Avery's Rhabdo "Blast" Project

This project is in honor of our son Avery, who has been battling Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma for more than three years. During this time he has endured multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation in an attempt to combat this aggressive disease.

When your child is first diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma, you are bewildered and terrified. You are catapulted into a world that you didn't even know existed. Then, once you wrap your head around the battle you are going to fight, you begin searching. Searching for reasons, answers, specialized treatments, and other options. And here is what you find: There are none. With this project, we hope to change this.

Avery's Rhabdo "Blast" Project aims to define all the different kinds of tumor cells in Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma (ERMS) and Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS). cc-TDI researchers are specifically interested in understanding the 'conversations' between the most aggressive rhabdo tumor cells and the normal connective tissue cells. This project starts with a deep-dive into the basics of individual cancer and non-cancer cells in a rhabdo tumor, but aims to result in a validated treatment approach to take from animal studies to clinical trial concept design.

Rhabdo is an underserved disease that has been treated with the same protocol time and time again and we need to do things differently! Over the past 25 years, survival rates have not increased significantly and federal funding remains at less than 4%. Please support this research and help scientists further understand the biology of these tumors along with more effective and less harmful treatments.

With hope and appreciation,
Avery's Family