The Importance of Research
ACCELERATE CONFERENCE
Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of representing you at the 10th Anniversary Meeting of ACCELERATE. Over 220 representatives from 28 countries gathered in Brussels, Belgium. The really fascinating thing about ACCELERATE is that we bring together ALL of the key stakeholders - Academics (researchers), Advocates (us), Industry (pharma companies) AND very importantly, regulators (European Medicines Agency, US FDA, other international regulatory agencies). I am proud to say that The B+ Foundation is the key funder of this organization, along with the European Union. The mission of ACCELERATE is in its name - to accelerate childhood cancer drug development.
Research Grant to Support Liquid Biopsy
A liquid biopsy is a non-invasive medical test that analyzes bodily fluids for signs of disease. The Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation is proud to support the work of Dr. Brian Crompton at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. If you’d like a little more detail, please see the layperson’s summary from Dr. Crompton.
“Liquid biopsy technologies have been employed for numerous purposes that have improved the care of patients with solid tumors including early detection, pre-treatment prognostication, precision medicine, measures of treatment response, detection of minimal residual disease and relapse, and the study of tumor evolution. In pediatrics, numerous studies (primarily from the Crompton lab) now show that circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) levels and detection of specific variants at diagnosis are prognostic.
In addition, changes in ctDNA levels early on-treatment also appear to be associated with outcome, a preliminary finding which is similarly being validated. Furthermore, in our published studies, ongoing work, and the published work of others, ctDNA clearly demonstrates the ability to detect prognostic and targetable lesions not identified in sequencing from single-site tumor biopsies, particularly in neuroblastoma, Wilms tumor, and Ewing sarcoma. These results are particularly relevant to sequencing to identify clinical trial and treatment opportunities at relapse. Finally, opportunities also exist for cell-free DNA studies on CSF in brain tumors.”
It’s an exciting time in scientific discovery. We need to continue supporting cutting-edge work like this.
I hope you all commit to making it a great week…whatever that may mean for you.
Live Like Andrew
Ali & Andrew’s Dad