Scott Carter Foundation News

Below are some stories about the Scott Carter Foundation, the work we are supporting, as well as about the overall fight against childhood cancer. If you see something we should add to this page, please contact us to let us know.

Research Update From our 2008-9 Fellow: Koichi Nishijo, MD, PhD

June 8th, 2009

The following is a letter we received from our most recent fellowship recipient on the progress of his research:

I am a fortunate recipient of a Scott Carter Foundation Fellowship in 2008-9 during my postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Charles Keller’s laboratory at the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

My research interest is a cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma, and specifically the alveolar variant. Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma is an aggressive childhood tumor that is difficult to treat when the disease goes beyond the primary site and is virtually incurable when widely metastatic. Our laboratory has established a unique genetically-engineered (‘GEM’) mouse tumor model that authentically recapitulates the progression of human alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma by re-creating the mutations known to occur in human tumors. Thanks to the support from Scot Carter Foundation, we have demonstrated that this mouse tumor has same molecular and biological characteristics as the human disease and thus this model can be applicable to preclinical drug testing. We have also uncovered the genetic pathways conserved between mouse and human diseases and identified the potential therapeutic targets in this disease.

In addition, this mouse line will be the first GEM model ever to be incorporated into the NCI-supported Pediatric Preclinical Testing Program (PPTP), of which our laboratory is soon to be a member. In addition to the NCI activities in the near future, we are already testing a number of promising drugs using this mouse model and we have shared our results with the Children’s Oncology Group to help design better clinical trials.

We are also trying to establish a novel GEM model of osteosarcoma, the most common bone cancer in childhood, in which tumor initiation in the leg and progression throughout the body could be monitored in an accurate and sensitive manner. We hope this model could also serve as another preclinical model of pediatric cancer in the future.

I am grateful for this training opportunity in pediatric cancer research as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Charles Keller. The Scott Carter Foundation Fellowship afforded me the early career development that has allowed me both training and the opportunity to advance my research interests in rhabdomyosarcoma with two recently published first author papers, including one highlighted in April 2009 issue of Cancer Research (Nishijo et al, Credentialing a preclinical mouse model of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma). I remain fully committed to a career in pediatric cancer research and, thanks to Scott Carter Foundation, I am now a potential candidate for a NIH K99 grant, which I will submit in June 2009. To read more about my progress and other laboratory activities, please visit our lab’s Blog. Koichi Nishijo, MD, PhD

Noel Groves, SCF Volunteer honored

December 29th, 2008

Noel Groves, Chair of the Scott Carter Foundation’s annual Common Thread Fashion Show receives the 2008 Richard J Messer. Award for Excellence in Human Resource Management. Read the rest of this story »

Mentor of Scott Carter Fellow wins Nobel Prize

October 8th, 2007

The mentor of our 1999-2001 fellow, Charles Keller was just awarded the Nobel Prize. The official press release:

Mario R. Capecchi, Ph.D., distinguished professor of human genetics and biology at the University of Utah’s Eccles Institute of Human Genetics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, has won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Read the rest of this story »