Newsletter 08/11 |
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Dear Colleagues and Friends
The fifth Annual General Meeting of the EuroBoNeT project took place at the Novotel Charenton Hotel in the French capital from 11th to 12th January, 2011. In view of the joint activities with Conticanet it was decided to make the second day a joint event with research presentations from both groups and an overview of common projects.
Day one was organized by EuroBoNeT and members of Conticanet were warmly invited to take part. Oral contributions were presented by a cross-section of the partnership, featuring a balance of junior and senior speakers and a key-note lecture on P53m, MDM2 and cancer development by Gareth Bond, invited speaker from Oxford. Reports were provided on molecular research into the effects of calcium and NAADP in osteoclast formation and bone resorption. The afternoon's presentations were on the genetic variants explaining the majority of the genetic risk for Paget's disease of bone; BMP and TGFβ expression and signalling in central chondrosarcoma; and characterization of rare chondrosarcoma subtypes. Contributions followed on identification of candidate modifier and disease-causing genes for multiple osteochondromas by genome-wide SNP/CNV genotyping; integrative analysis of osteosarcoma copy number and gene expression data; identification of fusion transcripts in osteosarcomas by transcriptome sequencing; and involvement of C-MYC and ABC transporter genes in the drug resistance of high-grade osteosarcomas. Research from RL4 encompassed the significance of TPD52, the gluthathion transferase inhibitor NBDHEX in overcoming resistance to doxorubicin, and the triggering of antibody-dependent cytotoxicity or activation with IL15 to overcome sarcoma-induced NK cell hypo-responsiveness.
Almost thirty posters were also on display throughout the joint meeting in the Conference reception area.
Day two was, to all intents and purposes, a joint meeting of the two networks. The proceedings started with a welcome and introduction by the two coordinators, Pancras Hogendoorn and Jean-Yves Blay, who described shared goals and perspectives. During the day, an outline was given to the combined assembly of the key initiatives aimed at joining forces and promoting joint cooperation and sustainability. These include the creation of a joint biobank, which has already been actively explored, an Endowment Fund to support the developing Sarcoma League, and the establishment of the jointly managed open access journal, Clinical Sarcoma Research, which has been open for submissions since December 2010.
After lunch, the Scientific Officer from the European Commission for both projects, Dr. Jan van de Loo, provided a very thorough, extremely interesting overview of the EC cancer programme. He described the main drivers of ongoing and future policy, which include improving the health of citizens, increasing the competitiveness of European health-related industry, addressing global health issues and supporting the aims of Europe 2020: the 'Innovation Union'. The current policy goals to aim for are health promotion and early detection, best healthcare practice, cooperation, coordination and benchmarking.
EuroBoNeT's scientific contribution to day two consisted of an overview of the work performed in each of the Research Lines (RL1: cartilaginous tumours; RL2: osteogenic tumours and related sarcomas; RL3: osteoclastogenesis and giant cell tumours of bone; and RL4: Ewing family of tumours) and in the translational research workpackage.
The second day's proceedings closed with a very pleasant joint get-together reception at the conference hotel.
Day three was devoted to a Conticanet closed meeting.
Links are available on the website to the Abstract Book and Final Programme of the Annual General Meeting, and to a short report of the meeting including administrative issues and voting.
The final EuroBoNeT meeting will be held in Congress Center 'Oud Poelgeest' near Leiden from 27-29 June 2011.
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Breaking news:
Leida Rozeman's contract to assist in coordinating the EuroBoNeT project with the Leiden team, ended on 16th March. We would like to send her a big thank you for all her hard work over these past five years, especially on the financial side of things. We wish her all the very best for the future!
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Moving towards a joint biobank
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Background
- Conticabase is the Conticanet tumour bank collecting clinical, pathological, therapeutic and follow-up samples in addition to samples with IHC, molecular biology and availability of paraffin and frozen tissue for patients with a mesenchymal tumour except gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST) and bone tumours.
- Conticagist is the database dedicated to GIST.
These databases are shared via Internet with common rules for access and use of data and material.
- EuroBoNeT is the network's virtual web-based BioBank for cartilaginous, osteogenic, giant cell and Ewing family tumours of bone.
Objectives
The aim of the three banks/databases is to gather anonymised information on patient material i.e. available tissue (fresh frozen and fixed), DNA, RNA, protein, serum, and clinical data of the patients. Specific functions allow the content of the databases to be queried, to initiate and manage collaborative studies and to link data of a given patient to imaging, histological virtual slide and CGH array profile. The purpose is also to facilitate cooperative clinical, prognostic, pathological and biological studies and to better streamline research and increase the number of samples available to the partners for research.
Standardized and structured (XML format) reports for multi-disciplinary team meetings, surgery, pathology and others can be used for automatically entering data from local patient files into Conticabase and Conticagist. This strategy saves time and money and reduces errors commonly associated with manual data entry.
Eurosarcomabank
In order to work towards harmonizing the Eurobonet biobank (bone tumours) and Conticanet databases (Conticabase and ConticaGist), a working group from the two consortia met in Leiden last September and scheduled three telephone conferences. The first step has been to set up a common portal with matched login and passwords for accessing these databases. The terminology has also been harmonized and a common data dictionary drawn up. Access to the sister databases will be on a guest log-in basis. A brief prototype demonstration of a common portal was given at the joint EuroBoNeT/ Conticanet meeting in Paris in January 2011. The second step will be to make mutual improvements based on comparison of the different databases.
The name of the joint bank is Eurosarcomabank.
See: http://gateway.eurosarcomabank.org
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Clinical Sarcoma Research
The combined network journal is now up, running and ready for launch. We now have six papers almost ready for publication. We look forward to receiving your submissions very soon! We are only a click away!
Go to: www.clinicalsarcomaresearch.com
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Breaking news:
Carlos De Andre received both a Certificate of Merit for the Stowell-Orbison competition at the United States Canadian Academy of Pathology as well as the prize for the best presentation of the International Society of Bone and Soft Tissue Pathology 2011 for his work entitled, "Growth Plate Regulation and Osteochondroma Formation: Insights from Tracing Proteoglycans in Zebrafish Models and Human Cartilage."
Well done Carlos!
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Dental Research Study - The MHE Foundation in collaboration with LUMC
- See link
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GIST International survey
- See link
EuroBoNeT has joined the European Action Against Rare Cancers
- See link
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Call for FP7 experts
- See link
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EuroBoNeT Forum |
In attachment with this email
comes a pdf containing instructions on how to access the EuroBoNeT Forum.
In addition, you can browse the online version of the HowTo, located at http://www.eurobonet.eu/forum_howto.htm |
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Link section |
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Courses |
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Conferences |
TYAC Teenagers and Young Adults with Cancer SPRING EDUCATION DAY, London, 5 May, 2011.
- www.tyac.org.uk
24th EMSOS meeting 18 to 20 May 2011, Ghent, Belgium
- www.emsos2011.be
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Meetings |
Final EuroBoNeT meeting - Congress Center "Oud Poelgeest", Leiden, 27-29 June, 2011.
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Job opportunities |
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