Welcome to Issue 14 of the Biological Studies Newsletter.

Meetings/Conferences

NCRI Cancer Conference – This year we joined forces with the National Cancer Research Institute Annual meeting, in the International Conference Centre, Birmingham. A small but select group attended the meeting (detailed below). However the level of turnout and involvement of ‘adult’ oncologists/ wider scientific community was disappointing. The aim of these meetings is to enthuse trainee scientists and clinicians to undertake research, to promote links with the scientific community and advance translational research. Our proposal is that next years meeting is over a full day with a morning dedicated to 3 main tumour types in which clinical trials have just finished and to discuss the clinical controversies and biological questions in each area. The afternoon session will be devoted to peer reviewed proffered papers. We are very much aware that we need to provide a scientific meeting that will attract attendance, your feed back is therefore crucial. I would welcome any suggestions and will raise the issue of our scientific meeting at the Annual General meeting.

Paediatric Oncology Session

Andy Pearson (UK)
The challenges for clinical trials in childhood cancer and new drug development in the next 5 years

• Javed Khan (USA)
  Inferring tumour progression models using array CGH data
• Nazneen Rahman (UK)
  Aneuploidy-cancer predisposition syndromes - new insights into the links between the mitotic spindle checkpoint and childhood cancer development
• AV Moorman (UK)
  Molecular cytogenetic characterisation of childhood acute lymohoblastic leukaemia (all) and correlation with outcome
• Debbie Graham (UK)
  Mapping and analysis of tumour suppressor genes (TSGs) on chromosome 10q in childhood medulloblastoma
• Aliki Taylor (UK)
  Risk of breast cancer in female survivors of childhood hodgkin’s disease in Britain

Abstracts can be viewed at -

www.ncri.org.uk/documents/NCRIConference/Clinical_Paediatric_Cancer.pdf

Educational Meeting:

Preliminary plans are underway for an educational meeting lasting one and a half days in Spring 2006. This meeting is aimed at all those interested in the process of banking tumours for UKCCSG biological studies, and will consist of sessions about the registration and release of tissue samples from pathology departments, the regulations that cover this work, and the current state of the tumour bank. At present, we are looking at the feasibility of combining the meeting with a series of presentations on advances in the pathology of paediatric tumours. Further details will follow.

(David Ellison)

Biological Studies Applications

New applications:

Two new applications were submitted in this round and are now being processed:-

Prof Richard Grundy – Cooperative Research Strategy for Paediatric High Grade Glioma: comprehensive mapping of gene expression and genomic gains and losses in paediatric high-grade glioma; a joint UKCCSG and Paediatric Brain Tumour Consortium study (USA) in association with the National Cancer Institute Neuro-oncology branch .

Dr MA Buendia – Predictive value of the analysis of gene expression profiles in hepatoblastoma.

Studies under consideration:

Dr Malcolm Taylor – Immunogenetic study of childhood Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Application received 20/02/2004.

Dr Malcolm Taylor – Hodgkin’s/Reed Sternberg cells in childhood Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Application received 24/02/2004

Dr Michael Sullivan – The pathogenesis and prognostic stratification of hepatoblastoma (and hepatocellular carcinoma) by microarray gene expression analysis. Application received 11/04/2005

Dr Denise Sheer – Molecular genetic characterisation of low-grade paediatric astrocytic glioma. Application received 09/05/2005

Dr C Zwaan – Genomic and protemic profiling in correlation with MRD, drug resistance and angiogenesis in paediatric AML. Application received 13/05/2005

Studies recently approved:

BS 2005 03 – S. Lawson: MRD analysis in childhood ALL - comparison of molecular and flow cytometric techniques.

BS 2004 04 – P. Vyas: Dissecting the biology of DS-AMKL.

BS 2005 05 – V. Saha: Molecular determinants of response and resistance to Imatinib Mesylate when used in combination with standard chemotherapy in childhood Ph+ ALL.

BS 2005 06 – E.Estlin: Investigation of the relationship between markers of angiogenesis, tissue hypoxia clinical characteristics and prognosis in tumour samples derived from children with neuroblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma.

BS 2005 07 – D. Schneider: Regulation of gene expression in pediatric germ cell tumors (GCTs) by promoter methylation. Evaluation of the SFD1/CSCR4 genes in nongonadal germ cell tumours.

BS 2005 08 – L. Jones: Leukaemogenesis by the CALM-AF10 fusion protein: development of a NOD-SCID mouse model.

The next submission date is 15^th November.

Tissue Registration Update

There are currently 3485 specimens within the tissue bank.

	Sample Type
Tumour type	Frozen	Paraffin	Total
Adrenal Tumours	19		19
Astrocytoma	97	135	232
Brain Stem Glioma	6	9	15
Choroid Plexus Carcinoma	6	6	12
Clear Cell Carcinoma	25	22	47
Ependymoma	79	80	159
Ewings	40	14	54
Germ Cell	116	46	162
Glioblastoma	13	14	27
Hodgkin's Lymphoma	166	65	231
LCH	21	11	32
Leukaemia	12	16	28
Liver Tumour	53	15	68
Medulloblastoma	88	81	169
Mesoblastic Nephroma	11	6	17
Miscellaneous incl Benign	194	55	249
Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma	3	1	4
Neuroblastoma	450	85	535
Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma	114	26	140
Osteosarcoma	24	5	29
Pineal Tumour	2	1	3
PNET - Intracranial	30	23	53
PNET - Peripheral	58	33	91
Rhabdoid Tumour	13	14	27
Rhabdomyosarcoma	150	69	219
Sarcoma	34	12	46
Wilms	470	347	817
Grand Total	2294	1191	3485

Registrations for 2005 are –

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep
67	140	144	63	37	69	44	112	12

Diary Dates 2005

Wednesday, 14^th December – Biological Studies Committee conference call – details to be confirmed.

Meeting/conference call dates for 2006 will be published in the next issue of the Newsletter.

Newsletter distribution

This newsletter is distributed to all members of the Division of Biological Studies, UKCCSG Centre coordinators, UKCCSG Centre Data Managers, Research Nurses, Pathologists and Pathology personnel in Centres, and to all those on our database of scientists. It is also available under the Biological Studies icon on the UKCCSG website – www.ukccsg.org.

If you know of any other colleagues who may wish to receive a copy, please forward contact details to Sue Thornton, st22@le.ac.uk.

NEXT EDITION ... The next issue will be sent out at the end December. If you have any items that you would like to include, please send them to Sue Thornton at st22@le.ac.uk by 15 th December 2005.

Chair Division of Biological Studies Prof Richard Grundy University of Nottingham Queen’s Medical Centre Tel: 0115 970 9257 Fax: 0115 970 9382 e-mail: richard.grundy@nottingham.ac.uk

Biological Studies Coordinator Gavin Whyman UKCCSG Data Centre, Leicester Tel: 0116 249 4471 Fax: 0116 254 9504 e-mail: gavin.whyman@le.ac.uk

Biological Studies Admin Sue Thornton, UKCCSG Data Centre, Leicester Tel: 0116 249 4463 Fax: 0115 254 9504 e-mail: st22@le.ac.uk