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Our team is on a mission to make childhood cancer universally survivable!

The FDA approves on average 12 drugs every year to treat adult cancer, but has only approved 10 drugs to treat childhood cancer since 1978 (10 in 44 years for kids).

Since our inception in 2015, cc-TDI has pushed two drugs into three clinical trials to treat childhood cancer.

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Latest News

Mello Signs Charity Golf Classic

admin August 20, 2023

The second annual Mello Signs Charity Golf Classic is back for another year of golf, fellowship and prizes! This year’s tournament, set for Monday, September 18th at Diamond Oaks Country Club in Fort Worth Texas, is already off to an amazing start and will not disappoint!  The inspiration for the Mello Signs Charity Golf Classic was born from Joe Mello’s personal experience witnessing his sister Kristin battle a rare and under-researched cancer. In 2016, Kristin was diagnosed with Epithelioid Sarcoma (EPS), an aggressive form of cancer. EPS is often treatable, however at times not curable if complete surgery

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In the Press

Beaverton lab identifies drug that turns off key gene in deadly childhood muscle cancer

By Elizabeth Hayes - Portland Business Journal
The Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute is studying how a breast cancer drug candidate could impact children with an aggressive tumor in the soft muscle.
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Scientists and parents band together to research cures for rare childhood cancer

By Esther Landhuis - NPR
Small patient numbers mean there's less motivation to allocate resources to study the diseases and develop potential drugs. Dozens of childhood cancers fall in this category, some so rare that few pediatric oncologists hear about them.
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How engineers and drug developers are working to change childhood cancer's deadly calculus

By Esther Landhuis - Nature
In a single motion, a sliding blade slices the bottoms off six speckled quail eggs, and their yolks plop into a six-well dish. Quail eggs aren't common in research, and most biomedical scientists have never seen this guillotine-like device.
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Beaverton's Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute tackles deadliest child cancers

By Eric Apalategui - Beaverton Valley Times
Beyond an unmarked door into what looks like a shabby old warehouse in Old Town Beaverton, white-coated scientists are working to find ways to treat cancers that kill almost every child they afflict.
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Scientists tackle lethal childhood brain cancer

By Esther Landhuis - Scientific American
In precision medicine era, legacy gifts of patient brain tissue reveal disease mechanisms and new therapeutic approaches.
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Current Research Projects

Patient-specific CSF testing system for medulloblastoma metastasis
We propose a pilot study to (1) design a computational model of patient-specific flow conditions in the vicinity of a brain tumor leptomeningeal metastasis, and (2) to experimentally test whether drug exposures under those flow conditions would be effective against medulloblastoma tumor cells that represent the biology of the patient’s tumor.
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Marizomib in Medulloblastoma
The goal of this preclinical study is to validate marizomib as a treatment for medulloblastoma.
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CureFast: Creating a Legacy by Accelerating Childhood Cancer Research
One in 5 children with cancer will not survive. We propose to address gaps in basic and translational research by improving model systems for pediatric diseases. To this end, we have developed a Legacy Gift (research autopsy) program called the Cancer Registry for Familial and Sporadic Tumors (CUREfast)
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Clear Cell Sarcoma BigData – Drug Discovery
Clear Cell Sarcoma (CCS) is a very rare soft tissue of children and adults. The underlying clinical problem is that only surgery is curative: chemotherapy and radiation are ineffective. Relapse with metastases results in a significant unmet clinical need because surgery is not possible and effective targeted therapies have not yet been developed.
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A dedicated research team

Our research team is exploring and testing state-of-the-art treatment options for the most urgent issues facing children with cancer. 

Working in our own freestanding research institution allows us to act swiftly and nimbly to achieve results—bringing cost control, speed, purpose, and focus to translate effective treatments into the clinic. To get there, we perform basic science and translational research in our industrial modern lab site (a paint factory remodeled by Nike as an off-site creative space), adjacent to the Silicon Forest in Oregon.

Meet the Team