Every 100th cancer patient is a child. Cancer is the 2nd most common cause of death among children after accidents.
Childhood cancer is an umbrella term for many other types of this disease. Every September, many charities, researchers and parents of children with cancer work hard to raise awareness of this cancer. You may learn more about kids with cancer, their loving families, the doctors and caregivers who looking after them and treating them, the young survivors of cancer and those kids and teens who lost their battle, and the scientists who working hard to find a way to stop childhood cancer.
This year our research team will hike Dublin MountainWay in One Day on the 25th of September 2021 whatever the weather in honour of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. For every one euro donated to research only 1 cent of this goes to ALL childhood health conditions including cancer. Therefore, the donations we receive will be split equally among some wonderful children’s charities. These charities include the Conor Foley Neuroblastoma Research Foundation (CFNRF), Neuroblastoma UK (NBUK), Children’s Research & Medical Foundation (CRMF) Crumlin.
If you would like to get involved in this amazing challenge and help us raise vital funds for childhood cancers, you can contribute to our fundraising page:
In early April, shortly after attending the Irish Association for Cancer Research (IACR) virtual conference, I was delighted to find out I had been selected for a “Poster in the Spotlight” presentation at the European congress in June. I was invited to give a 10-minute presentation about my research on finding new immuno markers for drug-resistant neuroblastoma. This would be my first time presenting at a conference outside of Ireland (though I remained in my home in Dublin and not in the hoped destination of Turino) and so it was a very exciting experience!
On the morning of my talk, I logged onto zoom to meet the EACR session organisers and the other speakers in my session – a mixture of PhD students and Post-doc researchers from Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK. Each of our talks was then broadcasted to the virtual congress platform where cancer researchers around Europe could tune in.
After the presentations, we joined a “Meet the Speakers” session where we could chat with those who had tuned in, answer questions and open up some research discussions. I was asked one question from a researcher doing similar work to me on how I investigate the relationships between certain genes in cancer, and I was able to refer her onto the software I use – I hope this aids her research, as that’s the real aim of attending these conferences!
Following this, it was time to relax and watch some of the other interesting talks taking place in the congress. The EACR were running a photo competition to show where you were watching from in order to win a place at the 2022 congress in Seville. So, I took this opportunity to take my laptop out to the back garden and watch the congress in the sun, getting a selfie for twitter with #NotQuiteTorinoEACR2021. Fingers crossed by this time next year travelling for international conferences will be a reality for researchers once again!
Catherine Murphy, Neuroblastoma UK funded PhD student
Once I mentioned the importance of the publication track record for a career in science. My team has been productive despite the COVID pandemic. Two review articles were published.
The second review has been published in Journal of Personalized Medicine on March, 16th. Originally, it was a small review project for Nadiya, a medicine student, last summer. However, it became a big one with all data systematically collected, analysed and condensed. The focus of this review was on Retinoic Acid (RA), widely known as Vitamin A and its role in neuroblastoma. RA plays a vital role in human development. The main feature of RA is to push neuroblastoma cells to become neuron-like cell stopping their aggressiveness and cancer fate. So, we wanted to know more about the ongoing research both in the labs and the clinic. We reviewed primary research articles reporting basic and translational findings as well as clinical trials. Hopefully, it would help other researchers to get a full picture of this topic and a structured resource of experimental models and drugs tested.
Every year, we celebrate Childhood Cancer Awareness Day Internationally. Pre-COVID times, it was straightforward to do a coffee morning, a bake sale, or as we did a Hot Chocholate morning.
To be honest with you, I had almost no presence of childhood cancer in my life until I joined Prof Stallings lab in 2011. When I said ‘almost’, I meant during my adulthood.
My Dad had a younger brother, both started their families at the same time. Our families used to spend a good time together, holidays, birthdays and weekends together. Both I and my cousin Igor were born almost within a year. I remember our play days together but at the level of feelings and stories told by my parents. In the pic, we were held by my nanna.
I do not have a pic where we were 3- or 4-years old. No pic was taken after Igor was diagnosed with blood cancer. He was 1-1.5-year-old. He travelled 800km to the best paediatric oncologists to receive the most progressive treatment back then. It extended his time with the family by four years. But he lost his battle…
How much can remember a 1-, 2-, 4- years old? My last memory – Igor was sleeping in a neat coffin. Adults were muttering. I remember, a tear slowly rolled down from Igor’s closed eyes. I naively asked my nanny why did the dead cousin cry??? He did not want to leave us, – said my nanny softly.
Back then parents were not much informed on the disease, treatments, odds and alternative options. Igor was suffering, no pain relief options were available… No palliative care… Remember my nanny’s words: “These doctors had no hearts. All this child needed was a sense of peace, quiet time with his parents away from the hospital wards”.
Many things have changed since then. Eight out of 10 children with blood cancer are responding to treatment well, they reach adulthood, may even have kids of their own. However, there are some types of childhood cancers that do not respond well and can return to being more aggressive. Cancer steals the child’s future. One of the thieves is neuroblastoma, a solid tumour of undeveloped nerves.
Childhood cancer research is essential to return happy days to kids and their families. Many childhood cancer research charities do their best to secure funds and support researchers like me. It is vital to have a continuous investment in research that helps to understand the weakness of childhood cancer and develop new drugs designed exclusively for kids.
Last month we set ourselves the “10 Laps 10km” challenge for Childhood Cancer Awareness.
Now we have closed the GoFundMe and counted the charity buckets. We are delighted to announce we raised a grand total of €1419! We are over the moon with this sum, as 2020 required a very different kind of fundraiser than previous years.
Our three chosen charities: Children’s Health Foundation Crumlin (formerly CMRF), the Conor Foley Neuroblastoma Cancer Research Foundation, and Neuroblastoma UK, will each receive just over €470.
We’d like to say big thank you to everyone who donated. It will make a huge difference for these charities, this year especially, paving the way to better treatment options for children with cancer in the future.
