This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing theresources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject andinvestigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source,and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed isfor the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator.The overall goal of this research is to improve the outcome of childhood cancer. Children with cancer are usually broadly classified, such as metastatic versus non-metastatic or low risk versus high risk, and treated based on prognostic factors. The early response to treatment, such as decrease in blast count in leukemia or fall of alpha-fetoprotein in hepatoblastoma, is often the strongest prognostic factor and allows for modification of treatment at an early stage. Very few pediatric cancers have known serum biomarkers that can be used to measure the response to treatment. Serum proteins are logical candidates to use as cancer biomarkers. Surface enhanced laser desorption/ionization time of flight (SELDI-TOF) mass spectrometry is a recently developed technique that allows for simultaneous analysis of multiple proteins from the serum. This technique has been used to establish distinct serum protein profiles for ovarian, breast, prostate, and lung cancer. The overall goal of this research is to find a specific serum protein pattern for osteocarconoma. To establish the distinct serum protein profile for osteocarconoma, serum samples of osteocarconoma patients have to be compared to serum samples of normal children. While serum samples of osteocarconoma patients were collected as part of Osteocarconoma biology protocol of the Children's Oncology Group, no control samples of normal children have been, or are planned to be, collected as part of any national trial. Therefore the crucial and rate limiting step for this research is the collection of serum from healthy children since large numbers of control samples are required to distinguish between cancer and normal serum protein profiles. Therefore the overall goal of this project is to establish a serum bank of normal subjects that can be used to as control serum to establish distinctive serum protein profiles (biomarkers) in osteocarconoma. These biomarkers will be used to monitor therapeutic response, disease progression or relapse, and as a screening test in Rothmund-Thomson Syndrome, in which affected children are predisposed to developing osteosarcoma. The expected outcome of this proposal is a serum bank of well-characterized and tested samples from the pediatric population that can be used as controls for the already collected serum samples of osteosarcoma and Wilms' tumor patients as well as for serum samples currently being collected in most national childhood cancer trials.
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