What a great adventure!
The Hamas terrorist organization launched a surprise attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. Their focus was to terrorize Israeli civilians. They murdered, raped, burnt alive over 1400 people, babies, children, parents, families and elderly. They captured over 200 hostages, … Read More »
For the past few years, my involvement in two brain cancer registries and serving on their Research Advisory Boards has been a fulfilling experience. However, recent changes in the healthcare landscape, such as the spinoff of Watson Health from IBM … Read More »
Last weekend was the annual meeting for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). It started on Friday and concluded today, 06-JUN-2023. Over the weekend, results for the IDH-mutant glioma clinical trial called INDIGO were published and presented. This study … Read More »
I’ve participated in multiple Head to the Hill events, both remotely and now in-person. This National Brain Tumor Society event directs patients, care partners and advocates to meet with US Congressional Representatives and Senators to encourage better funding of brain … Read More »
In my recent blogpost, I discussed my participation in a Quality of Life Roundtable centered around brain tumor patients. The roundtable included healthcare professionals from institutions like the NIH/NCI and tertiary cancer hospitals, as well as patients, caregivers, and advocates. … Read More »
We just returned from traveling to Washington DC. The driver of our trip was National Brain Tumor Society’s Head to the Hill, an advocacy event held every May. Basically it was meeting other brain tumor patients, care partners and advocates … Read More »
With my involvement in the Low Grade Glioma Registry and Count Me In Brain Tumor Project, I think we are at the beginning of the precision medicine journey. I am seeing multiple similar endeavors that are looking at rare diseases … Read More »
A couple of weeks ago I authored a blog post on downloading demographic and diagnosis content for IDH1 mutant gliomas, also known as Low Grade Glioma, from the NCI Genomic Data Commons (GDC) website portal. The portal supports downloading this … Read More »
I was chatting last week with an acquaintance. He asked me why I was volunteering with the Low Grade Glioma Registry. I explained about Susie’s type of brain cancer and that the clinical and genomic data available to the public … Read More »
We had family come into town this last week/ weekend to celebrate Susie’s mom turning 90. In addition, Callahan’s General Store was celebrating its 45th Anniversary. So, Susie’s brother combined the two events to organize a family reunion. So not … Read More »
I recently listened to a Society of Neuro-Oncology podcast titled “IDH mutant gliomas; SNO consensus Review“. The podcast was basically a prompted question and answer session hosted by Dr. Ankush Bhatia with doctors Julie Miller, Nicolas Gonzalez Castro, Samuel McBrayer … Read More »
I have been participating for much of this year, representing the viewpoint of a brain cancer care partner, in the Low Grade Glioma Registry’s OPTIMUM research initiative. A couple of months ago I learned this initiative was part of the … Read More »
I recently finished watching a three part PBS documentary called The US and the Holocaust. While overall I think the program is well done, there are a couple of motifs I found problematic. The first motif is the filmmakers (Ken … Read More »