Advancing Sarcoma Research through Anya’s Wish project
Children’s Cancer Institute shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Sarcomas are tumours of the bones, cartilage and other connective tissues of the body, which mostly affect children, adolescents and young adults. In Australia, about 75 children under 15 years of age are diagnosed with sarcoma each year, making it one of the most common childhood cancers.
In 2019, Children’s Cancer Institute recruited experienced sarcoma researcher, Dr. Emmy Fleuren to lead a new research program in sarcoma. The aim of this program is to develop new therapies for sarcoma that are safer and more effective than current therapies, many of which cause damaging side effects and serious longterm health issues in survivors.
Emmy and her team are working on identifying new therapeutic targets (specific molecules in cancer cells that drive their growth) in sarcoma, which new therapies can be designed to act on. They are also testing potential new therapies for sarcoma in living models of the disease.
In 2021, a new research project was launched within our sarcoma program, called Anya’s Wish. Named in memory of 19 year old Anya Zuber, this project focuses on the bone cancer, osteosarcoma.
So far, the project has made good progress, establishing several new cell lines (grown from the cells of osteosarcoma patients participating in ZERO) and identifying a promising drug candidate which appears able to kill osteosarcoma cells without harming normal cells.
Dr Emmy Fleuren says, ‘Treatment for sarcoma is essentially the same as it was decades ago. New targeted treatment options are desperately needed. Ultimately, I’m looking to improve the cure rate of children with sarcomas, using treatments that are less harsh, with less side effects.’ ”