Funded Research
June 15, 2009: The Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative is funding a 1-year $50,000 research study, "Molecular Basis of Genomic Instability in Osteosarcoma," that is being undertaken by principle investigator Pulivarthi H Rao, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Baylor College of Medicine and his colleague Debananda Pati, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the Baylor College of Medicine.
The funding for this grant is made possible, in part, by generous donations made by the family and friends in memory of Sean Keane (Irish Media Ball), Frank Shafer (Sarcoma Walk), and Brandon Gordon (Golf for Gordie) all of whom lost their lives to osteosarcoma, and by generous donations made by the family and friends of Logan Brasic (Soccer ‘Round the Clock), Matthew Siegle (Fishin’ for the Cure), Emma Koertzen (Stewart’s Stampede), and Lauren Chelenza (Pearl S. Buck Elementary School Walk-a-Thon) who are all still fighting this disease.
Here is a summary of their research proposal:
Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most frequent bone neoplasm in children and often present with a high number of chromosomal amplifications and deletions, suggesting that genomic instability is linked to the tumor development. Recently, we identified CDC5L, a cell cycle regulator gene as target for 6p12-p21 amplicon found in OS. Our recent in vivo studies, suggest that CDC5L was a potential oncogene. The goal of this research is to investigate the role of CDC5L in the development of genomic instability and progression of OS by overexpressing CDC5L cDNA and down-regulating by SiRNA in normal osteoblasts.
You can learn more about this study in the article "Molecular Basis of Genomic Instability in Osteosarcoma," which appears in the June 2009 issue of ESUN.
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