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Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation Blog

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Fighting Childhood Cancer, Thousands of Datasets at a Time
April 30, 2019
  • CCDL director, Casey Greene, PhD, believes the best is still to come. We interviewed Casey about the CCDL’s advancements and what exciting developments are ahead.
    The CCDL team regularly trains pediatric oncology researchers on how to use refine.bio to accelerate the pace of their research.
  • The CCDL Team (from L to R): Casey Greene, Candace Savonen, Kurt Wheeler, Ariel Rodriguez Romero, Deepa Prasad
    The CCDL Team (from L to R): Casey Greene, Candace Savonen, Kurt Wheeler, Ariel Rodriguez Romero, Deepa Prasad
  • refine.bio brings together decades of data sets for childhood cancer researchers to download and use for their own research.
    refine.bio brings together decades of data sets for childhood cancer researchers to download and use for their own research.

The Childhood Cancer Data Lab (CCDL) started with what seemed like a simple mission: develop tools to help pediatric oncology researchers access data, easily and quickly, in order to speed the work towards cures. 

Of course, creating those tools is anything but simple. 

Take refine.bio, the CCDL’s online repository of childhood cancer data. This tool took several decades' worth of publicly available childhood cancer data, all written in different languages, translated it, and placed it all in one... Read More

Meet the Data Scientist Using Big Data for Cures for Childhood Cancer
April 25, 2019
“Data is the lifeblood of science,” says Jaclyn Taroni, PhD, data scientist at the CCDL, “Data can better equip researchers to ask the really important scientific questions and to do so efficiently and robustly, as they work towards cures for childhood cancer.”

“Data is the lifeblood of science,” says Jaclyn Taroni, PhD, data scientist at the Childhood Cancer Data Lab.

When you think of childhood cancer research, you may imagine samples in test tubes and microscopes or a drug being tested in a clinic. And while childhood cancer research certainly happens in a biochem lab and in a clinic, it also happens inside the Childhood Cancer Data Lab (CCDL).  Funded by ALSF, the CCDL team is working to harness the power of big data and use it to cure childhood cancer. 

So what is big data? 

“Data is the lifeblood of science,” says Jaclyn Taroni, PhD, data... Read More

Could this Research Cure Rare Leukemia? An interview with Dr. Eirini Papapetrou
April 1, 2019
RUNX1 researcher Eirini Papapetrou, MD, PhD from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Eirini Papapetrou, MD, PhD from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

by Trish Adkins

When Eirini Papapetrou, MD, PhD from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai started her lab, she devoted her research to developing specialized iPSC models. 

This might not mean a lot to those of us who are not researchers. But these models—made from patient-derived cells—could be the key to understanding the drivers behind certain types of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), one of the most difficult and deadliest types of pediatric leukemia. 

The development of iPSC... Read More

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