MIB Agents OsteoBites MIB Agents Osteosarcoma

José Granados Soler, DVM, MSc, PhD and Rachel Allavena, PhD from the University of Queensland School of Veterinary Science join us on OsteoBites to discuss exploring novel immunotherapies for canine osteosarcoma. During this presentation, they delve into a pioneering clinical trial for canine osteosarcoma, share cutting-edge insights and explore how novel immunotherapies could revolutionize treatment outcomes for our furry companions. Dr. José Granados Soler, DVM, MSc, PhD serves as a small animal surgeon, educator, and researcher at The University of Queensland in Australia, collaborating with Prof. Allavena on pioneering immunotherapeutic trials for osteosarcoma and other cancers in dogs. He remains dedicated to making impactful contributions to the field, with a steadfast commitment to continuous learning and improvement.Professor Rachel Allavena is the Deputy Head of the School of Veterinary Science at The University of Queensland. She teaches toxicology, pathology, animal welfare, and laboratory animal science to science and veterinary students. Professor Allavena is a specialist veterinary anatomic pathologist and her canine trials have focused on bone cancer, melanoma, lymphoma and mastocytoma.

Matteo Trucco, MD joins us on OsteoBites to provide a preview of the FACTOR 2024 scientific panels in layperson terms with a brief overview of vocabulary and terms as a helpful resource for patients and families attending our FACTOR 2024 conference.Dr. Matteo Trucco is a pediatric oncologist caring for children, teens and young adults with sarcomas at Cleveland Clinic Children’s. He also serves as Clinical Director, directs the Children’s Cancer Innovative Therapy Program and co-chairs the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation’s Sunshine Project consortium where he and colleagues develop and conduct clinical trials seeking more effective and less toxic treatments for childhood cancers. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Medical Degree from Temple University School of Medicine, and completed his Pediatrics Residency at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital and his Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at Johns Hopkins and the National Cancer Institute. He is honored to be on the MIB Agents Board of Directors, chairs the MIB Agents Scientific Advisory Board, and co-chairs the organizing committee for the annual FACTOR Conference. He also has the privilege of moderating the MIB Agents Tumor Review Board for Osteosarcoma

Mia is joined by OsteoWarriors Mackenzie, Sammy, and Sean to share their experiences with long-term side effects from osteosarcoma treatment. Nausea and hair loss are well-known side effects of chemotherapy - but what are some of the side effects that linger long after chemotherapy is over? Listen in on this frank discussion on why it can feel like cancer is never done with you. The group talks about their own experiences with fatigue, hearing loss, cardiomyopathy, infertility, depression, and managing daily life with disabilities. The word balance comes up a lot in the conversation - and the group also talks about their favorite self-care techniques that help them through "mourning the person I used to be and trying to embrace the person I've become."

Dr. Amy LeBlanc is a board-certified veterinary oncologist, Senior Scientist and Director of the CCR Comparative Oncology Program at the National Cancer Institute, NIH. In this position, she directly oversees and manages the operations of the Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium (COTC), which designs and executes clinical trials of new cancer therapies in tumor-bearing pet dogs. She joins us on OsteoBites to discuss findings as we work toward genomic and transcriptional profiling of canine osteosarcoma and how the results relate to human osteosarcoma. The DOG2 project was launched to better understand the relationships between the disease in dogs and humans -- all to make it better for all patients, be they 2-legged or 4 legged!

Sibylle Mittnacht, PhD discusses the current landscape of PARP inhibitor use in cancers and osteosarcoma and discusses preclinical evidence and translation of biomarker-driven use of therapeutics in osteosarcoma. Dr. Mittnacht heads the laboratory of Cancer Cell Signalling at the University College London (UCL) Cancer Institute, with a long-standing interest in concepts that drive tumour development and therapy response in cancer. She acts as the cancer expert for the Royal College of Radiologists and is a founding member of the FOSTER (Fight Osteosarcoma Through European Research) initiative, where she co-leads the cell model and drug response focus groups and is a participant in a newly established initiative, icure, which aims to establish a living biobank and therapeutics assessment pipeline for rare and ultrarare cancers.Work in the Mittnacht team centers on understanding how cell cycle checkpoint aberrations affect the behaviour of cancer cells and the identification of therapeutic opportunity that arises therefrom. The team uses functional genomics and chemical biology to discover new treatment paradigms with a current focus on unmet needs in sarcoma and breast cancer, and is involved in establishing patient-derived and tissue-mimetic preclinical cancer models for these cancers, in order to accelerate therapeutic discovery.

Kristen VanHeyst, DO from UH Rainbows Babies and Children's Hospital discusses and shares updates regarding a Phase I/II multi-centered, multi-continental trial, to assess the safety and efficacy of Vactosertib in adolescents and adults with recurrent, refractory or progressive osteosarcoma.Dr. Kristen VanHeyst is a pediatric hematologist/oncologist and a translational therapeutics-oriented physician scientist. She completed her clinical fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology in 2019 and was appointed Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine at that time. She has been a member of the Alex Huang, MD, PhD laboratory since 2017. Dr. VanHeyst has focused her research efforts on understanding the role of the tumor microenvironment in osteosarcoma and how immunotherapy could be a novel therapeutic option for patients with this disease. Additionally, she is the Principal Investigator of a Phase I/II investigator initiated clinical trial at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital. She is also the Principal Investigator of a Phase I/II multi-centered, multi-continental clinical trial designed in collaboration with MedPacto, Inc for patients with relapsed/refractory osteosarcoma.  For these efforts, she was the recipient of an NIH K12 award as well as multiple foundation awards from Hyundai Hope on Wheels, MIB Agents, CureSearch and CURE Childhood Cancer. She is currently a member of the Children’s Oncology Group Bone Tumor Committee.LMAdd a comment