research news CTF Participates in National Brain Tumor Society/American Association of Cancer Research Systems Biology Think Tank Meeting In January 2013, Annette Bakker, Chief Scientific Officer of the Children’s Tumor Foundation, was invited by the co-chairs of the National Brain Tumor Society (NBTS)/American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) meeting, Dr. Andrea Califano (Columbia University, New York), Dr. Gordon Mills (MD Anderson, Houston), Mr. N. Paul TonThat (Executive Director, NBTS) and Margaret Foti (CEO, AACR) to participate in a think-tank discussion of the emergence of new disciplines in cancer biology. The specific focus of the meeting was to identify the critical goals and accomplishments that uniquely characterize the new field, as well as to identify possible impediments and roadblocks that may hinder its growth. CTF was privileged to be represented amidst a group of internationally recognized systems biologists for two days. A key distinguishing element that emerged from the discussion is the role of systems biology in generating computational models that are ultimately routed in cell regulatory processes to achieve a
CTF Holds First National Meeting for Neurofibromatosis Clinic Specialists at NF Forum Over 30 NF clinic coordinators, genetic counselors, and nurses attended a full-day meeting last April at the NF Forum in Nashville. The clinicians, who represented 21 of the 45 members of the NF Clinic Network, clearly appreciated the opportunity to hear inspiring and practical presentations and learn how different NF clinics approach their common goals. This event, known as the NF Clinics Meeting, offered presentations from experts in neurofibromatosis genetic testing, educational programs, diagnosis, and clinic
more mechanistic analysis and interpretation of experimental data. Many examples were identified as success stories from the use of kinetic models to elucidate response to combination therapy, to the use of regulatory networks to elucidate key drivers of tumor initiation, progression, and Dr. Andrea Califano chemo-sensitivity, to the initiation of clinical studies based on results originating from systems biology. A clear message from the meeting’s participants is that access to open, multimodal datasets is one of the most critical requirements for the success of these new approaches and that some creativity will be needed to deal with the current publication environment. The community also identified the need for grand challenges that can be addressed by the entire community, via crowdsourcing approaches, such as, for instance, predicting chemo-sensitivity to a specific panel of experimental drugs in pre-clinical tumor models. In this, systems biology approaches are unique as they have spearheaded the ability to integrate the results coming from a large number of labs into valuable sets of predictions that have a high likelihood of being experimentally validated.
management. Equally important, it gave the clinicians a chance to spend time with colleagues from all over the United States (and one from Canada). Attendees also had the opportunity to attend the NF Forum presentations and special events over the following days. Attendee evaluations were uniformly positive and there was a definite interest in convening similar meetings in years to come, which CTF plans to do. A demonstration by Kaleb Yohay, MD, director of the Comprehensive Neurofibromatosis Clinic at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, of the database system he designed to track
patient care, led to strong interest by attendees in obtaining this database for use in their clinics. CTF is working with Dr. Yohay to develop this system for other clinics to use. Facilitating a continuing of the conversation among clinics is a key goal following the success of the NF Clinics Meeting. One idea that CTF is pursuing is holding a regular call-in meeting for all clinics. The Foundation is also currently assessing an online discussion group, NF Connect, which is now being used by a small group of testers before being opened to all NF clinicians. Check the CTF website ( www.ctf.org ) to see when NF Connect goes live for all clinicians.
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