Research.  As always, this study involved a team effort.  Other members of the laboratory who contributed were Sachiko, Aoife, Eri (alumnist), Laura and especially Suresh.  Multi-disciplinary collaborators included Thomas Whitney and Dr. Brent Nowak (UTSA Robotics & Intelligent Machines Lab), Bill Morgan and Inkyung Jung (UTHSCSA, statistical analysis), Ai-Ling Lin and Dr. Tim Duong (Research Imaging Institute, MRI), Osamu Tagao (neuroradiology interpretations, UT Southwestern) and Dr. Brian P. Rubin (Pathology interpretations, Cleveland Clinic).  Way to go, Aislynn!

[ 01/29/2010:  Aislynn's paper is now available online. ]
  
 

Sachiko & Tohru present at AACR Brain Tumor meeting

Sachiko and Tohru recently attended the AACR special conference on the Genetics and Biology of Brain Tumors in San Diego. This conference had a high content of adult cancer research, especially glioblastoma multiforme, but also had notable pediatric brain tumor representation including that of our collaborator, Dr. Richard Gilbertson of St Jude. At the meeting Sachiko presented her work on the ubiquitin-proteasome system in medulloblastoma, and Tohru presented his work on the cell of origin of pituitary tumors.

[ above right: Tohru and Sachiko ]

Lab Holiday Lunch in Helotes

Today we had our seasonal lab holiday party at the John T. Floore Country Store in Helotes, Texas. It has been a great year, with seven peer-reviewed publications in print or in press... so needless to say - everyone has worked very hard and has a much deserved few weeks of rest ahead. We were pleased that our alumist, Dr. Aoife Kilcoyne, could come back from her Radiology residency in Ireland to join us for the lab lunch (front left in the picture). We have a lot of faith in Aoife bringing a research-oriented approach to pediatric and adult cancer one day. We also celebrated the successful Masters thesis defense of Melinda Garcia (on the right, one person back), as well as Corrine Chua who successfully defended her thesis but couldn't be with us today. And as per our tradition, we'll be making a group contribution to the local women and children's shelter.

[ not shown are lab members Sachiko Ohshima and Tohru Hosoyama, who are at an AACR Brain Tumor conference. ]

NCI Rare Cancer Workshop

Pediatric sarcoma research had good representation at the NCI Rare Cancers with High Mortality: Challenges for Cancer Prevention and Treatment workshop in Bethesda yesterday and today. This workshop of more than 200 investigators, consumer advocates, patient advocates and policy makers examined approaches that might be taken to promote the development of resources and infrastructure necessary for new therapy development (ie, biorepositories, cancer genome and epi-genome studies, mouse models, clinical trials infrastructure and patient advocacy networks. At the workshop, Charles presented a main session talk on Mouse Models, and colleagues Drs. Frederic Barr (rhabdomyosarcoma, U Penn) and Jeff Toretsky (Ewing's sarcoma, Georgetown University) were moderators for a breakout session.

[above right: Jeff, Charles and Fred]