Neuroblast – Page 18 – Blog about neuroblastoma research

Labour Day BBQ

Ok. This Monday is Labour Day – a public holiday celebrated on the 1st Monday in September in the US. According to the US Department of Labor, this holiday marks “a creation of the Labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers”. In contrast in Europe and Russia, it is celebrated on May 1st and known as May Day or International Workers’ Day and may or may not be a public holiday.

It is also the unofficial end of summer when many people arrange family gatherings or holidays. So, did our lab. We were all invited to our boss’ house to have a BBQ and chit-chat. As you may expect almost everyone in the lab has a multicultural background which is very proud of. You are in America, babe! I am not an exception. A proud Irish-Russian.

Irish black and white pudding, red and white cheddar and homebaked soda bread were among top 10 favourites

Everyone took advantage of and benefited from that mix. We had Mexican, Argentinian, French, Irish, Jewish, Ethiopian and American Indiana, Idaho, Florida, Maryland bites. Juicy steaks (raw, medium and well done) and burgers grilled by the host Andy were delicious. Have to admit that meat was tastier than I used to buy in Ireland. Should probably look for a new butcher when I come back!

What did surprise me the most? I have been thinking about it on the way home… None of 15 guests did check their mobile or take a pic of food/selfie during that time! Though everyone had this thing in the pocket. We were chatting and laughing. Maybe it is just that people… Fantastic company and a great day out.

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!

Today marks the start of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

The cause of childhood cancers is believed to be due to faulty genes in stem cells that give rise to nerves, skin, blood and other body tissues. For some unknown reasons, the faulty genes can sit quiet and show their ‘bad’ character after birth and programme the cells into cancer cells.
So, there is no evidence that links lifestyle or environmental risk factors to the development of childhood cancer, which is opposite to many adult’s cancers.

Every 100th cancer patient is a child. Cancer is the 2nd most common cause of death among children after accidents.

Children are not little adults and so their cancer. Some childhood cancers have a good outlook and successful protocol of treatments. However, some of the cancers do not respond to the known drugs, or if respond cancer cells find the way to develop resistance and come back being more aggressive. Among theme are some forms of brain tumours, neuroblastoma and sarcomas; cancers developing in certain age groups and/or located within certain sites in the body, along with acute myeloid leukaemia (blood cancer). Children with a rare brain cancer – diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma survive less than 1 year from diagnosis. Children with soft tissue tumours have 5-year survival rates ranging from 64% (rhabdomyosarcoma) to 72% (Ewing sarcoma). Less than50% of children with the aggressive form of neuroblastoma will live beyond 5 years with current treatment strategies.

For majority of children who do survive cancer, the battle is never over. Over 60% of long‐term childhood cancer survivors have a chronic illness as a consequence of the treatment; over 25% have a severe or life-threatening illness.

The most common types of childhood cancer are:

Leukaemia and lymphoma (blood cancers)
Brain and other central nervous system tumours
Muscle cancer (rhabdomyosarcoma)
Kidney cancer (Wilms tumour)
Neuroblastoma (tumour of the non-central nervous system)
Bone cancer (osteosarcoma)
Testicular and ovarian tumours (gonadal germ cell tumours)

Please see a short video The Childhood Cancer Ripple Effect created by St. Baldrick’s Foundation.

And finally, the Fulbright journey has started

Air Canada was my first bridge to connect me and Baltimore. A new luxury plane with great service brought me over Atlantic to Montreal in 7 hours. Watched many films and TV movies starting with ‘ Battle of the Sexes’ and finishing with re-running some episodes of ‘Young Sheldon’. Food was excellent, fast service, great taste. The US Customs met me with two state flags flanking a copy of the Liberty statue at the Canadian Airport, so had no need to do anything at the final destination. My 2nd leg was way shorter – just 1.30hrs!

At BWI a lovely American family picked me and my bag up and brought to their sister’s house – my American home for the next 4 months. It is promised to be a true cultural experience. How I found them? It is a story for a separate post to follow.

My American house is in Baltimore outskirts and in 30 min drive from door to door. My first drive to work was a break of all statistical predictions about tyre’s punctures. One of the tyres went flat almost on the half-way in probably not a very safe neighbourhood. With no cell phone, no roaming and no a spare ‘donut’!

What happened next? ‘Emergency lights’-ON, pulling my hand out to stop anyone with a cell phone. After a couple of dozens passing by cars, one pulled down, a nice couple of doctors offered me their help. Phoned to my host family and explained the situation. “Stay in the car with locked doors, we are on the way”. While I was waiting for them a nice man from the Afro-American neighborhood tried to help me out. “No, no… thank you… I am fine… Help is on the way…” in a sort of fear I replied.

Next, both I and Rod (the head of the family) were looking for a spare ‘donut’ and tools to lift up the car. Nothing. The same nice man came again offering his help. We did not resist. He pulled his brand new shiny Lincoln Continental and brought all you can dream of in my situation. A jack to lift the car, an electric screwdriver to get the tyre off… His name is Melvin. I and Rod run into the nearest garage to fix the tyre, while Melvin was looking after my car.

Forty-five minutes later, I continued my journey and arrived 2 hours later than planned. Rush to hunt the ID and car parking. A long queue of new commenced stuff needed exactly the same and disappeared in 25 min. Interestingly, I got the spot in 5 min for my use during the next 4 months as all the rest from the queue. Imagine, to get something like this in Dublin Centre area. Now, my car is parked in 5 min walk from the building I work in. A nice end of the first day!

Facebook Collection

I have a nice collection of pictures related to our lab activities or research, not all of them were posted here. Hope, that Facebook could provide an additional nice platform to store and share them. I am grouping them by theme in an album and link with a relevant blog post.

Let see how it would work!

Saying Good Bye to Our Summer Students

When I look back at the end of July, I am always surprised how quickly 8 summer weeks passed by. Summer students usually come very shy and uncertain and then they are flying through many complicated research terms and techniques. We help them to learn and they pay back by fantastic enthusiasm, commitment, and hard work. This summer was the same!

One of our experiences was donut’s tasting. We tasted donuts from Boston Donuts, the Rolling Donut, Boomerang Donuts and Krust Bakery. Many shapes, textures, and tastes. Krust Bakery did our favourites. 🙂

Research Summer School 2018

Another year, another Research Summer School students. We are hosting 4 students (Jessica, Dawn, Dola, and Jeff) this year. Some of them will be medical doctors, another will do research after the graduation. For them, the 8-weeks lab placement is a window into the reality of the everyday science. How cancer cells look? How do they grow? Where do we store them? How do we know that we have identified a new drug or a new target to study further? Do researchers have a sense of humour? Do they like donuts?

Why do they wear these astronaut helmets?

We have already said Good Bye to Jessica. Dola and Dawn’s projects are coming to an end this week, while Jeff is staying till the end of August.

I am Fulbright

Now, when the Fulbright Awardees have been announced at the Official Ceremony in the US Embassy last Thursday, I am happy to say that my first challenge 2018 brought me the Award – Fulbright-HRB HealthImpact Scholar 2018.

Fulbright Commission Picture Conor McCabe Photography.

I am opening a new chapter in my life by taking this great opportunity to go to Johns Hopkins University and study how cancer cells travel to different destinations in real-time in our body. Indeed, it will be not only about the research but also about new experience meeting new people, learning a new culture and seeing things around. I am delighted and over the moon.

Past awardees organised the Dinner in Dublin Castle to welcome newbies by sharing their experiences and promoting networking. These wonderful people were celebrating their start of the US journey last Fri. Some are going off in coming days, other not till January. It is a completely different feeling not to be ranked by your academic achievements but your personality is a key. What a rewarding feeling to join the Fulbright Family. Absolutely enjoyable…

Irish Fulbright Alumni Association Dinner 2018 at Dublin Castle (Courtesy of IFAA)

Wish everyone the best of their experience and make a difference in their field of study!

A new, three-dimensional approach to cancer research

Appeared in today’s Irish Times. Lovely crafted by Dr. Vanesa Martinez

Although the discovery could be applicable in principle to any a solid tumour, Dr Piskareva’s target is neuroblastoma, a relatively common child cancer which affects a specific type of nerve cells in unborn children. “It’s quite aggressive and unfortunately there are many children who have metastasis when they are diagnosed, and this is the most challenging group to treat.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/a-new-three-dimensional-approach-to-cancer-research-1.3505347

8th OLCHC RESEARCH & AUDIT CONFERENCE

This was our 2nd time attending the OLCHC Research & Audit Day on May 25th, 2018. The conference provides a great forum for paediatric clinicians to share and update knowledge across different specialties through talks and poster presentations. It is insightful for basic biomedical researchers like us to see other perspectives.

I was delighted to know that two our studies were shortlisted. It is a rewarding feeling to see your Dream Team doing very well. One was the project of the Erasmus+ student Hanne Pappaert and the other was the project of NCRC funded Postdoc John Nolan. Hanne explored our 3D tissue-engineered model of neuroblastoma using collagen-based scaffolds with distinct mechanical properties. These new scaffolds were designed and manufactured by our collaborator Dr Cian O’Leary from Pharmacy Department and Tissue Engineering and Research Group (TERG) headed by Prof Fergal O’Brien. Hanne grew 5 neuroblastoma cell lines on the 3 scaffolds: hard like a rock, soft and fluffy like a cotton wool and a jelly-like. All cells liked the jelly-like environment. This environment is similar to bone marrow – the most common site of neuroblastoma metastasis. We were excited to see the difference as it means we are one step closer to reconstruct this type of tumour spread.

John has expanded our exploration of our 3D neuroblastoma model by examining the content of exosomes – little parcels sent by cancer cells in 3D and as tumours grown in mice. We were thrilled to see a high similarity in the exosomal content. This finding additionally proved the great applicability of our 3D model as a tool to study neuroblastoma.

Groundwork

Though the official announcement is scheduled for the first week of June, the groundwork is on. Lots of reading and planning for the trip to Johns Hopkins later this year. One of the first is the book by Rebecca Skloot ‘The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks”. The famous HeLa cells were generated by researchers at JH. The story is a fascinating journey for biomedical scientists and a tragedy for the Lacks family.