MIB Agents OsteoBites and osTEAo

osTEAo co-hosts Mia and Sammy sit down with fellow OsteoWarriors Andrew and Mackenzie for a real, raw, and refreshingly honest convo about FOMO—Fear of Missing Out—as young adult cancer survivors. From missing prom and sports to navigating dating and college with a whole new perspective, these resilient humans get into what it actually feels like to rebuild a life after treatment.

They talk about setting boundaries on social media, finding new passions, and surrounding yourself with people who truly get it. They also dive into the hard but vital work of self-advocacy and honest communication.

💥 Expect wisdom, laughs, hard truths, and all the inspo. This episode is a must-listen for anyone figuring out how to live fully—even when it looks different than planned.

TJ Utset-Ward, MD, cirujano ortopédico del Nicklaus Children's Hospital, ofrece una descripción general de las opciones quirúrgicas y los avances en el osteosarcoma.
El tratamiento del osteosarcoma consiste en una combinación de quimioterapia y cirugía para extirpar el tumor. En la década de 1980, la amputación de extremidades se utilizaba en el 80 % de los casos. Hoy en día, gracias a los avances en las técnicas quirúrgicas, la tecnología y nuestro conocimiento del osteosarcoma, más del 90 % de los casos son susceptibles a una cirugía para preservar la extremidad. Hoy en día, los pacientes y sus familias pueden incluso elegir entre varias opciones, incluyendo reconstrucciones que se adaptan al crecimiento del niño. Analizaremos algunas de estas opciones y cirugías, así como los objetivos y prioridades de la cirugía de osteosarcoma.
El Dr. T.J. Utset-Ward es cirujano ortopédico pediátrico especializado en oncología ortopédica pediátrica en el Hospital Infantil Nicklaus. Es cubanoamericano, hispanohablante y nativo de la ciudad de Miami, y se siente honrado de servir a su comunidad como uno de los pocos cirujanos oncológicos ortopédicos del país dedicados exclusivamente al sarcoma pediátrico y adolescente. Obtuvo su título de médico en la Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Vanderbilt en Nashville, Tennessee. El Dr. Utset-Ward completó su residencia en cirugía ortopédica en la Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Chicago/UChicago en Illinois. Realizó una beca de investigación en oncología musculoesquelética en la Universidad Estatal de Ohio en Columbus, Ohio, y posteriormente amplió su formación con una beca de investigación en oncología ortopédica pediátrica en el Hospital Infantil Nationwide. Sus intereses clínicos y de investigación incluyen sarcomas óseos pediátricos, sarcomas de tejidos blandos, oncología en adolescentes y adultos jóvenes, impresión 3D, implantes y diseños personalizados para cada paciente, salvamento y reconstrucción de extremidades, alargamiento de extremidades, transporte óseo, exosomas y oncología de precisión. El Dr. Utset se ha unido a la comunidad de MiB y espera seguir apoyando los esfuerzos para ayudar a las familias que enfrentan el osteosarcoma. Vive en Miami con su esposa, la pediatra Leah Utset, y sus dos hijos.

The osteosarcoma community has the power to drive change in childhood cancer research! This important OsteoBites episode features Nancy Goodman, JD, Founder & Executive Director of Kids v Cancer, as she discusses how you can help advocate for the Give Kids a Chance Act—a crucial bill aimed at expanding access to novel combination therapies for kids with cancer.
The Give Kids a Chance Act is bipartisan legislation that builds on the RACE for Children Act by requiring pharmaceutical companies to evaluate promising multi-drug combinations in pediatric cancers when those drugs are being tested together in adults. Since many of the most effective cancer treatments involve drug combinations, this bill is essential to improving treatment options for children with osteosarcoma and other pediatric cancers.
Be a voice for change! Learn actionable ways to support this bill and ensure kids with cancer have access to more innovative therapies.

Dr. Betsy Young, a physician-scientist from UCSF provides an overview of her funded work: Tumor cGAS-STING repression drives immune evasion in osteosarcoma and is therapeutically targetable via host STING activation. This work was funded by an MIB Agents 2024 OutSmarting Osteosarcoma YI Hope grant Because of Charlotte.
Osteosarcoma (OS) has an immunosuppressive macrophage-rich, T-cell-depleted tumor microenvironment (TME). By performing bulk RNA seq of OS cell lines treated with STING agonist, the lab has defined an OS-specific STING activation signature, which demonstrated a significant protective effect on survival in OS patient samples. In immunocompetent OS models, systemic STING agonism shows curative anti-tumor effects, shifts the tumor microenvironment towards a pro-inflammatory phenotype, and induces immunologic memory. Importantly, host STING activation is sufficient to promote this anti-tumor immunity. The lab has demonstrated that STING activation has anti-tumor benefit in animal models and a protective effect in the human disease, nominating this innate immune sensing pathway as an important therapeutic target in OS.
As a physician-scientist and a pediatric oncologist, Dr. Young's aim is to advance the field of pediatric oncology in her research career focused on the immunobiology of osteosarcoma. She completed her Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship training at UCSF, receiving strong clinical training in high-risk pediatric solid tumors and early-phase clinical trials. Now, as a faculty member, she is investigating the pathogenesis of osteosarcoma metastasis in the Sweet-Cordero lab at UCSF, with a specific focus on immuno-oncology translational therapeutics.

What does accessibility really mean, and how does it impact the daily lives of young adults navigating cancer and disability? 

In this powerful episode of osTEAo, Accessibility Wins, Fails & WTF Moments, young adult osteosarcoma survivors Mia, Sammy, Isabelle, and Inaaya open up about their personal experiences—shedding light on the challenges of inaccessible environments, the emotional weight of losing independence, and the importance of a strong support system.

From navigating airport security and festival layouts to breaking down misconceptions about disability, this conversation is raw, real, and filled with invaluable insights. Tune in to hear firsthand perspectives, candid humor, and practical advice on how to be a better ally to the disabled community.

Matthew Dietz, DO, MSEd joins us on OsteoBites to discuss Optimizing Ewing Sarcoma and Osteosarcoma Biopsy Acquisition: Consensus Recommendations from the Children’s Oncology Group Bone Tumour Committee.
To advance the care and cure for patients with osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma it is necessary to safely improve the amount and usability of diagnostic biopsy material obtained. Indeed, it is anticipated that future osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma clinical trials will incorporate molecular biomarkers into treatment risk stratification underscoring the need for optimal tissue collection and processing practices.
Historically open/incisional biopsies were the predominant biopsy approach; however, image-guided core needle biopsies have increased in frequency and are safe for patients. These procedures are less invasive and reduce recovery times but have potential limitations. Including the potential for lower tissue volumes, which can limit components of clinical care - including pathologic assessment, diagnostic accuracy, and molecular evaluations - along with the opportunity for research studies with leftover tissue (following informed consent). Additionally, once biopsy material is obtained the handling of the specimen for histologic and subsequent molecular testing requires careful timing, processing and tissue prioritization to ensure all clinical and research opportunities are preserved for the patient.
To help optimize these critical elements in patient care the Children’s Oncology Group convened a multidisciplinary group of clinical and scientific experts to create reference recommendations for harmonizing tissue acquisition and processing algorithms for osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma specimens.

Michael Lizardo, MS, PhD, a staff scientist in the Poul Sorensen laboratory at BC Cancer Agency, joins us on OsteoBites to discuss how the pharmacologic inhibition of EIF4A blocks NRF2 synthesis to prevent osteosarcoma metastasis.
Dr. Lizardo shares his lab's recent findings in Clinical Cancer Research on how targeting the dysregulated mRNA translation factor eukaryotic initiation factor 4A (EIF4A), via pharmacological inhibitors, prevents the protein synthesis of nuclear factor erythroid 2–related factor 2 (NRF2), which is a cytoprotective protein metastatic OS cells require to successfully colonize the harsh microenvironment of the lung. He also discusses how the EIF4A1 inhibitor, CR-1-31B, and a related clinical-grade compound (Zotatifin) prevent OS cell adaptation to oxidative stress (a major stressor in the lung) in 2D and 3D cell culture models, as well as ex vivo lung organotypic cultures. Moreover, he discusses how drug treatment can inhibit lung metastasis and prolong the survival of animal subjects in pre-clinical mouse models of metastatic OS.

Osteosarcoma Webinar Series: Sowmya Ramesh, PhD joins us on OsteoBites to discuss how multi-modal omics analysis identifies targetable sensory neuron circuitry that promotes sarcoma disease progression.

Bone pain is a hallmark of bone cancers, including osteosarcoma (OS), mediated by skeletal-innervating peripheral afferent neurons. However, the roles of tumor-associated sensory neurons in OS beyond pain perception remain poorly understood. To investigate their regulatory functions, a chemical-genetic approach was employed in mice carrying a knock-in allele for TrkA to perturb sensory nerve innervation during OS growth and progression. TrkA inhibition in these transgenic mice significantly reduced sarcoma-associated sensory innervation and vascularization, altered tumor-associated macrophage polarization, decreased tumor growth and metastasis, and extended overall survival.
These findings suggest that targeting pathological innervation in OS may serve as an adjunctive therapy to enhance clinical outcomes and survival.

Dr. Ramesh is a postdoctoral researcher from the James lab at Johns Hopkins. The lab's research focus lies at the intersection of skeletal pathophysiology and stem cell biology. The lab looks at the interaction of nerves in various musculoskeletal repair including bone repair and regeneration, osteoprogenitor cell characterization, and neoplastic bone. Dr. Ramesh specifically works on understanding how peripheral nerves regulate osteosarcoma disease progression.

In the latest episode ofosTEAo: Spilling the Tea on Osteosarcoma and AYA Cancer, young adult osteosarcoma survivors Mia, Sammy, Sloan, and Mackenzie share how their pets became their greatest sources of comfort, laughter, and unwavering support during treatment and recovery.

From Sloan’s dog Sam instinctively wrapping around their leg post-surgery to Mackenzie’s pup carefully avoiding pressure on her biopsy site, these furry friends always seemed to know when their humans needed extra love. Mia recalls how her cat Enzo made a dramatic mess the moment she returned from the hospital—because, of course, he needed to remind her who was boss! And Sammy’s pet was her rock through every twist and turn, proving that while so much changes during cancer treatment, the love of a pet remains constant.

Tune in for heartfelt stories, funny pet antics, and a celebration of the incredible healing power of animals. Because sometimes, the best medicine has four legs and a wagging tail. 🎧🐶🐱

Thank you to the Moore Family for their generous support of our osTEAo podcast and creating a space for young adults experiencing cancer to share, relate, and heal together.

✨ Listen now and tell us—how has your pet helped you through tough times? #osTEAoPodcast #PawsAndReflect #AYAwithCancer #Osteosarcoma

Thank you to the Moore Family for their generous support of our osTEAo podcast and creating a space for young adults experiencing cancer to share, relate, and heal together.

Alice Soragni, PhD shares information about PREMOST: an organoid-based functional PREcision Medicine trial in OSTeosarcoma (NCT06064682), a clinical trial that is studying the feasibility of using organoids for predicting drug response and guiding therapy in osteosarcoma.

Patient-derived tumor organoids (PDTOs) are lab-grown replicas of tumors that closely resemble the original cancer in both structure and behavior. These models can be rapidly created from small samples obtained during biopsies or surgeries, allowing us to test their responses to different drugs in the lab. This makes them highly valuable for developing personalized treatment strategies, particularly in light of a growing body of evidence showing how PDTOs can in many cases accurately mimic clinical responses. The Soragni Lab has developed a unique platform to grow these organoids efficiently from osteosarcoma surgical samples. They can create these three-dimensional avatars without needing complicated cell sorting or lengthy lab procedures. This means they can start testing drugs and get results within a week of the surgery, a turnaround that is rapid enough to potentially be used in the future to help guide treatment decisions In a pilot study, they found that testing drugs on these organoids provided insights that closely matched the patients' actual clinical outcomes. Osteosarcoma organoids with low viability after neoadjuvant chemotherapy matched patients who experienced higher tumor cell death (necrosis) after treatment and long-term disease status. The lab also investigated responses of PDTOs from advanced, recurrent, and metastatic sarcomas and found that the viability of these organoids in the lab correlated with the time to the next treatment in patients. The data suggests that osteosarcoma organoids could help predict how well some treatments may work. Encouraged by these promising results, the Soragni Lab has initiated a clinical trial to further explore the use of PDTOs to predict osteosarcoma therapy responses. Dr. Soragni will describe the study design for this first-of-its-kind, organoid-based clinical trial in sarcoma.

Alice Soragni, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and a member of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. She has a Bachelor and Master of Science cum Laude from the University of Bologna, Italy, and a PhD from the ETH of Zuerich, Switzerland. Her laboratory couples basic research into mechanisms of disease to the development of novel therapeutic strategies. Her expertise lies in the development of tumor organoid models to investigate the biology of rare tumors such as osteosarcoma and perform screenings for functional precision medicine applications.