Our thanks to the Biopathology Center!

We are grateful to the Biopathology Center, which is also the pediatric division of the Cooperative Human Tissue Network (CHTN), for the many ways in which they facilitate our research on Childhood Muscle Cancer (rhabdomyosarcoma) and Childhood Brain Tumors.  With high quality but ‘rare’ samples provided by the Biopathology Center, we have been able to publish dozens of studies.  The unique aspect of many tissues at the Biopathology Center is that samples can be cross-correlated to treatment outcome via the Biopathology Center’s other role as the Children’s Oncology Group Biorepository.  Simply put, we can tell if a potential drug target of interest is linked to survival of patients and we can prioritize our research accordingly.

    

The Biopathology Center is always also on the cutting edge of advances, including rapid yet user-friendly sharing of high resolution slides in an electronic scanned format and specialized, annotated tissue microarrays for specific diseases.  For autopsy-derived tissue, which may be the most important kind of tissue for scientists to study (see our peer-reviewed paper), the Biopathology Center has been a key strategic partner.

  

Jen presents Autopsy Barrier study results at APOSW

This year’s Association of Pediatric Oncology Social Workers topic was Exploring Sustainability: Promoting Pediatric Oncology Social Work in the Changing Healthcare Environment. 

   

12 posters were selected for the conference – during the two hours poster presentation many people stopped by and were impressed with our work and the idea of a Legacy Gift, saying that they have many patients whose family could benefit from leaving such a gift. Attendees had a lot of great questions and many asked for further information or planned to check our www.ccurefast.org website for more information on guidelines/how to’s and our handouts. Melissa Hill of the Northwest Sarcoma Foundation joined in the poster presentation of our joint work. 

Other topics of discussion/workshops were: 

  

Sustaining Ourselves: Healing Ourselves While Healing Others

The CARES Program:  Utilizing the Community to Increase Sustainability of Patients and Families

Social Skill Training For Adolescent and Young Adult Brain Tumor Survivors

Establishing Skill Sets:  Staying the Course When Faced With Pediatric End of Life Challenges

   

our thanks as always to Nancy Goodman, the inspiration for study and efforts!

Our thanks to the Faith Fulmer Foundation

We are grateful to JoLayne, Lou and the Medford community supporting the Faith Fulmer Foundation for their advocacy of our personalized therapy clinical trial project for dogs with osteosarcoma.  It is an honor to be part of Faith's rememberance.  

We are so proud of Lance

Congratulations to Lance Burrell, an undergraduate member of our rhabdomyosarcoma research team (back in the Capecchi lab days) who has graduated from Weber State University with a Master of Science in Radiological Sciences, Emphasis in Cardiology.  Lance has always been dedicated to patient care, and to have completed graduate school while working is an impressive accomplishment for Lance and his whole family.

MGH & Stanford

My thanks to hosts David Langenau at Massachusetts General Hospital and Lynn Million & Kristen Ganjoo at Stanford University, respectively, for the opportunities to present our sarcoma research to their Cancer Centers. The MGH talk highlighted exciting work by Jinu and Ken in our lab, whereas the Stanford talk highlighted separate work by Jinu and Lara.  It was a busy week of coast-to-coast travel, but well worth the scientific interactions.  The sarcoma research at each institution is superb.  

Fueling Osteosarcoma Research

Our sincere thanks to the Trey Foote Foundation and the graduating class of the International Air & Hospitality Academy in Vancouver, WA, who have raised funds for a research microscope.  This microscope will be used to study patient-derived primary tumor cell cultures from Vancouver-Portland area children, and dogs, with osteosarcoma.  The ultimate goal of this research is individualized, molecularly-targeted therapy for patients with osteosarcoma.

Trey's remarkable spirit is described here and can be seen tonight at 6:30pm PST on Portland tv station KATU.

[ Watch the KATU video here. ]

COG and AACR

The Children's Oncology Group meeting was March 27 - 30 in Minneapolis.  Presentations were given by Jinu on new targeted therapies for undifferentiated sarcomas, and an update of the DIPG preclinical consortium was given by Charles.  
  
The AACR meeting is now in progress, and beginning yesterday with the session on Modeling Pediatric Malignancy where Charles presented, "integrative biology of rhabdomysarcoma
using genetic murine models" and attended the Pediatric Preclinical Testing Program working meeting.  The Pediatric Cancer Town Hall meeting is tonight.  
  
A key new presentation from the Raabe lab is tomorrow, "High-level activation of the Notch pathway in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma" by Hutt et al (A Johns Hopkins - NCI consortium).  Also presented by Dr. Ian Pollack are the promising early results of a DIPG vaccine trial (caveats not withstanding).