MIB Agents OsteoBites Ann Graham

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

Camille and Mia are joined by OsteoWarriors Elise, Penelope, Sammy and Sloane to share their experiences and tips for traveling after limb salvage surgery, amputation, and/or during treatment. They discuss navigating the airport, what the deal is with wheelchairs at the aiport, getting through TSA with a prosthesis, how to find leg room in cramped airplanes and cars, managing public transportation, tips for flying, and traveling outside the US.  Aside from learning some practical tips to make traveling a bit easier, you'll laugh at some of the travel horror stories, and get advice on how to handle Uber drivers that like to dispense medical advice, funny looks when using a wheelchair or grabbing a disabled seat, and other awkward situations.

Kevin Campbell, MD, a pediatric oncologist at Children's Mercy Kansas City and Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine discusses results from the Phase 1 study assessing the safety and toxicity of cabozantinib in combination with topotecan and cyclophosphamide for relapsed osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma.Dr. Kevin Campbell is a pediatric oncologist at Children's Mercy Kansas City and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine.  He has an interest in clinical trials relevant to children with solid tumors, with an emphasis on neuroblastoma and sarcomas. During his training at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Boston Children’s Hospital and now extending into his career as an attending, his research focuses on clinical outcomes for patients with high-risk or advanced solid tumors and the development and implementation of early phase clinical trials with novel agents or combinations of agents to improve outcomes.His work to advance clinical trials includes experience in multiple spheres.  He has completed specific training in the writing, development and management of early phase clinical trials and currently has a phase I clinical trial open which he developed. His work also involves the analysis of biomarkers that have been incorporated into national phase II and phase III clinical trials.

Rachel Offenbacher, MD, is an attending physician at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM) and Assistant Professor, Pediatric Hematology, Oncology, Marrow and Blood Cell Transplantation at Montefiore Einstein. She joins us on OsteoBites to share her work on targeting urea cycle dysfunction to prevent and treat osteosarcoma metastasis.Since joining the Montefiore team, Dr. Offenbacher’s clinical focus has been pediatric sarcomas. As a member of a translational sarcoma research lab, Dr. Offenbacher is fascinated by the ability to explore the biological processes behind novel therapeutic approaches before they are used in the clinic. Her research focuses on utilizing difluoromethylornithine to prevent and treat metastatic osteosarcoma. She has seen impressive results in her in vitro and in vivo models and is working to initiate a clinical trial. She is simultaneously working on a project funded by the American Association of Cancer Research, Targeting the Tumor Microenvironment of Metastasis to Treat Metastatic Ewing Sarcoma, which is demonstrating promising results. Dr. Offenbacher’s work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and presented nationally and internationally. Dr. Offenbacher is board certified in General Pediatrics by the American Board of Pediatrics. She is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Association for Cancer Research, the Children’s Oncology Group and the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. Dr. Offenbacher is also an active member of the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation. In 2020 and 2022, she won the Leo M. Davidoff Society Teaching Award; in 2022, she won the Pediatric Research Day Oral Presentation Award from CHAM. Dr. Offenbacher is a volunteer pediatric oncologist at Camp Simcha, a residential camp for children with cancer.

Camille and Mia are joined by OsteoWarriors Jasmine, Penelope and Walker to share their experiences with local control strategies to remove osteosarcoma lung metastasis, including surgery, radiation therapy, and cryoablation. They cover everything from their reaction to hearing they needed a lung surgery, how they prepared for surgery - both mentally and pro tips for how to make yourself comfortable in the hospital, managing their pain and nausea post surgery, recovery time for the different types of procedures, and their individual outcomes post procedure. In addition to hearing about their personal experiences, you'll learn about the power of escapism TV, why a spirometer can be scary, the wonders of a Da Vinci robot, and the technical term for stabby-stabby, freezy-freezy