Volume 21 | May 1, 2024

Patient Champions

Our mission to Make It Better is driven by keeping the patient front and center. Championing patient perspective, needs, and priorities can manifest in many ways.

- Our JAB President Camille Wahl shares her experience with self-advocacy while navigating medical treatment, and championing the needs of AYAs in our osTEAo podcast.

- MIB has partnered with Smart Patients to launch an online community where patients can interact and learn from each other.

- Patient data and biosamples are critical to accelerating discovery and finding new treatment options. Patients can enroll in the Count Me In Osteosarcoma Project, an empowering form of patient advocacy.

- Our Writer Agents champion patients with social and emotional support, contributing every month to Warrior Mail care packages.

- Financial support enables our patient and scientific programs that champion our patient community. We hope you participate in our MIB Day of Giving on May 2nd.

While each of these forms of patient advocacy is impactful on its own, it's incredibly powerful when our community comes together to champion patients by bridging the scientific and patient communities, offering peer support opportunities, and sharing the latest in research and scientific advances. Together, we are truly greater than the sum of our parts. We hope to see you at our FACTOR conference, June 20-22 in Cleveland. You belong there.

With hope,

Ann

Save The Date

^{OUR COMMUNITY}‍

Make It Better on May 2nd

Donate

Donate Stock

You Belong at FACTOR!

There are so many reasons to attend FACTOR! Clinician, researcher, patient, caregiver, advocate, industry, funder - however you plug into the osteosarcoma community -  there is something for you at FACTOR. Even a Prom! Register soon - we are near capacity!

View Program

Register

Spotlight on Smart Patients Online Community

MIB Agents is proud to partner with Smart Patients, an online community for patients and caregivers, to grow our fabulous osteosarcoma community. Patients, 18 and older, and caregivers can join the network at no charge, to share, interact, and learn from each other in a safe and supportive environment. Smart Patients & MIB believe that patients are the most underutilized resource in medicine and that the patient perspective is often overlooked. By partnering with Smart Patients, we are helping create a community of patients and caregivers who can improve care for themselves and others.‍

Learn More

Join Smart Patients

Career Connections‍‍

• Director of the CSU Flint Animal Cancer Center
• Postdoctoral Scholar Position (full-time) - Clinical Orthopaedic Research - UC Davis
  
• Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist - Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center
  
• Fully funded PhD Positions in Cancer Research #META-CHIP - University College Dublin
• Senior Director, Business Development and Strategy - Count Me In/Broad Institute
• Sarcoma Faculty Clinician/Translational Researcher/Physician Scientist at OHSU
• Postdoctoral and staff scientists in the Curtis Lab at Stanford Medicine

If you have a job posting and you would like it included here, please email christina@mibagents.org.

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^EDUCATION‍

^{OsteoBites Webinar Series}

Watch Past Episodes and See the Upcoming Schedule

^{Tumor Review Board for Osteosarcoma}

A virtual tumor review board for osteosarcoma, TURBO is open to global clinicians or researchers with an interest in osteosarcoma.  Patients and families are welcome to ask their oncologists to present a case on their behalf.  Join TURBO to request an invite or submit a case.

Next meeting: May 8th at 5pm ET

‍Join TURBO

Osteosarcoma in the News‍

• Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals the cellular and molecular heterogeneity of treatment-naïve primary osteosarcoma in dogs
• Transcriptome and single-cell analysis reveal disulfidptosis-related modification patterns of tumor microenvironment and prognosis in osteosarcoma
• POLE2 promotes osteosarcoma progression by enhancing the stability of CD44
• Family, Self-Advocacy Are Critical For Young Patients With Cancer
• Viable tumor cell density after neoadjuvant chemotherapy assessed using deep learning model reflects the prognosis of osteosarcoma‍
• Development of a LRRC15-Targeted Radio-Immunotheranostic Approach to Deplete Pro-tumorigenic Mechanisms and Immunotherapy Resistance
• Effect of ALDH1A1 and CD44 on Survival and Disease Recurrence in Patients With Osteosarcoma

PROGRAMS

Calling All Writers, Poets & Artists!

MIB Warrior Mail has been delivering packages of joy to kids in treatment for nearly 10 years! We would like to recruit you to join our ranks! Last year our Writer Agents wrote over 10,000 cards and letters to an average of 40 warriors a month!

Please email isabel@mibagents.org with any questions.

Learn More

Become a Writer Agent

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RESEARCH

Count Me In en Español

Our partners at Count Me In are accelerating the pace of research for osteosarcoma by learning directly with and from those most impacted by this disease – patients! Join the movement to have YOUR experience represented in research. Your unique experience, medical history & records, and biological samples hold the key to helping researchers unlock future discoveries. And with the goal of including all patients, the Osteosarcoma Project is now accessible in Spanish! Count Me In muy felices de anunciar que su proyecto de Osteosarcoma ahora es accesible también en Español. Pacientes hispanohablantes de OS en EEUU y Canadá pueden participar entrando a OSProject.org.

Lea su declaración aquí

Enroll in Count Me In

Funding Opportunities

OREF Skeletal Metastases and Pathological Fracture Research Grant in Collaboration with the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society (MSTS) provides $25,000 for research focused on skeletal metastases. Applications due June 20, 2024

OREF Mentored Clinician Scientist Grant provides $20,000 for the development of new clinician scientists who have demonstrated success as both a clinician and a researcher. This grant allows investigators to spend dedicated time in research for a period of up to five years to develop a long and productive career in academic surgery. Applications due June 20, 2024.

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SBIR Innovative Concept Award provides $300K Phase I contract funding for high-risk/high reward projects in areas of pediatric and/or rare cancers. Letter of Intent due June 5, 2024. Full application due September 23, 2024.

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If you have a trial that is currently enrolling osteosarcoma patients, please email christina@mibagents.org.

All MIB Agents programs are free of charge, thanks to donors like you who Make it Better. Please consider a donation to support osteosarcoma patient programs, education, and research.                  

‍Donate