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We welcome Federal Health Minister Mark Butler's announcement, offering much needed hope for the ovarian cancer community. Research plays a crucial role in improving outcomes for ovarian cancer, with this investment focused on pivotal areas such as women’s health, reducing health system inequities, and addressing cancers with low survival rates. This funding aims to facilitate greater access to clinical trials, crucial for treating ovarian cancer. Acknowledging existing challenges, we strongly endorse efforts to enhance equitable and timely access, exemplified by initiatives like the National Clinical Trials Front Door. There is significant momentum for change concerning rare and less common cancers, as well as women’s health. Ovarian Cancer Australia remains committed to advocating for greater investment in ovarian cancer. The voices of those impacted serve as the driving force behind every endeavour, and we deeply value your support. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gbJdrHyx

🌍 Advancing pediatric precision medicine together   Precision medicine in Eastern Europe is advancing with the new Center of Excellence for Precision Medicine in Pediatric Care (PMPC) in Riga. Specialists from the Princess Máxima Center are supporting the Latvian Children's Clinical University Hospital Riga in its development.   With pioneering technology in genetics and data analysis, PMPC is setting up facilities like a biobank, genomics lab, and clinical research unit. Furthermore, the Máxima Center and the PMPC will collaborate in the field of cell therapies. These initiatives will not only enhance healthcare for children in Latvia but also contribute to advances in pediatric care across Europe and beyond.    Chief Medical Officer prof. dr. Rob Pieters says: ‘On our way to realizing our mission to cure every child with cancer with optimal quality of life, we at the Máxima Center seeks worldwide connections. We do this by generating and sharing knowledge and expertise through intensive collaborations, both in research, diagnostics and treatment. We are excited about what this collaboration in a hub like PMPC promises for the future development of precision medicine for children with cancer.‘ 🚀   #PrecisionMedicine #PediatricCare #ChildhoodCancer #Innovation #Healthcare

Young-onset colorectal cancer - Get the nurses' perspective The incidence of young-onset colorectal cancer is increasing around the world. Nurse practitioner Natasha Pinheiro shares the nurses' perspective on this phenomenon in this video and slides: ▶️ https://ow.ly/hwYf50So98W You'll hear Natasha discuss: 💠 The age range defined as 'young-onset' 💠 Aetiology of disease 💠 How symptoms and clinical characteristics compare between young-onset and average-onset patients 💠 Treatments and outcomes in younger patients vs average-age patients 💠 Special considerations for this age group #MedicalEducation #oncology Supported by an Independent Medical Education grant from Bayer.

Just stumbled upon this interesting article from John Wilkerson. John Wilkerson is a Washington correspondent for STAT. A quick summary: The NIH's pilot program aimed at enhancing diversity in cancer research has been deemed a costly failure. Despite significant investment, the initiative struggled to achieve its goals of increasing minority participation and fostering a diverse research workforce. Challenges included insufficient support structures, inconsistent program access, and a lack of effective strategies to connect trainees with long-term career opportunities. This outcome highlights the need for more robust and targeted approaches to truly diversify the field of cancer research. #CancerResearch #Diversity #NIH #Healthcare https://lnkd.in/e7e7-eWv

The DISTINCT team (WIPH Cancer Prevention Trials Unit, WIPH Pragmatic Trials Unit, WIPH Barts Clinical Trials Unit, and the Clinical Trials and Statistics Unit, The Institute of Cancer Research) are inviting trial teams and researchers to use a question set in their studies/trials and provide feedback about their experience. The recently completed DISTINCT project was a public consultation exercise, funded by the QMUL Centre for Public Engagement. Its aim was to create a demographic question set for use in UK research. The questions cover 15 characteristics, including gender, sexuality, religion, education, etc.    What’s the benefit of registering and using the question set? • Improves monitoring of characteristics beyond age, sex and ethnicity to understand the inclusivity of our research • Builds on existing national survey questions and datasets to allow assessment of representativeness • Helps to standardise demographic data collection across UK trials / research • By providing feedback, your contributions will help refine the question set over time • By registering, you will stay up to date with any changes, recommendations or findings Find more info on their webpage or contact them to request the question set: DISTINCT@icr.ac.uk    https://lnkd.in/ddadirn6 Queen Mary Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry

📅 Yesterday, Bowen Fan, a doctoral student from our BMDS lab, successfully graduated. He is the first doctoral student to graduate from our lab. We celebrated his achievement with thoughtful gifts along with smiles, hugs, an aperitif, friends, crossfit, and fun. ⬇ His Ph.D. defense took place in the new building of the ETH-Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) on the Schällemätteli campus in Basel. 📚 Bowen's main contributions were the article on 1) “Prediction of recovery from multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) in pediatric sepsis patients”, https://lnkd.in/dVUyTGeU and 2) the manuscript in preparation about Modelling PCR bias in DNA sequence. He also contributed to other papers seen in the comments. 🧒🏾 Children with #sepsis often experience rapid progression or recovery within days of admission, and the persistence of Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome (MODS) in the 1st week is linked to high mortality and morbidity. A machine learning-based model was developed to forecast MODS recovery to zero or single organ dysfunction a week in advance in the Swiss Pediatric Sepsis Study (#SPSS) cohort. Notably, cardiovascular and respiratory systems played critical roles in early recovery prediction, with top-ranking variables associated with these systems. This underscores the need for tailored care for MODS patients with cardiovascular or respiratory failure. This pioneering study, validated across continents from 🇨🇭 to 🇺🇸 , highlights the potential of integrating the model into electronic health records for enhanced patient assessment and triage in #pediatricsepsis. ⛓ In biotech research, polymerase chain reaction (#PCR) bias - or DNA amplification - is a big problem because it causes differences in how well DNA is amplified. Given the exponential nature of PCR, even small variations in efficiency during PCR can lead to big differences in the results. To tackle this issue, Bowen and colleagues suggested a new computational pipeline. This method uses DNA sequencing data to study PCR bias in detail. It starts with a statistical model that looks at every step of the sequencing process to estimate how well PCR is working for each DNA sequence. Then, a special deep learning model is used to predict PCR efficiency based on the structure of the DNA sequence. Finally, a complex method is used to find patterns - or so called motifs - in the data that are linked to lower PCR efficiency. These findings could make PCR more reliable, which would be helpful for many applications like studying #geneexpression , #profiling microbial communities, #DNA storage, and more. 🏅 We congratulate Bowen once again and wish him the best as he completes his 2nd contribution and extend our best wishes for his future career endeavors. We are confident that his #datascience and #fitness dedication combined with his talent will lead to continued success in his professional and life journey. 恭喜 😊 Your lab & crossfit pals.

Many rare diseases share the same underlying molecular etiology that are therapeutically targetable. Basket trial design based on molecular etiology, such as used in Oncology clinical trials, could potentially •Increase the number of patients gaining access to clinical trials and decrease challenges of small population trials •Cluster patients based on biology and stimulate innovation of precision-based medicines •Accelerate use of existing drugs that are currently not accessible to patients that would benefit from their action  Please join Dave Pearce, P.J. Brooks and I (Christina Waters, PhD MBA) in discussing the shared platforms and technologies that are available along with challenges and opportunities for the future of basket trails for rare disease patients. See you June 18th, 10am at #DIA2024 at the #SanDiego Convention Center! International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) Sanford Health National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) #rare #rarediseases #pediatrics #kids #genomics #genetics #diagnostics #clinicalbaskettrials #clinicalendpoints #clinicaltrials #R&D #research #discovery #united #datasharing #globalhealth #equity #access #precisionmedicine #drugdiscovery

Check out this article by the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto highlighting Kieran Coppens' motivation behind his cancer research as a MSc graduate & PhD student with the Department of Immunology in the Saibil Lab! ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/gpC-kiE7

This book is a must read for cancer caregivers. Virginia LeBaron, PhD, APRN, FAAN is a highly experienced UVA Health nurse scholar who spent time in India learning first-hand about how cancer is experienced outside of the U.S. #cancercare #nursingresearch #uvanursing