The Keller Laboratory at cc-TDI

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Miles Alpern Levin Memorial Lectureship

We are grateful to NCI scientist, Dr. Javed Khan, who delivered the 2013 Miles Alpern Levin Memorial Lectureship today on. "The application of genomics to identify diagnostic biomarkers, drivers and therapeutic targets for pediatric cancers". The recent results of deep sequencing for alveolar and embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma from Javed's laboratory are very provocative.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Congratulations, Claire & Liz!

A very interesting review for the journal Oncogene by Summer lab members Claire and Liz has been accepted for publication. This out-of-the-box paper explores how Pharma companies might find benefit in developing treatments for rhabdomyosarcoma. This work was supported in part by the Ethan Jostad Foundation for Childhood Cancer.

Friday, March 1, 2013

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.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

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.

Monday, February 4, 2013

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?

Thursday, January 31, 2013

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.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

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.

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.