Children's Cause Cancer Advocacy and Survivorship

Exciting news comes from the CCCA for the quality of life for childhood cancer survivors! The excerpt below comes directly from the CCCA's recent news feed, click here to read more.

CCCA Supports Introduction of Childhood Cancer Survivorship Legislation

On September 22, 2011, Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Representatives Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Michael McCaul (R-TX) introduced bipartisan legislation to improve the care and quality of life of childhood cancer survivors. The Pediatric, Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivorship Research and Quality of Life Act of 2011 marks a critical step forward in the delivery of medical and psychosocial care to survivors of childhood cancer.

Free podcast!

Highlighting: Solving Kids’ Cancer – FREE podcast!

We would like to introduce you to the This Week in Pediatric Oncology podcast (thanks to the ped-onc-surv for the hat tip!)

Solving Kids' Cancer is a website that hosts podcasts and so far 17 episodes have been published:

1. 4/11/2011 Epidemiology of Childhood Cancer (landmark paper)
2. 4/13/2011 Interview with Greg Reaman (outgoing chair of COG)
3. 4/25/2011 Vincristine Pharmacogenetics, Irinotecan/Temozolomide for Relapsed Neuroblastoma
4. 5/8/2011 Meetings Recap and Immunotherapy for Synovial Cell Sarcoma
5. 5/19/2011 Hedgehog Signaling and Itraconazole
6. 5/26/2011 Interview with Dr Archie Bleyer (was head of Children's Cancer Group for 10 years)
7. 6/2/2011 Interview with E. Anders Kolb and Andrew Napper on drug development
8. 7/9/2011 Seneca Valley virus and medulloblastoma
9.7/16/11 Interview with Dr Peter Adamson
10. 7/7/2011 Interview with Dr Robert Seeger
11.7/12/2011 BuMel SIOP results and MIBG transplant with Dr Brian Weiss
12. 8/5/2011 ALL: Anti-CD19 BiTE and Genetic Risk Groups
13.8/19/2011 Updates, epidemiology of CNS tumors, birth order, and cell phone risks
14.8/24/2011 Interview with Dr. Kate Matthay
15.9/28/2011 MicroRNAs and hereditary cancer
16.10/7/2011 Genetic Underpinnings of Ewing Sarcomas: Interview with Dr. Stephen L. Lessnick
17.10/13/2011 Personalized medicine: Interview with Giselle Sholler

You can subscribe by email, RSS or iTunes on the SKC site (see the right side of their webpage)!

The FDA and rare disease research

Last month we read about a move by the FDA to increase its rare disease efforts. The impact on pediatric sarcoma research remains to be seen, but we are hopeful!

FDA to Revamp Rare Disease Efforts

The US government agency vows to improve the way it facilitates the development and approval of drugs for orphan diseases.
By Bob Grant | September 12, 2011

Websites we like!

Here is a list of websites that have caught our attention - they will begin appearing on our sidebar, so be sure to come back and see what gets added!

Site name	Why we like it	shares data with clinicaltrails.gov?
Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium	The PBTC’s goal is to find “superior treatment strategies for children with brain cancers”	yes
New Approaches to Neuroblastoma Therapy	NANT wants to “develop and test new therapies that will be targeted specifically to neuroblastoma cells”	yes
Therapeutic Advances in Childhood Leukemia and Lymphoma	TACL “was established to provide a means for carrying out early studies of new drugs in children with recurrent leukemia or lymphoma”	yes
Pediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutics Investigators’ Consortium	POETIC “promotes the early clinical development of promising therapies for the treatment of children, adolescents and young adults with cancer and related disorders.”	yes
DrugPath	DrugPath aims to provide a free online resource for academic researchers that details developmental drugs in industry in order to accelerate the application of these drugs.	n/a
The Broad-Novartis Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia	The CCLE’s goal is to develop a comprehensive and detailed bank of information of human cancer cell for public use.	n/a

The Long Road to Immunotherapy

Be sure to check out the recent publication by Elaine from the PPTI and the Keller lab about the trials and tribulations of immunotherapies in cancer in Pediatric Blood and Cancer!

Welcome, Melanie!

The St. Baldrick’sFoundation funds childhood cancer research grants throughout the United States and may be best known for their lighthearted fundraising efforts where donors get to shave their heads in solidarity with cancer patients!   The money goes to research labs, first year medical students, new doctors, young researchers and clinical trials amongst many other things.  We are fortunate this year to have a medical student participate in our lab work through collaboration with the Department of Pediatrics Summer Internship Program directed by Dr. Amy Skinner under the auspices of the St. Baldrick’s Foundation Summer Fellowship.  

Melanie Jackson is a (soon-to-be) second year medical student here at Oregon Health and Science University with basic research experience in skeletal biology.  Her primary goal is a career in academic medicine where she will create a much needed link between research findings and clinical practice. 

Words from Charles

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 Pediatric Preclinical Testing Initiative (at the Pediatric Cancer Biology Program, Pape' Family Pediatric Research Institute, Oregon Health & Science University) 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.