FACTOR 2023

Anita Caldera joined MIB Agents as Fundraising and Events Manager in May of 2022. She has worked in the non-profit space for over 10 years, leading with compassion and advocating for families navigating Early Intervention Program and executing small to mid-scale events with the National Hemophilia Foundation. She is passionate about wellness and building relationships and continues to Make It Better alongside her teammates, our community of patients, caregivers, doctors and researchers.

Isabel Wolf joined MIB Agents in April of 2021 where she serves the osteosarcoma community as MIB’s Director of Programs. She came to MIB via the Matthew Lehrman Osteosarcoma Fund. OsteoAngel Matthew called her “My second Mom.” Isabel was an artist manager of opera singers and classical musicians for more than 30 years and has served on not-for-profit boards of directors in the US and Europe. She vowed to Matthew that she would help Make it Better for other children and their families, suffering with osteosarcoma.

Mary is a wife and mom to three boys, one of which is OsteoWarrior, Andrew. Her family fund strives to provide support, resources and hope to those affected by osteosarcoma so that every child can live the life they deserve. It is her family’s mission to always remember and honor the warriors and angels through every fundraising effort.

Christina’s son Dylan was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2016. They attended the first MIB Agents FACTOR conference in 2017 and found a tremendous community of support and helpful resources. Dylan bonded with fellow OsteoWarriors at Warrior HQ at FACTOR every year while Christina and Dylan’s dad Burt soaked up all the information they could from FACTOR scientific sessions and other MIB Agents resources like OsteoBites. When Dylan passed away in 2021 after bravely battling osteosarcoma for five years, Christina joined the MIB Agents team in January 2022 as the Director of Scientific Programs. In this role, Christina creates programs to engage and support the scientific community who are striving to improve treatment options and outcomes. Prior to focusing on patient advocacy, Christina had a career in advertising with experience at a traditional advertising agency and building advertising programs at start-ups like Excite and Google. In addition to being a proud owner of a MIB Agents Family Fund honoring Dylan, she is also a founding member of the Battle Osteosarcoma team that has partnered with St. Baldrick’s Foundation to fund over $2 million in osteosarcoma research grants since 2019. She is honored to serve as a consumer reviewer for the CDMRP Peer Review Cancer Research and Rare Cancer Research Programs, and as a Research Advocate on the NCI Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) Steering Committee as a member of the NCI Office of Advocacy Relations advocate network. She is grateful to MIB Agents and these programs for giving her the opportunity to make it better for OsteoWarriors and pediatric cancer patients everywhere, which is helping her transform senseless loss into a sense of purpose - #BecauseOfDylan.

Dr. McEachron earned his doctorate in Molecular and Cellular Pathology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2011. He completed postdoctoral fellowships at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and at the Translational Genomics Research Institute. In 2016, Dr. McEachron joined the faculty of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Translational Genomics (primary appointment) and the Department of Pediatrics (secondary appointment). Dr. McEachron joined the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the National Cancer Institute in 2021 where he leads the Integrated Solid Tumor Biology Section. The major focus of his laboratory is to molecularly dissect the microenvironment of pediatric metastatic osteosarcoma to better understand the biology of metastatic disease and identify therapeutically actionable targets.

Joshua is a PhD student at the University of Toronto under Dr. Adam Shlien at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. He researches how tumor gene expression from wide range of sarcomas can be leveraged to understand the relationships between diseases and identify new disease subtypes which better reflect a tumour’s underlying biology.

Dr. Pavisic is an Assistant Professor and pediatric oncologist in the Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology, and Stem Cell Transplantation at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC). She completed a NLM-funded Post Doctoral Fellowship and Masters Program in Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University, and has expertise in bioinformatics, machine learning, and computational genomics. Her lab applies novel computational approaches to high throughput genomic data in pediatric oncology to better understand tumor biology, identify new therapeutic targets, and transform the role for precision oncology in pediatrics. Specifically, she has focused on network-based inference of tumor dependencies, biomarker development, and elucidation of drug mechanism of action to guide therapy selection across high-risk pediatric cancers (osteosarcoma, AML, glioma). She has experience in bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing technologies and computational analyses, as well as experimental methods to pharmacologically (i.e. high-throughput drug screens, PLATE-seq) or genetically (i.e. CRISPR) target predicted tumor regulators with the ultimate goal of defining tumor heterogeneity and cell-state specific therapies for high risk pediatric tumors. Her clinical expertise is in treating children with sarcoma, with a focus on using tumor biology and molecular characterization to drive treatment.

Kelly Makielski is an Assistant Professor of Small Animal Internal Medicine at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine. Following board certification in Small Animal Internal Medicine, Dr. Makielski completed a research post-doctoral fellowship in the Comparative Oncology Lab at the University of Minnesota, supported by an NIH T32. Dr. Makielski’s research program is devoted to using animal models to further our understanding of pediatric osteosarcoma. Dr. Makielski recently received an NIH K01 award to investigate exosomal gene signatures associated with metastatic propensity in pediatric osteosarcoma.

Dr. Rankin graduated in 1999 from the University of Dundee. His basic surgical training was in Newcastle upon Tyne followed by an MD investigating the cellular biology of bone metastases. Dr. Rankin completed his higher specialist training in Perth and Dundee, Scotland followed by a return to the North East of England as NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer.

Dr. Rankin graduated in 1999 from the University of Dundee. His basic surgical training was in Newcastle upon Tyne followed by an MD investigating the cellular biology of bone metastases. Dr. Rankin completed his higher specialist training in Perth and Dundee, Scotland followed by a return to the North East of England as NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer.

After completing her Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, Dr. Diehl joined Dow AgroSciences as a study director and led several environmental fate projects for pesticide registrations. She joined Waters Corporation as a Senior Applications Chemist in 2001 and spent the next 10 years in various scientific manager and marketing roles within the Chemistry Group, including Director of Applications. Her group developed LC, LC/MS, and GC/MS applications for new and existing LC columns and SPE products, covering all markets. In 2011, she was named the Director of New Product Portfolio Management, to manage the Ideation through Launch process for new consumables, with a focus on business case development. In 2013, she moved into the Pharmaceutical Marketing team as Director of Small Molecule Pharmaceutical Business Development. In 2016, she became Senior Director of Pharmaceutical Market Development. In 2020, Diane became Senior Director, Scientific Operations – leading a group of 70+ scientists responsible for developing customer focused workflows on new and existing products. In 2022, Diane joined the Broad Institute to lead the operations of Count Me In, a patient-partnered research team focused on rare cancer genomics. She is currently the Interim Director of Count Me In and one of the PI’s involved in the PECGS project team studying osteosarcoma and leiomyosarcoma.

Ryan Roberts, MD, PhD, is a physician in the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Blood and Marrow Transplant at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a principal investigator in the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s. Dr. Roberts is an assistant professor of pediatrics and a member of the Translational Therapeutics research program at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J.Solove Research Institute. He is a graduate of the Medical Scientist Training Program at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He completed his residency in pediatrics and a Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant fellowship at Nationwide Children’s. A physician-scientist, Dr. Roberts specializes in treating childhood sarcomas. He has led the Osteosarcoma Biology Committee of the Children’s Oncology Group since 2020.

As a pediatric oncologist and physician-scientist with significant training in molecular and cellular biology, Dr. Yustein has been fortunate enough to design and unify his laboratory research and clinical interests. He recognizes the need for improving our understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of sarcomas and the identification of new therapeutic avenues, especially for patients with therapeutic resistance and/or metastatic disease. His laboratory has tremendous interest and experience in merging innovative murine models and patient-derived resources towards garnering molecular insights into sarcoma initiation, development/resistance, and metastatic progression and translating these findings towards testing novel therapeutic interventions for these aggressive malignancies.

Dr. Patel is a pediatric oncologist and sarcoma researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He graduated from the MD-PhD program at Mayo Clinic, and then completed a pediatric residency at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. After completing a fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, he joined the faculty in 2019. His research is motivated by the experience of children with high-risk sarcomas, who suffer from high rates of disease recurrence. Dr. Patel’s research centers on combining genomics, patient-derived experimental models of disease, and computational biology. Using these approaches, he has developed atlases of heterogeneity within pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma and neuroblastoma. Using patient-derived models of osteosarcoma and single-cell RNA-sequencing, he has generated an atlas of heterogeneity within osteosarcoma samples and is leveraging that information to develop 3D models of osteosarcoma that incorporate the extracellular architecture of that disease.

Fan Yang is an Associate Professor with tenure at Stanford University with joint appointments in the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Bioengineering. She is the founder and Director of Stanford Stem Cells and Biomaterials Engineering Laboratory, and also Co-director of Stanford NIH Biotechnology Training Program. Her research seeks to develop hydrogels with unique micro- and nano- scale properties to promote stem cell differentiation, tissue regeneration and immunomodulation, with a focus on musculoskeletal diseases. Her lab also harnesses biomaterials to create 3D cancer models with in vivo-mimicking phenotype and drug responses. Such 3D models could enable discovering novel druggable targets that would otherwise be missed using conventional 2D culture, and enable high-throughput drug screening with reduced cost and time than animal models. Prior to joining Stanford, Dr. Yang received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT under Prof. Robert Langer. In recognition of her innovation, she has been recognized by numerous awards including Fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, MIT TR35 Global list honoree, National Science Foundation CAREER award, Young Investigator Award from Society for Biomaterials, Biomaterials Science Lectureship Award, Young Investigator award from Alliance for Cancer and Gene Therapy, Ellen Weaver Award by the Association for Women in Science, Baxter Faculty Scholar Award, the McCormick Faculty Award, Stanford Asian American Faculty Award, and the Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award etc.

Dr. Laurie Graves received her medical degree and completed residency training in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina. She completed her Pediatric Hematology and Oncology fellowship at Duke University, where she is currently an Advanced Sarcoma Research Fellow. Her research utilizes cross-species pre-clinical models to explore ecological hallmarks and target genomic signatures associated with chemotherapy resistance in osteosarcoma and is supported by Hyundai Hope on Wheels and the Triangle Center for Evolutionary Medicine.

Daniel Saptari is a rising Junior in high school. He was diagnosed with high-grade osteosarcoma of the left femur in July 2020, in the midst of a COVID-19 lockdown (remember those?) and prime summer months playing tennis, biking, and running. He underwent 9 months of MAP chemotherapy, MTP immunotherapy, and several bone-regenerative surgeries (over the span of 15 months), which did not end up succeeding. He is currently 2 years NED and awaiting a rotationplasty surgery, and as of late (and throughout the past years) stays busy with science - competing on the Science Olympiad team and doing random projects.

Gillian Okimoto is a high school Junior at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, New York. She is an OsteoWarrior, diagnosed in 2017. With MIB JAB, her goal is to support cancer research and patient education. She is interested in the arts and computer science and hopes to use them to aid and honor all OsteoFamilies.

Heather Gardner, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Oncology) is an assistant research professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. Dr. Gardner earned her DVM at Washington State University and completed her Residency in Veterinary Medical Oncology at Ohio State University before completing her PhD in Genetics at Tufts University. Her research efforts center on comparative and translational cancer genomics, using the tumor genome to inform novel biomarker driven therapeutic approaches.

Chand Khanna, DVM, PhD is a graduate of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine. He then received specialty training in the fields of Veterinary Internal Medicine and Oncology, first at the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph and then the University of Minnesota. Dr. Khanna is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (Oncology). Following this clinical specialization Dr. Khanna received a PhD in Pathobiology from the University of Minnesota and then completed a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Lee Helman in the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda Maryland. Dr. Khanna was granted full tenure and promoted to the position of Senior Investigator as the Head of Pediatric Oncology Branch’s Tumor and Metastasis Biology Section, and Founding Director of the Center for Cancer Research, Comparative Oncology Program, In 2011. His research interests and responsibilities focused on the problem of cancer metastasis and the development of new options to treat patients with metastasis. Dr. Khanna has over 100 publications in cancer biology and therapy. Dr.Khanna is the editor of a new textbook entitled Therapeutic Strategies in Veterinary Oncology, published by CABI in 2023.

Dr. Amy LeBlanc is a Senior Scientist and the Director of the Comparative Oncology Program. Dr. LeBlanc received her DVM from Michigan State University, followed by a rotating internship at Texas A&M University, and residency training in veterinary medical oncology at Louisiana State University. She subsequently joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee’s College of Veterinary Medicine, and was awarded tenure in 2010. Dr. LeBlanc held a joint appointment with the University of Tennessee’s Graduate School of Medicine and was head of the UT’s Molecular Imaging and Translational Research Program from 2010 – 2014. She then joined the NCI in 2014 as the head of the Comparative Oncology Program. In this position she conducts preclinical mouse and translational canine studies that are designed to inform the drug and imaging agent development path for human cancer patients, specifically those with osteosarcoma. She also advises leading pharmaceutical companies as well as NCI’s Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis on the inclusion of pet dogs with cancer into the development path of novel approaches for a variety of malignancies, including immunotherapeutics, targeted small molecules, oncolytic viruses, and cancer imaging agents. She directly oversees the NCI Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium (COTC), which provides infrastructure necessary to connect participating veterinary academic institutions with stakeholders in drug development to execute fit-for-purpose comparative clinical trials in novel therapeutics and imaging agents.

Nicola Mason is a Professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences and Advanced Medicine and Pathobiology and holds the James & Gilmore Endowed Chair Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine. She received her veterinary degree from the Royal Veterinary College, London and her Immunology PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. She performed her post-doctoral fellowship in cancer immunotherapy with Carl June at the Abramson Cancer Center at the School of Medicine at Penn. Dr. Mason’s translational research group focuses on a comparative approach to accelerate the clinical implementation of effective immunotherapies – including engineered T and iNKT cells – for both human and canine patients with cancer. Innovative clinical trials in pet dogs with spontaneous tumors including osteosarcoma, high grade glioma and B cell lymphoma, provide important safety and early efficacy data for human clinical trial design. Dr. Mason leads the NIH/NCI supported pre-medical cancer immunotherapy network for canine trials (PRECINCT). The network is comprised of veterinary and medical clinician scientists, including oncologists, internists, surgeons and pathologists who share a passion for comparative translational research.

Dr. Regan received his DVM degree from the University of Georgia, and subsequently completed his residency training in veterinary anatomic pathology and PhD in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology (MIP) at Colorado State University. In 2018 he accepted his current faculty position in the Flint Animal Cancer Center within the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University. The focus of Dr. Regan’s laboratory is to increase our understanding of the interplay between the immune system and non-immune tumor stroma, and how these compartments of the tumor microenvironment (TME) promote metastasis as well as mediate extrinsic mechanisms of resistance to anticancer therapy, with a specific focus on lung metastasis. These investigations are focused in two primary disease interests of breast cancer and osteosarcoma, due to the poor long-term outcomes for patients with metastatic forms of these cancers.

Michael graduated from Bowdoin College with honors in Biology. He obtained a PhD in Immunology and MD at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine MSTP. He completed a pediatric residency at Children’s Hospital Colorado and pediatric hematology/oncology/BMT fellowship training at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He returned to Children’s Hospital of Colorado as an Assistant Professor of pediatric hematology/oncology/BMT. His laboratory focus is to develop safer and more effective cell-based therapies for osteosarcoma.

Dr. Ligon earned his medical degree from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. After he completed his residency in pediatrics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, he pursued a fellowship in pediatric hematology and oncology at Johns Hopkins University and the National Cancer Institute in Maryland. In the following years, he completed a senior fellowship in pediatric immunotherapy at the National Cancer Institute and another in pediatric sarcoma at Johns Hopkins University.

Nicola Mason is a Professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences and Advanced Medicine and Pathobiology and holds the James & Gilmore Endowed Chair Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine. She received her veterinary degree from the Royal Veterinary College, London and her Immunology PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. She performed her post-doctoral fellowship in cancer immunotherapy with Carl June at the Abramson Cancer Center at the School of Medicine at Penn. Dr. Mason’s translational research group focuses on a comparative approach to accelerate the clinical implementation of effective immunotherapies – including engineered T and iNKT cells – for both human and canine patients with cancer. Innovative clinical trials in pet dogs with spontaneous tumors including osteosarcoma, high grade glioma and B cell lymphoma, provide important safety and early efficacy data for human clinical trial design. Dr. Mason leads the NIH/NCI supported pre-medical cancer immunotherapy network for canine trials (PRECINCT). The network is comprised of veterinary and medical clinician scientists, including oncologists, internists, surgeons and pathologists who share a passion for comparative translational research.

Michael Isakoff, MD is the Division Head of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and is a Professor of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School Of Medicine.

Dr. Pavisic is an Assistant Professor and pediatric oncologist in the Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology, and Stem Cell Transplantation at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC). She completed a NLM-funded Post Doctoral Fellowship and Masters Program in Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University, and has expertise in bioinformatics, machine learning, and computational genomics. Her lab applies novel computational approaches to high throughput genomic data in pediatric oncology to better understand tumor biology, identify new therapeutic targets, and transform the role for precision oncology in pediatrics. Specifically, she has focused on network-based inference of tumor dependencies, biomarker development, and elucidation of drug mechanism of action to guide therapy selection across high-risk pediatric cancers (osteosarcoma, AML, glioma). She has experience in bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing technologies and computational analyses, as well as experimental methods to pharmacologically (i.e. high-throughput drug screens, PLATE-seq) or genetically (i.e. CRISPR) target predicted tumor regulators with the ultimate goal of defining tumor heterogeneity and cell-state specific therapies for high risk pediatric tumors. Her clinical expertise is in treating children with sarcoma, with a focus on using tumor biology and molecular characterization to drive treatment.

After completing her Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, Dr. Diehl joined Dow AgroSciences as a study director and led several environmental fate projects for pesticide registrations. She joined Waters Corporation as a Senior Applications Chemist in 2001 and spent the next 10 years in various scientific manager and marketing roles within the Chemistry Group, including Director of Applications. Her group developed LC, LC/MS, and GC/MS applications for new and existing LC columns and SPE products, covering all markets. In 2011, she was named the Director of New Product Portfolio Management, to manage the Ideation through Launch process for new consumables, with a focus on business case development. In 2013, she moved into the Pharmaceutical Marketing team as Director of Small Molecule Pharmaceutical Business Development. In 2016, she became Senior Director of Pharmaceutical Market Development. In 2020, Diane became Senior Director, Scientific Operations – leading a group of 70+ scientists responsible for developing customer focused workflows on new and existing products. In 2022, Diane joined the Broad Institute to lead the operations of Count Me In, a patient-partnered research team focused on rare cancer genomics. She is currently the Interim Director of Count Me In and one of the PI’s involved in the PECGS project team studying osteosarcoma and leiomyosarcoma.

Dr. Nino Rainusso is a member of the Pediatric Solid Tumor Team and Co-Director of the Cardio Oncology Program at Texas Children’s Hospital - Baylor College of Medicine. Their laboratory focuses on understanding the role of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in both tumor development and chemotherapy resistance in pediatric sarcomas. He has conducted several studies aimed to characterize CSCs in pediatric bone tumors. They have developed several patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, and soft-tissue sarcomas. Their laboratory currently participates in a multiinstitutional PDX project aimed to characterize and to evaluate the impact of novel therapeutic approaches in pediatric cancers using PDXs.

Nicola Mason is a Professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences and Advanced Medicine and Pathobiology and holds the James & Gilmore Endowed Chair Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine. She received her veterinary degree from the Royal Veterinary College, London and her Immunology PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. She performed her post-doctoral fellowship in cancer immunotherapy with Carl June at the Abramson Cancer Center at the School of Medicine at Penn. Dr. Mason’s translational research group focuses on a comparative approach to accelerate the clinical implementation of effective immunotherapies – including engineered T and iNKT cells – for both human and canine patients with cancer. Innovative clinical trials in pet dogs with spontaneous tumors including osteosarcoma, high grade glioma and B cell lymphoma, provide important safety and early efficacy data for human clinical trial design. Dr. Mason leads the NIH/NCI supported pre-medical cancer immunotherapy network for canine trials (PRECINCT). The network is comprised of veterinary and medical clinician scientists, including oncologists, internists, surgeons and pathologists who share a passion for comparative translational research.

Michael Isakoff, MD is the Division Head of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and is a Professor of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School Of Medicine.

Dr. Pavisic is an Assistant Professor and pediatric oncologist in the Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology, and Stem Cell Transplantation at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC). She completed a NLM-funded Post Doctoral Fellowship and Masters Program in Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University, and has expertise in bioinformatics, machine learning, and computational genomics. Her lab applies novel computational approaches to high throughput genomic data in pediatric oncology to better understand tumor biology, identify new therapeutic targets, and transform the role for precision oncology in pediatrics. Specifically, she has focused on network-based inference of tumor dependencies, biomarker development, and elucidation of drug mechanism of action to guide therapy selection across high-risk pediatric cancers (osteosarcoma, AML, glioma). She has experience in bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing technologies and computational analyses, as well as experimental methods to pharmacologically (i.e. high-throughput drug screens, PLATE-seq) or genetically (i.e. CRISPR) target predicted tumor regulators with the ultimate goal of defining tumor heterogeneity and cell-state specific therapies for high risk pediatric tumors. Her clinical expertise is in treating children with sarcoma, with a focus on using tumor biology and molecular characterization to drive treatment.

After completing her Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, Dr. Diehl joined Dow AgroSciences as a study director and led several environmental fate projects for pesticide registrations. She joined Waters Corporation as a Senior Applications Chemist in 2001 and spent the next 10 years in various scientific manager and marketing roles within the Chemistry Group, including Director of Applications. Her group developed LC, LC/MS, and GC/MS applications for new and existing LC columns and SPE products, covering all markets. In 2011, she was named the Director of New Product Portfolio Management, to manage the Ideation through Launch process for new consumables, with a focus on business case development. In 2013, she moved into the Pharmaceutical Marketing team as Director of Small Molecule Pharmaceutical Business Development. In 2016, she became Senior Director of Pharmaceutical Market Development. In 2020, Diane became Senior Director, Scientific Operations – leading a group of 70+ scientists responsible for developing customer focused workflows on new and existing products. In 2022, Diane joined the Broad Institute to lead the operations of Count Me In, a patient-partnered research team focused on rare cancer genomics. She is currently the Interim Director of Count Me In and one of the PI’s involved in the PECGS project team studying osteosarcoma and leiomyosarcoma.

Dr. Nino Rainusso is a member of the Pediatric Solid Tumor Team and Co-Director of the Cardio Oncology Program at Texas Children’s Hospital - Baylor College of Medicine. Their laboratory focuses on understanding the role of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in both tumor development and chemotherapy resistance in pediatric sarcomas. He has conducted several studies aimed to characterize CSCs in pediatric bone tumors. They have developed several patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, and soft-tissue sarcomas. Their laboratory currently participates in a multiinstitutional PDX project aimed to characterize and to evaluate the impact of novel therapeutic approaches in pediatric cancers using PDXs.

Anita Caldera joined MIB Agents as Fundraising and Events Manager in May of 2022. She has worked in the non-profit space for over 10 years, leading with compassion and advocating for families navigating Early Intervention Program and executing small to mid-scale events with the National Hemophilia Foundation. She is passionate about wellness and building relationships and continues to Make It Better alongside her teammates, our community of patients, caregivers, doctors and researchers.

Dr. Shervin Oskouei has been an orthopedic oncologist at Emory Healthcare Winship Cancer Institute for 20 years. He is division director of orthopedic oncology at Emory University School of Medicine and director of MSK oncology Fellowship. He received his orthopedic oncology training at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Jayanthi Parthasarathy is a trained dental surgeon, having practiced dentistry in India for more than 3 decades. Transgressed to additive manufacturing for clinical needs after completing master’s in mechanical and Manufacturing engineering from CEG, Anna University and pursuing PhD at the University of Oklahoma, USA. Has been at the cutting edge of 3D biomodelling and 3D printing to arrive at patient specific solutions for complex surgical challenges in the adult and pediatric population for more than 2 decades specializing in development of patient specific devices using advanced design and manufacturing technologies as 3D Printing with in-depth knowledge and experience in navigating FDA approvals for medical devices.

Dr. Rankin graduated in 1999 from the University of Dundee. His basic surgical training was in Newcastle upon Tyne followed by an MD investigating the cellular biology of bone metastases. Dr. Rankin completed his higher specialist training in Perth and Dundee, Scotland followed by a return to the North East of England as NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer.

Matt Hawkins is a board-certified interventional radiologist and associate professor at the Emory University School of Medicine within the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences. Dr. Hawkins is the Medical Director of pediatric interventional radiology, and specializes in the treatment of vascular malformations, pediatric oncologic conditions amenable to minimally invasive therapies, and venous thromboembolic disease. He also serves as Medical Director of the Vascular Anomalies Clinic at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Dr. Hawkins’ non-clinical interests include health policy, economics, and performance improvement – and specifically healthcare challenges where these disciplines intersect. Throughout his early career, he has actively volunteered for organized radiology and currently serves as the Health Policy and Economics Councilor on the Executive Council for the Society of Interventional Radiology and as an assistant editor for the JACR. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications, over 20 columns in radiology journals, and given over 175 national invited lectures.

Dr. Joanne Tuohy is a veterinary surgical oncologist and an immunologist. She believes in the strength of a One Health approach to comparative oncology research to benefit both veterinary and human patients with cancer. The overall goal of her research is to improve cancer outcomes for veterinary and human patients via tumor ablation and immunotherapy, especially for patients with osteosarcoma and lung tumors. Specifically, her research team investigates the use of two non-thermal tumor ablation techniques – histotripsy and high-frequency irreversible electroporation (H-FIRE). Her research focuses on developing histotripsy as a tumor ablation modality for the primary tumor in osteosarcoma, and on developing H-FIRE as a tumor ablation modality for metastatic tumors in osteosarcoma and primary lung tumors. Additionally, her research also evaluates the immune response after histotripsy and H-FIRE ablation of tumors. Her research team utilizes veterinary clinical trials, preclinical models and in-vitro systems to explore the ablative and immunomodulatory effects of histotripsy and H-FIRE.

Dr. Annie Gill is a board-certified radiology and associate professor at the Emory University School of Medicine within the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences. Dr. Gill has also earned her certificate of added qualification in the subspecialty of interventional radiology from the American Board of Radiology. She specializes in the treatment of pediatric soft tissue tumors, hepatobiliary disease, venous thromboembolic disease, and vascular malformations. Dr. Gill is a reviewer for the Pediatric Radiology Journal and CVIR. She has authored more than 30 peer reviewed publications and given several national and international presentations regarding her work in pediatric interventional radiology.

Jenna Kocsis is a Radiation Oncology Resident at Cleveland Clinic. She is from Bethlehem, PA and attended medical school at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. She is mentored by Dr. Erin Murphy from the Cleveland Clinic who specializes is pediatric radiation oncology. They are passionate about using SBRT for younger patients and have several projects evaluating the role of SBRT for patients with metastatic sarcoma.

Christina’s son Dylan was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2016. They attended the first MIB Agents FACTOR conference in 2017 and found a tremendous community of support and helpful resources. Dylan bonded with fellow OsteoWarriors at Warrior HQ at FACTOR every year while Christina and Dylan’s dad Burt soaked up all the information they could from FACTOR scientific sessions and other MIB Agents resources like OsteoBites. When Dylan passed away in 2021 after bravely battling osteosarcoma for five years, Christina joined the MIB Agents team in January 2022 as the Director of Scientific Programs. In this role, Christina creates programs to engage and support the scientific community who are striving to improve treatment options and outcomes. Prior to focusing on patient advocacy, Christina had a career in advertising with experience at a traditional advertising agency and building advertising programs at start-ups like Excite and Google. In addition to being a proud owner of a MIB Agents Family Fund honoring Dylan, she is also a founding member of the Battle Osteosarcoma team that has partnered with St. Baldrick’s Foundation to fund over $2 million in osteosarcoma research grants since 2019. She is honored to serve as a consumer reviewer for the CDMRP Peer Review Cancer Research and Rare Cancer Research Programs, and as a Research Advocate on the NCI Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) Steering Committee as a member of the NCI Office of Advocacy Relations advocate network. She is grateful to MIB Agents and these programs for giving her the opportunity to make it better for OsteoWarriors and pediatric cancer patients everywhere, which is helping her transform senseless loss into a sense of purpose - #BecauseOfDylan.

Dr. Marinoff is a third-year pediatric hematology/oncology fellow and has focused her training and research efforts on building a career at the interface of translational genomics and developmental therapeutics. Her overarching career goals are aimed at improving outcomes and decreasing toxicities for pediatric, adolescent and young adults (AYA) with advanced cancers by 1) identifying prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets in high-risk pediatric cancers through the linkage of clinical and -omics data 2) designing and leading precision clinical trials that incorporate novel biomarkers, tools, and targeted therapies 3) to provide outstanding clinical care to pediatric, adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients, with a focus on pediatric and AYA patients with sarcomas. Her research has revealed MYC amplification as the first genomic biomarker in osteosarcoma (OS) that can be detected using clinical next-generation sequencing, and if validated, can be used for risk stratification in future clinical trials and clinical care. Her current research efforts are focused on linking real-world clinical and -omic data as a path toward precision oncology in osteosarcoma by leveraging the international clinico-genomic cancer registry project GENIE (Genomics Evidence Neoplasia Information Exchange) and on translating preclinical data from the SweetCordero laboratory for 1) classifying OS into two clusters with differential epigenetic states, gene expression, and clinical outcomes into a novel clinical test for risks stratification in OS and 2) novel therapeutic combinations for OS into early phase clinical trials. She is currently a Chan Zuckerberg physician-scientist fellow, a graduate student in the Advanced Training in Clinic Research certificate program, a T32 T2 scholar, the leader of a joint Pediatric Oncology Genomics Tumor board (a collaborative initiative between the Universities of California San Francisco and Santa Cruz focusing on researchgrade sequencing findings among pediatric/ AYA patients receiving anti-cancer therapy at UCSF), and an active member of the UCSF early phase trials program. Upon graduating fellowship in June, she will be an attending oncologist and clinical instructor focusing her clinical and translational work on making it better for kids with cancer and their families, and particularly those impacted by osteosarcoma.

Marta Roman Moreno is a postdoc fellow in the Sweet-Cordero Lab at UCSF. She has a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Granada in Spain, and a MSc and PhD in Biomedical Research from the University of Navarra (Spain). The key focus of her work is to define key regulators of metastasis in osteosarcoma and determine the vulnerabilities that can diminish the survival of metastatic cells. Using mouse models, cell lines derived from patient samples (PDXs) and pooled in vivo CRISPR screens, she has been able to identify several potential genetic vulnerabilities in the context of metastatic osteosarcoma.

Ryan Roberts, MD, PhD, is a physician in the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Blood and Marrow Transplant at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a principal investigator in the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s. Dr. Roberts is an assistant professor of pediatrics and a member of the Translational Therapeutics research program at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J.Solove Research Institute. He is a graduate of the Medical Scientist Training Program at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He completed his residency in pediatrics and a Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant fellowship at Nationwide Children’s. A physician-scientist, Dr. Roberts specializes in treating childhood sarcomas. He has led the Osteosarcoma Biology Committee of the Children’s Oncology Group since 2020.

Heather Gardner, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Oncology) is an assistant research professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. Dr. Gardner earned her DVM at Washington State University and completed her Residency in Veterinary Medical Oncology at Ohio State University before completing her PhD in Genetics at Tufts University. Her research efforts center on comparative and translational cancer genomics, using the tumor genome to inform novel biomarker driven therapeutic approaches.

Dr. Volchenboum is an associate professor of pediatrics and the associate chief research informatics officer for the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Chicago. He is the Dean of Masters Programs, and he designed and launched the UChicago Master’s in Biomedical Informatics. His clinical specialty is pediatric hematology / oncology, caring for kids with cancer and blood diseases. His research group includes the University of Chicago’s Data for the Common Good (D4CG), dedicated to building communities, platforms, and ecosystems that maximize the potential of data to drive discovery and improve human health. D4CG’s flagship project, the Pediatric Cancer Data Commons is dedicated to liberating and democratizing international data for pediatric malignancies. He is the director of the Informatics Core for the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA), and he is director of the UChicago Clinical Informatics fellowship program.

Shahab Asgharzadeh is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at University of Southern California (USC) and the Cancer and Blood Disease Institute at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA). He is the director of the Neuroblastoma Basic and Translational Program and member of the USC’s Cancer Center Tumor Microenvironment Program. He obtained his BS in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University in 1992 and MD from University of Illinois in 1996. He completed pediatric residency and a fellowship in clinical medical ethics at University of Chicago prior to his fellowship in pediatric hematologyoncology at CHLA. He has been named Top Doctor by Pasadena Magazine, and is recipient of Walter Laug Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Determination Award from the American Cancer Society. His research laboratory is focused on understanding the role of the tumor microenvironment and developing novel immunotherapies for children with solid tumors. His group’s first report of identification of inflammation in solid tumors in children has helped to improve our understanding of the role of the immune system in biology of childhood cancers.

Dr. Canter is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He completed general surgery residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and surgical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He joined the faculty at the University of California Davis in 2007 where he is currently a Professor of Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology. He has dedicated his career to studying tumor immunology and immunotherapy in bone and soft tissue sarcoma. As a surgical oncologist, because of his training, his clinical focus has been soft tissue sarcoma, but he has developed highly productive collaborations with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine where osteosarcoma (OSA) is a high unmet need problem in dogs, as for humans. Together, they have pioneered first-in-dog clinical trials for OSA centered around approaches to capitalize on the anti-tumor mechanisms of both endogenous and exogenous natural killer (NK) cells. They have been able to take some of the novel observations they have made treating dog OSA patients back to the bench to study the phenotype and function of NK cells in the lungs as a specialized immune subset that appears to be capable of heightened anti-tumor responses, and they are hoping to build on these results for clinical translation in dog and human OSA.

Chand Khanna, DVM, PhD is a graduate of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine. He then received specialty training in the fields of Veterinary Internal Medicine and Oncology, first at the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph and then the University of Minnesota. Dr. Khanna is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (Oncology). Following this clinical specialization Dr. Khanna received a PhD in Pathobiology from the University of Minnesota and then completed a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Lee Helman in the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda Maryland. Dr. Khanna was granted full tenure and promoted to the position of Senior Investigator as the Head of Pediatric Oncology Branch’s Tumor and Metastasis Biology Section, and Founding Director of the Center for Cancer Research, Comparative Oncology Program, In 2011. His research interests and responsibilities focused on the problem of cancer metastasis and the development of new options to treat patients with metastasis. Dr. Khanna has over 100 publications in cancer biology and therapy. Dr.Khanna is the editor of a new textbook entitled Therapeutic Strategies in Veterinary Oncology, published by CABI in 2023.

Ann is the founder and Executive Director of MIB Agents. At age 43 she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. She was treated in the pediatric cancer center at Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC where she was awed and inspired by the courage and cheerfulness of the kids she was treated with. Today as a survivor, and together with MIB Agents everywhere, the mission to Make It Better (MIB) for kids with osteosarcoma is wholeheartedly undertaken. Ann serves on the SARC Board of Directors and on the Advocate Alliance Leadership Council with the A2A Alliance and with The Mighty.

Dr. Reed is the Chair of the Department of Individualized Cancer Management and Clinical Co-Leader of the Evolutionary Therapy Center of Excellence at Moffitt. He is a Senior Member at Moffitt Cancer Center, and a Professor of Oncologic Sciences at the University of South Florida. He takes care of young adult sarcoma patients. He enjoys collaborative, translational research and works with the Children’s Oncology Group Bone Tumor Committee and the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation’s Sunshine Project. He looks forward to joining Memorial Sloan Kettering this summer.

Gillian Okimoto is a high school Junior at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, New York. She is an OsteoWarrior, diagnosed in 2017. With MIB JAB, her goal is to support cancer research and patient education. She is interested in the arts and computer science and hopes to use them to aid and honor all OsteoFamilies.

Walker was first diagnosed with osteo in August of 2018 with a tumor in his left tibia. He underwent the usual 9 months of MAP chemotherapy along with limb salvage surgery on his left knee. He also had a thoracotomy for concerning right lung nodules that turned out to be benign. In the summer of 2020 doctors found cancerous nodules in Walker’s left lung that were removed via thoracoscopy. Now Walker is 3 years NED and nearly five years from his first treatment. Before treatment Walker enjoyed baseball and basketball but has now learned how to golf and enjoys hiking and finding any way to be outside. He also attends the University of Kentucky where he is a Kinesiology major with an interest in medicine thanks to all his exposure to the medical field while in treatment for osteo.

Andrew Bisaga was diagnosed with osteosarcoma when he was twelve in his proximal femur. He had to abandon playing football, basketball, and soccer, undergoing an 8 month cycle of MAP. He had to get a resection of his proximal femur and a compression implant. He was declared NED July of 2018 and has remained cancer free since. He has just graduated high school and will be attending Creighton University, studying biology in their pre professional medical scholars program.

Sloane is an 18 year old OsteoWarrior. They were diagnosed at 12 and went through MAP protocol, had an initial Limb Salvage Surgery and later electively amputated their right leg. They have now been NED for over five years! They have been involved with MIB since early on in their treatment. They are an Ambassador Agent and this is their second year on the Junior Advisory Board.

Daniel Saptari is a rising Junior in high school. He was diagnosed with high-grade osteosarcoma of the left femur in July 2020, in the midst of a COVID-19 lockdown (remember those?) and prime summer months playing tennis, biking, and running. He underwent 9 months of MAP chemotherapy, MTP immunotherapy, and several bone-regenerative surgeries (over the span of 15 months), which did not end up succeeding. He is currently 2 years NED and awaiting a rotationplasty surgery, and as of late (and throughout the past years) stays busy with science - competing on the Science Olympiad team and doing random projects.

Dr. Alex Huang is a physician scientist and Professor of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Director of the Center for Pediatric Immunotherapy at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, Angie Fowler AYA Cancer Institute in Cleveland, Ohio. He also serves as Director of Pediatric HematologyOncology Fellowship Program at UH Rainbow, co-Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program at the School of Medicine, and co-leader of the Immune Oncology Program within the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. His lab investigates immune responses to cancer and explores translational opportunities to enhance immune-mediated therapeutic approaches to osteosarcoma.

Dr. Milner received his veterinary degree from the University of Pretoria in 1980. In 1998 he received ECVIM diplomate status in Internal Medicine. He completed a PhD at the UP Medical College. He joined the University of Florida in 2001 and was boarded in the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (Oncology) in 2009. He is the Hill’s Endowed Professor of Oncology and Director of Clinical and Translational Research. He holds affiliate appointments in the UF College Medicine and is part of the Pediatric Cancer Immunotherapy Initiative (PCI2). Dr Milner has developed cancer immunotherapies as an adjuvant to cancer standard-of-care.

Dr. Julia Medland is a medical oncology resident at the University of Minnesota Veterinary Medical Center. Following the completion of her residency in July, she will stay on as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medical Oncology. Her research interests center on the immune landscape of osteosarcoma, and the development of novel immunotherapies. She is also interested in the dog as a translational model of naturally occurring osteosarcoma. She is grateful for the opportunity to speak at FACTOR.

Dr. Brian Ladle is a practicing pediatric oncologist, pediatric sarcoma specialist, and translational immunology researcher at Johns Hopkins University with the goal of developing novel immunotherapies for the treatment of pediatric malignancies. His fifth grade science fair project was titled “Cancer.” His sixth grade research paper was titled “The Immune System.” Then, in 1997, as a sophomore in college, he watched Dr. Steven Rosenberg from the NIH on the science show “Nova” describe a new cancer therapy called adoptive T cell therapy – bringing together two of his long-standing interests. His goal since then was to be an oncologist and cancer researcher devoted to developing immunotherapies for cancer. Over the years, that goal has come into clearer focus – specifically now as a pediatric oncologist and sarcoma specialist – he wants to develop novel immune-based therapies for pediatric sarcomas. More than two decades of schooling, training, working, experience, and mentoring have brought him to this point. He has expressed his ambitions in the Ladle Lab Mission Statement: “Children with cancer require better and more effective therapies than chemotherapy and radiation therapy and all the short-term and long-term side effects they bring. Because of the robust immune system children possess, they develop cancers that evade immune detection. We seek to understand how the immune system interacts with their cancer, how we can manipulate both the cancer and immune system to eradicate their cancer, and how to protect them from the cancer ever returning.” The work he will be presenting on their canine osteosarcoma clinical trial is done in collaboration with Dr. Dara Kraitchman VMD, PhD and the Center for Image-Guided Animal Therapy at Johns Hopkins. They thank the dogs and their owners for generously participating in this clinical trial to develop novel osteosarcoma therapies for pets and OsteoWarriors.

In her role as a pediatric oncologist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco, Dr. Young has directly participated in the care of numerous patients with metastatic osteosarcoma and has witnessed immense suffering due to this disease. She strongly believes that patients and their families deserve better treatment options, and she is uniquely positioned to pursue a career centering on this goal. She is conducting translational research in the laboratory of Dr. Alejandro Sweet-Cordero at UCSF, where they have also developed a model of osteosarcoma metastasis as well as a comprehensive panel of patient-derived OS cell lines. These models serve as the foundation for her work elucidating the role of the STING pathway in OS immune evasion and designing novel immuno-oncology therapies to treat metastatic OS. In her career, she plans to start an independent research program studying tumor-immune interactions in OS because of the enormous translational potential she sees in this field.

Antonella Rotolo, MD, PhD, is a Research Assistant Professor of Immuno-Biology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Rotolo holds an MD in Internal Medicine with clinical subspecialty in Hemato-Oncology. She earned a PhD in Immunology at Imperial College London, UK, where she worked on developing enhanced Chimeric Antigen receptor (CAR) immunotherapies using invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cells. She then joined the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies and the Mason lab at University of Pennsylvania for her postdoc. Building on her 10-year experience in iNKT-based adoptive cell therapies, Dr. Rotolo has established a canine iNKT model that will provide a valuable link between mouse preclinical studies and human clinical trials. Her goal is to accelerate clinical application of novel iNKT and CAR therapies for the treatment of canine and human patients with otherwise incurable cancers.

Ekaterina Dadachova received her Bachelor in Chemistry and PhD in Physical Chemistry degrees from Moscow State University in Moscow, Russia. She did her postdoctoral studies in radiopharmaceutical chemistry at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO) in Australia, and at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA. From 2000 till 2016 Dr. Dadachova held a Professorship in Radiology, Microbiology and Immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, USA. At the end of 2016 she joined University of Saskatchewan as a Chair in Radiopharmacy at the Fedoruk Center for Nuclear Innovation, and a Professor at the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition. Her laboratory has pioneered radioimmunotherapy (RIT) of infections. Her other research interests are radioimmunotherapy of osteosarcoma and other cancers as well as melanin-based radioprotectors. She has published >190 peer-reviewed articles, 12 book chapters, and has 7 US patents. She received several awards such as Philips Young Investigator Award by RSNA, Young Professionals Award from the SNM, Mary Kay Ash Research Award, Top 10 researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2013, 2017 Burroughs Welcome Travel Award, and 2020 University of Saskatchewan Distinguished Researcher Award. She is in the top 2% of cited scientists worldwide according to Stanford University 2021 data.

Dr. Janet Yoon is a clinical professor and the medical director of the Pediatric Musculoskeletal Tumor Program at City of Hope. She is also the director of the pediatric clinical trials program at City of Hope.

Sloane is an 18 year old OsteoWarrior. They were diagnosed at 12 and went through MAP protocol, had an initial Limb Salvage Surgery and later electively amputated their right leg. They have now been NED for over five years! They have been involved with MIB since early on in their treatment. They are an Ambassador Agent and this is their second year on the Junior Advisory Board.

Eunice Lopez Fuentes completed her master’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology at the National University in Mexico. Then, she completed her PhD in molecular biology at a research center in Mexico, called IPICYT. Currently, she is a postdoc in the Sweet-Cordero Lab at UCSF and she is interested in defining the mechanisms of epigenetic gene regulation in osteosarcoma.

Dr. Anthony Mutsaers graduated with a DVM from the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, followed by a rotating internship at OVC in small animal medicine and surgery, a residency in Comparative Oncology at Purdue University, and a clinical instructor appointment in veterinary medical oncology at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He is a DACVIM in Oncology. He then returned to Canada to study cancer signaling, angiogenesis, and biomarkers for targeted oncology drugs in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Kerbel at the Sunnybrook Research Institute, where he received a PhD from the Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto. During his graduate studies, he practiced part-time as a medical oncologist at OVC, and was an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Clinical Studies. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Carl Walkley in the Stem Cell Regulation Unit at the St. Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, where he studied transgenic mouse models of OSA and high throughput screening for chemotherapy sensitization targets. In 2011, Dr. Mutsaers returned to the University of Guelph and is currently an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in the OVC Departments of Clinical Studies and Biomedical Sciences. He maintains clinical oncology practice within the OVC Health Sciences Centre and his research program uses comparative oncology to translate discoveries from preclinical research to clinical application in humans through the investigation of naturally occurring cancers in pet dogs, with a focus primarily on novel treatments for osteosarcoma, angiosarcoma, mucosal melanoma, and bladder cancers.

Syeda Maryam Azeem is a Ph.D. candidate at the City University of New York with research focus on Riluzole as a treatment drug for osteosarcoma. She pursued her Bachelors in Pharmacy from Osmania University, India. In 2015, she moved to the US to pursue her Masters degree at Long Island University where she worked on HIV reverse transcriptase enzyme in understanding its mutational resistance towards HIV treatment drugs. Under the supervision of Kathleen Frey, her project was focused on designing a costeffective structure-based computational method that would help researchers predict mutational resistance caused by treatment drugs. Later, she moved to Keedy Lab at Structural Biology Initiative in CUNY Advanced Science Research Center as a Research Assistant. She worked with a versatile team of researchers to understand how conformational change of protein structures influence drug targeting and regulation of protein functions. She worked on examining a set of different proteins called Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases which are involved in different diseases including diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimers.

Tanya Heim has a BS in Animal Sciences from Penn State and a Master’s in Biology from Youngstown State. Tanya worked as a veterinary technician assisting in orthopedic stem cell surgeries of dogs which led her to her pursuance of a future in biomedical research. While obtaining her Master’s, she studied the ability of stem cells to repair hernias in rat models. After graduation, she procured a job at the University of Pittsburgh (PITT) as a Research Coordinator for a liver transplantation research group where she used porcine model to investigated various types of regenerative therapies to improve current liver transplantation methods. After several years, she moved onto a breast cancer research lab at PITT and developed a novel estrogen receptor positive (ER+), invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) cell line. She also worked on phylogenetic research projects on invasive annelids and polychaetes from the coral reefs of Hawaii at both Colgate University and Hamilton College in New York. Tanya is currently the lab manager of the Musculoskeletal Oncology Laboratory at PITT and looks forward to the discoveries ahead in her osteosarcoma research.

Dr. Kristen VanHeyst received her medical degree from New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. She followed this with a pediatric residency and chief resident position at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital in Stony Brook, NY. Dr. VanHeyst completed her Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship in 2019 at University Hospitals/Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, OH. As a fellow, she joined Dr. Alex Huang’s laboratory with a primary interest in metastatic osteosarcoma and a desire to become a translational therapeutics-oriented clinical physician-scientist. She was appointed as an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 2019. She is also a member of the Immune Oncology Program at Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. VanHeyst is a former NIH K12 recipient from 2019-2022. She continues her research efforts in understanding the role of the tumor microenvironment in osteosarcoma. She is also the PI of a Phase I/II investigator initiated clinical trial at her institution.

As a pediatric oncologist and physician-scientist with significant training in molecular and cellular biology, Dr. Yustein has been fortunate enough to design and unify his laboratory research and clinical interests. He recognizes the need for improving our understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of sarcomas and the identification of new therapeutic avenues, especially for patients with therapeutic resistance and/or metastatic disease. His laboratory has tremendous interest and experience in merging innovative murine models and patient-derived resources towards garnering molecular insights into sarcoma initiation, development/resistance, and metastatic progression and translating these findings towards testing novel therapeutic interventions for these aggressive malignancies.

Dr. Gordon is a practicing medical oncologist and serves as Director of Gene and Cell Therapy/Immunotherapy and Chairman of the Institutional Biosafety Committee at the Cancer Center of Southern California/Sarcoma Oncology Research Center, an academic medical institution that conducts ~15 active pharma-sponsored and investigator initiated/sponsored clinical trials for cancer. Dr. Gordon is internationally known in the field of gene therapy, specifically, for the invention and clinical development of DeltaRex-G, the first and, so far, only, tumor/disease-targeted genetic medicine that has induced long term survival (10-15 years) of patients with Stage 4 cancer, 3 of whom had advanced osteosarcoma. DeltaRex-G gained Accelerated Approval for chemotherapy resistant solid malignancies in the Philippines in 2007, orphan drug designation for pancreatic cancer, soft tissue sarcoma and osteosarcoma in 2008, and Fast Track Designation for pancreatic cancer in the United States in 2009.

Andrew Bisaga was diagnosed with osteosarcoma when he was twelve in his proximal femur. He had to abandon playing football, basketball, and soccer, undergoing an 8 month cycle of MAP. He had to get a resection of his proximal femur and a compression implant. He was declared NED July of 2018 and has remained cancer free since. He has just graduated high school and will be attending Creighton University, studying biology in their pre professional medical scholars program.

Ann is the founder and Executive Director of MIB Agents. At age 43 she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. She was treated in the pediatric cancer center at Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC where she was awed and inspired by the courage and cheerfulness of the kids she was treated with. Today as a survivor, and together with MIB Agents everywhere, the mission to Make It Better (MIB) for kids with osteosarcoma is wholeheartedly undertaken. Ann serves on the SARC Board of Directors and on the Advocate Alliance Leadership Council with the A2A Alliance and with The Mighty.

Christina’s son Dylan was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2016. They attended the first MIB Agents FACTOR conference in 2017 and found a tremendous community of support and helpful resources. Dylan bonded with fellow OsteoWarriors at Warrior HQ at FACTOR every year while Christina and Dylan’s dad Burt soaked up all the information they could from FACTOR scientific sessions and other MIB Agents resources like OsteoBites. When Dylan passed away in 2021 after bravely battling osteosarcoma for five years, Christina joined the MIB Agents team in January 2022 as the Director of Scientific Programs. In this role, Christina creates programs to engage and support the scientific community who are striving to improve treatment options and outcomes. Prior to focusing on patient advocacy, Christina had a career in advertising with experience at a traditional advertising agency and building advertising programs at start-ups like Excite and Google. In addition to being a proud owner of a MIB Agents Family Fund honoring Dylan, she is also a founding member of the Battle Osteosarcoma team that has partnered with St. Baldrick’s Foundation to fund over $2 million in osteosarcoma research grants since 2019. She is honored to serve as a consumer reviewer for the CDMRP Peer Review Cancer Research and Rare Cancer Research Programs, and as a Research Advocate on the NCI Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) Steering Committee as a member of the NCI Office of Advocacy Relations advocate network. She is grateful to MIB Agents and these programs for giving her the opportunity to make it better for OsteoWarriors and pediatric cancer patients everywhere, which is helping her transform senseless loss into a sense of purpose - #BecauseOfDylan.

Matteo Trucco is a Pediatric Oncologist and the Clinical Director of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Cleveland Clinic Children’s, specializing in the care of children, teenagers and young adults battling bone and soft tissue cancers. He also directs the Children’s Cancer Innovative Therapy Program where he and colleagues design, develop and conduct clinical trials seeking more effective and less toxic treatments for childhood cancers. Dr. Trucco earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and Medical Degree from Temple University School of Medicine. He completed his Pediatrics Residency at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital and his Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellowship from Johns Hopkins and the National Cancer Institute. In addition to his roles at the Cleveland Clinic, he is a Co-chair of the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation’s Sunshine Project consortium, partnering with other top pediatric cancer centers to develop clinical trials. He is honored to be on the Board of MIB Agents, chairs its Scientific Advisory Committee and co-chairs the organizing committee for the FACTOR Conference. He also has the privilege of moderating the MIB Agents TURBO Tumor Board.