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The Nick Strong Podcast shares powerful stories of strength, hope, and perseverance from families, doctors, and researchers united in the fight against pediatric cancer. Hosted by Jen Gaspar, mother of Nick Gaspar and co-founder of the Nick Strong Foundation, each episode explores the human side of medicine — the parents navigating impossible choices, the scientists pushing for breakthroughs, and the communities that rise together to support them.
Through candid conversations and heartfelt storytelling, Jen invites listeners into the ongoing mission to honor Nick’s legacy: advancing research, helping families in need, and spreading awareness about rare childhood cancers like germ cell tumors.
Whether you’re a parent, caregiver, healthcare professional, or someone seeking hope in the face of hardship, this podcast offers insight, understanding, and strength through shared experience.
The Nick Strong Podcast is where science meets compassion — and where every story helps move us closer to a cure.
Brought to you by the Nick Strong Foundation — supporting pediatric cancer research and families in need.
Hey, Joanna. Hey, Jen. Welcome to the Nick Strong podcast. This is, the very first one.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Joanna, if you could just quickly define your role at Jackson Lab, what you do there on a day to day basis, and that'll help, help our listeners understand a little bit more about who you are and what you do.
Speaker 2:Sounds great. Yeah. So, I am actually a physician scientist. So what that means is, I have an MD, so I still see patients clinically at Connecticut Children's, Children's Hospital. But I also spend the bulk of my time doing research, specifically on germ cell tumors, including the ones that happen in the brain called CNS germ cell tumors.
Speaker 2:So from a day to day thing, you know, my work is what we call sort of basic to translational. So when we think about research, we think about really, the basic stuff, which is we're using cell lines, we're using mouse models, and we're trying to figure out what's going on at that very basic level. And then slowly, you sort of move stuff closer and closer to the clinic, which is called translational type research. So that's when you, at times, start to use patient specimens, start to incorporate it into clinical trials, and seeing, you know, are therapies working? Are new markers for diagnosing or following patients working and things like that?
Speaker 2:So my research spans across that area.
Speaker 1:And we at at the Nick Strong Foundation, we, we like to say we raise a lot of money, but we feel like we raise a lot of money. And it we a lot of it goes to especially the golf tournament that we just did goes to the Jackson Lab. Can you summarize what the Jackson Lab is and and what its mission is? And I and then Jen might have other questions about it, but just trying to give that frame of reference to the listener of, like, why we're why you work there, of course, and put all your efforts into it, but why we're also doing donating the money to
Speaker 2:Sure. Yeah. You know, so Jackson LAG technically is a nonprofit entity, which a lot of research institutions are. And they really for decades or almost a hundred years, they a lot of their focus was on just genetics of how do things and how does disease happen from, like, the DNA level. And a lot of that work was initially done in mouse modeling and how do you say changing this gene causes a disease or causes cancer or things like that.
Speaker 2:So they actually have a large institute up in Bar Harbor, Maine, where that's really their focus is like sort of mouse genetics bringing into human disease. And a little over ten years ago, they really wanted to get into that, how do we start to translate this even more into human and human disease and helping patients find new cures? And so really, that's the focus of the lab that's here in Connecticut called JAKS GM or JAKS Genomic Medicine, where we focus on really incorporating sort of the translational human aspect of how do we use some of the mouse models to test drugs that could help patients with specific cancers or specific disorders? How do we use some of these samples that we get from patients, whether it's fluids or tissue that we can make new sort of biomarkers to say we're diagnosing or we're monitoring disease? So the real focus at JAKS GM in in Connecticut is sort of to be that next step of moving it into the patient and into the clinic.
Speaker 1:I just wanna ask, one question to connect, the real, layman like myself, in this space to try to help us understand, like, how this stuff evolves. It's a two part question. You can answer it, in either order. Number one, how do mice translate to humans? Like, when somebody hears that like myself, I go, how does that even how does that work?
Speaker 1:Like, how does a mouse, copy what like, the genes of a human, and how do we, like, solve for that? And then the second question is, how long does that take? Like, how do how long does one experiment in the or or or do these tests for mice, which then say, okay. This is good enough for humans now. Two part question answering in either order.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, you know, obviously, humans and mice are quite different at, like, a global level, right, when you look at it. But, you know, really, when you look at the sort of DNA components of many mammals, we're very, very similar. There's subtle differences and obviously, but there are some overlap in the same gene you find in a human has a similar one or nearly the same exact gene within the mouse. And, you know, mice are small, they have short breeding time periods.
Speaker 2:They can have many mice within a litter. All these things make them easier to use as a model system versus even using larger animals. Not to say that other animals aren't used in research, but mouse has classically been something very similar. Though there are times where it doesn't translate very well, actually, you know, from a pure modeling certain types of cancer, germ cell tumors are actually one of the ones that have been sort of an enigma in mice to model, and I think that is probably connected to germ cell tumors come from the reproductive cells, which are like the most important cells that makes a new organism. So those are probably the biggest differences that we see in the cells between mice.
Speaker 2:But they can also be used in other ways to model, not necessarily manipulating their genes, but if you have a special type of mouse, they will host a cancer that grows from a patient sample. And if you can sort of model the cancer from that aspect, you can use them to test multiple drugs in multiple mice as opposed to using a larger animal or just testing it in humans. All that being said, it takes a really long time, one, to sort of develop these models that we use in various cancers to say, okay, yeah, this really does somewhat look like what we're dealing with in humans, because we want to have the closest representation, and then also to sort of figure out what's the right amount of dosing to use if you're doing some drug testing, and what are the side effects that could happen from it, by testing it how it happens in mice, and then sort of through sophisticated ways you can extrapolate that into humans. So it takes, a really long time, unfortunately, to sort of bring something from a concept of an idea of I think this might help a patient, to actually building the model to test it, to actually bringing it to the clinic.
Speaker 1:Jen, I'll kick it over to you for your questions.
Speaker 3:Okay. So I know, you know, my son Nick, he had a germ cell tumor and a lot of people have really hard time understanding what that is. So if you could kind of just briefly explain the germ cell tumor, mostly an intracranial non germinal germ cell tumor, which is what he had, that would be super helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, yeah, I I think even
Speaker 3:I know
Speaker 2:it's a lot, but Even when I teach my students about about germ cell tumors, it's really hard to understand. So the biggest thing, like, I tell a family your kid your kid has germ cell tumors, one of the things we think of when you say germs is like bugs, like bacterias, viruses, things like that. So when I say germ, it's not that. It's the germ cells are the cells of reproduction. So like most pediatric and young adult cancers, we think these sort of, cancers probably had something go a little awry actually very early on.
Speaker 2:So we're talking about cells of development as the baby is forming. And so the germ cell tumors, are thought to come from the earliest forms of your germ cells, which are also called your reproductive cells. And then when we talk about the different types that we have, one of the more classic eras we think of germ cell tumors are because they are reproductive cells is being in the testes or the ovaries. So you're going at your reproductive organs. But during development, germ cells naturally sort of migrate along the body before they hit those areas.
Speaker 2:So that's why we think you can have it in your brain. Like, it got confused and never actually resided in the testes, and just kept going. It was very confused. And then these germ cells, just by the way of their nature, they can either continue to look like a regular germ cell, so that's the germinoma component, Or they can sort of change into different tissue type. And that's the non germinomatous.
Speaker 2:So sometimes they look like the yolk sac, which is only found during, you know, times of pregnancy, or even other cells that look like during times of pregnancy. So they're very they have this very early type histology to them or tissue looking type. And so that's the differences between when we say you have a germinoma versus a non germinoma, and then the different locations that can happen. So the CNS tumors or the intracranial germ cell tumors are a more rare subset of the whole group of germ cell tumors.
Speaker 3:Why are these so difficult to treat?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think when we're talking about germ cell tumors, especially seen as germ cell tumors, they're sort of a double edged sword in a few different ways. One is they're very rare, especially in sort of North America. So, we do think that certain countries have a little bit more risk of having them. It's probably their genetic makeup.
Speaker 2:So in Southeast Asia, there's a lot more of them. But in North America, they're quite rare, and so that always makes a disorder very hard to study. You know, you don't have a large cohort of patients to study. Getting samples from these patients are difficult, so then it makes your research harder to do, and things like that. The other issue was that actually some intracranial germ cell tumors do very, very well.
Speaker 2:But when you don't respond to chemotherapy, you do very poorly. But that's a very small subset. And so it's really hard at times to convince people to focus on that very small subset that does poor because you're going to a rare to even ultra rare. And then it's just, it's very hard to sort of get momentum. But we know as pediatric oncologists, it doesn't matter to us.
Speaker 2:Like, every patient, we're looking to cure everyone. Right? But it's at times when we're looking for funding or asking someone to do a research project with you, they're like, that's so rare. Why are you focusing on it? What is the ultimate goal for germ cell research at the lab?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, so our goal is sort of two folds. Of the patients that do well, especially in the brain, we do cause a lot of side effects to cure them though, because they get chemotherapy, and we give radiation to the brain, and then it's, although we cured your disease, we gave you a lot of side effects for it, and you have lifelong issues related to that. Though on that end, the goal would be, how do we still keep that good cure rate, and minimize the side effects? So that's one area that we look at, like can you find, you know, less toxic chemotherapy?
Speaker 2:Can we find ways to reduce radiation? Things like that. And then from the standpoint of the patients that don't respond to our standard of care, the goal is what next? What do we do? You know, it's, we've already tried a lot of different chemotherapies, so maybe there's new drugs that are out there that work better than our traditional chemotherapies.
Speaker 2:Are there different modalities to pick up when a patient isn't responding as well? Is there a way to tell from the beginning before we even start your chemotherapy that you're not gonna be a responder? And then you can start to think of ways to intervene. Because we don't even know how to identify those patients very well to begin with. We do very generalized, you're a germinoma, you're a non germinoma.
Speaker 2:So those are goals that we have for research. Can you talk a little bit about the liquid biopsy platform? Yeah. So that's a platform that I work pretty closely with. So in addition to germ cell tumors in the brain being rare, they're also in very difficult, locations for our surgical colleagues at times to go in and sample some of the tumor.
Speaker 2:To say, yes, definitively you're a germ cell tumor, and yes, you're a germinoma or a non germinoma. And so one of the ways that we wanna say is, can we have an alternative to a tissue sampling or a tissue biopsy by using some of the fluids that we typically take even to, do our standard workup for a patient that we think has a germ cell tumor. So that's taking a sample of their spinal fluid. That's sort of standard workup anyways. And so how can we utilize that in different ways to find new ways to diagnose?
Speaker 2:And then once you have the diagnosis, new ways to monitor, are you responding to therapy? Or has it come back even though we might have not a definitive answer on imaging or things like that. That's the focus of that project is sort of less invasive ways to diagnose and monitor disease. Yeah. I don't
Speaker 3:think some people realize how invasive it can be. I know when my son had a biopsy, just just that alone. He had to learn how to pretty much walk again and, you know, his memory and so
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. So
Speaker 3:The next question. Is why is funding this research so important?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, one, germ cell tumors is my passion. So, you know, that is important. But as I mentioned, you know, although it doesn't seem this way for you, Jen, because your son unfortunately did not have the good outcome from his disease. You know, when we look at it compared to other adult cancers or even some other pediatric brain tumors, the bulk of germ cell tumor patients do very well.
Speaker 2:So oftentimes when I'm going to some of these larger funding organizations, they're saying to me, you know, I need to fund metastatic breast cancer that does very, very poorly or things like that. Why would I, you know, I don't wanna fund, you know, something where seventy percent of the patients do well. But again, in pediatrics, that's very poor in our mind as compared to adult cancer. So having, you know, organizations like yours fund us is is very important. Because unfortunately, research takes a lot of manpower and money to do.
Speaker 2:So, you know, it's not just me. I have a whole team that works with myself and doctor Lau that are anywhere from students, which are important to sort of get the next generations of scientists there, especially keeping them interested in studying things like germ cell tumors, as well as having other technicians that run the assays and help us develop the assays. And then, you know, funds to eventually, if it gets to a clinical trial, help support these these clinical trials. Because all these extra assays that you run during a clinical trial are not just inherently built into a clinical trial. You need to have all the collection of samples to make sure you're not causing too much harm and all these various things that cause, you know, that cost more than just even supplying the drug.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. I know there's a lot of talk about federal funding being cut. Can you just talk a little bit about what that would do to your team in the research you have going on right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, there's a few different avenues that that really plays a big role. As I mentioned, as researchers, you know, we often have students with us, whether it's an undergraduate, a graduate medical student, you know, and oftentimes, the funding to have them in the research lab can come from federal funding. So that's a big issue. Like, you could lose a lot of individuals deciding to go into research if you're not there to sort of have the pipeline of them coming through.
Speaker 2:The other thing is, you know, foundations like your organization are like, you know, you guys are like our kind of boots on the ground. It helps get an idea going and things like that to get the to get the sort of baseline data that you need. But to really bring something into clinic, again, you need lots of money. Multi million dollar grants at times. And, you know, organizations just can't do that.
Speaker 2:That really comes oftentimes from National Institutes of Health multi year, five year, multi million dollar grants that really help propel these larger ideas that started from gracious funds like organizations of yours. But once it gets to a certain level, it's very hard for an organization to fund something like that. So that's really where federal funding often comes in. The third thing is, you know, sort of selfishly on my end. You know, having federal funding funding is sort of the pinnacle of research career.
Speaker 2:You know, as I advance and as it as my institution looks to advance me in my career, and continue to support me, they look at things. Are you a federally funded researcher? Because that these are the top notch institutions classically that have rigorously looked at research, and only the best of the best researchers get this funding idea. So there's a multi prong aspect to this federal funding scenario. Is there anything that we didn't ask or discuss that you think is important for listeners to know about either
Speaker 3:germ cell tumors or the research you're doing? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I guess there's a few things. I mean, think one is, you know, although germ cell tumors are rare, they're actually not as rare as you think. So my my research spans all locations. And that's because there's a lot of overlap between some of the brain, germ cell tumors and the non brain germ cell tumors. So, the research that is, you know, done looking at the brain sometimes can go and still help inform what we do in the testes.
Speaker 2:And testicular cancer, when you hear that, ninety nine percent of the time it's a germ cell tumor. And so, you know, it's the most common malignancy of young adulthood for males. So it's a significant thing. So all of this research sort of overlaps and helps across the board for an ultra rare disorder down to a little bit more common disorder. And then the other thing I'd just like to say to like listeners is that, I know I talked about like NIH funding and federal funding being like the pinnacle and it causes multimillion dollars.
Speaker 2:But really, you know, even a $50,000, you know, research support is what helps get these projects off the ground that ultimately sort of culminate into these larger projects because it has to start somewhere. And, every little bit sort of helps. I mean, I've used $10,000 from a family to help support a fellow's project that ultimately just sort of snowballs into something more and more and more. So every little bit definitely helps. And my last question is, what is the most rewarding part of your job?
Speaker 2:I I think, you know, for me, because I do both the clinical and the research aspect is, you know, when you do start to see things come into the clinic, right? It's really nice to see how some of an an idea that started by testing it in a mouse, ultimately makes its way into a clinical trial or clinical test that is done on patients. It's really rewarding and satisfying. And and and, you know, that's why I like to do it. I love seeing patients clinically and I love the research.
Speaker 2:But, like, if I didn't have one without the other, I don't think I would be as satisfied with my job.
Speaker 1:Alright. Just a couple questions for me just to sort of wrap things up. We were talking about, you know, you're you could take $10,000 from a family to help this fellowship. Do we have a number, Jen and I think, Jen, maybe you've cited this before. Do we have a number of what it costs to run, what I call an experiment, but what what a trial, maybe, whatever it's called, the the proper term.
Speaker 1:What is that number that we shoot for when we broadcast to our, donors?
Speaker 2:I think the number that we were looking at for this time was a 125,000. That sound about right? I think so. I think this is when we were talking about doing, like, some of the spatial sort of technology. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Yep. You know, as you can probably, as you, like, when you open up the news every day, it sounds like there's something new in science. Right? And so the world of science is moving exceedingly fast because there's a lot of, like, brilliant people, even way smarter than me, who are always finding new techniques to really like hone in on like what's happening, the, you know, nitty gritty levels of tumors and diseases and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So yeah. So, you know, one technology is you you can take DNA and you can look at all the different base pairs, but you can do that by just grinding up tissue and throwing it in. You can do that by taking the tissues all down to an individual level and look at individual cell. Or you can keep the tissue sort of intact, but still look at an individual cell. So these are, very sophisticated ways that are coming down the pipeline to help us understand how do, the tumor cells interact with maybe immune cells that come in to try to help fight the cancer or other cells that help the cancer spread through the blood vessels and things like that.
Speaker 2:So, you know, technology is advancing, but as technology advance, stuff gets more and more expensive to run these technologies. So, yeah. So one thing we've been looking at is this technology called spatial transcriptomics, which is in short form looking at each nearly down at an individual cell level, what is some of the sort of genes that are being made and how are they interacting with the environment and things like that. So, and that helps us say, you know, are there immune cells that are helping us or are there immune cells that are fighting against us by saying, don't attack this cancer cell. And sometimes this helps us decide is there certain therapies that might be beneficial to all germ cell tumors, only a subset of germ cell tumors, things like that.
Speaker 1:In my field, which is, software and computer technology, Artificial intelligence is the biggest, hype right now. In fact, most of it is because it's gonna take my job, apparently. But I'm looking for some silver lining. Hopefully, in your space, are we seeing artificial intelligence help with your research and aid instead of just become cumbersome, like, in in my in my world, where a lot of people are just like, we don't want it. We don't want it to take our our jobs.
Speaker 1:But in your world, is it helping? Are we seeing advancements there? And are you leveraging artificial intelligence artificial intelligence at all in your research?
Speaker 2:Yeah. It definitely is coming. You know, it's been here and is still expanding in research. You know, with some of these sort of technologies as we talk about, you know, there is certainly artificial intelligence that works into that, you know, because as you can imagine, some of this stuff can take a lot of manpower to analyze. And so if you can sort of build a platform to build an AI system that then could mass analyze multiple samples so that it's not as cumbersome or as timely, or even sort of test out your hypothesis artificially by doing some sort of what we call like in silico testing, which uses artificial intelligence to do that.
Speaker 2:That you then say, okay, that seems like it works. You know, this is done for drug drug discovery not infrequently, and it has been for a long time, then you could say, okay, that seems like it would work. Now let's do the opposite and go back and validate that it works in tissues or cell lines or mouse models and things like that. So, yeah, there's definitely multiple, multiple ways that AI is coming into research. And for the most part, it's helping.
Speaker 2:I think it's like any technology as long as it's applied correctly. It can be beneficial, but there's definitely, you know, a slippery slope as long. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I just go on record saying I'm fine if I lose my job to AI so long as it solves cancer. I mean, like, I will make that trade as a member of humanity. Last question. This is kind of a question for for both of you.
Speaker 1:There's so much information here, and and you did a fantastic job explaining it and breaking it down for certainly for me and for our listeners. But I wanna talk about resources for parents when a situation like this comes up. So, Jen, when you had to research all this stuff, how did you get a handle on it, if at all? Like, how did you start to research? And then I I kinda wanna hear from Joanna is, like, where the best place is to start to wrap your head around this this stuff, you know, when the when and if the the issue arises.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It was a lot. It's very overwhelming, especially when you have no knowledge of these tumors and all of a sudden your kid has one of the most rarest tumors there are. I will say, I think that the doctors at Boston Children's Hospital in Dana Farber were my main support. They did a great job explaining things to me.
Speaker 3:You know, obviously, everyone says stay away from the internet but of course we all do it. So yes, it was a lot of Googling and just going on Facebook and finding all these parent groups of kids with germ cell tumors. And some of it at the time was difficult to read. But I think that was my main resource was a lot of that. But I think that for the most part, the doctors, nurses, you know, we talked to people all over the world that had experience with this.
Speaker 3:And again, because it's so rare, it's not easy to find people. But that's how we found Jackson Laboratory. So yeah. I mean and then as far as helping patients and their families, you know, we have financial resources that we the foundation does for that.
Speaker 1:And, Joanna, best place that you would point folks to when they wanna learn more about this stuff if they have to?
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, I think, certainly, there are, like, organizations like Children's Oncology Group that help run these clinical trials. We there are resources that we tend to try give to families that are sort of layman terms of like, what is this, where is this, and where can you find sort of general pediatric cancer information, but a little bit from germ cell tumors. I will say, you know, yeah, again, I agree, like sometimes the internet can be really hard. But for these small sort of niche diagnosis, yeah, I think sometimes there's, you know, I can't say one specific Facebook or one specific Instagram group.
Speaker 2:But like, you know, there tends to be little pockets of groups where families have band together to discuss their outcome. You know, this is something we talk about a lot, both from just CNS germ cell tumors and just regular germ cell tumors of like, you know, how do we sort of decide to develop some sort of website or platform so that, you know, it's very unfortunate that families are the ones that end up doing this, but it's realistically, it is that they're the ones that are often bringing a clinical trial to me, being like, I found this in Germany. You know, can we discuss this event? And so saying, like, how can we have ways to have this all compiled so that a family just, like, puts in their diagnosis and and it says, yes, there's X, Y, and Z here, or things like that. So it's a little disjointed.
Speaker 2:Hopefully your clinician, if they are very involved in the field, have most of the information for you. And if they aren't, it's a pretty small world that we live in as pediatric oncologists, and we often know someone who's, you know, an expert in the field somehow that we can get you involved in.
Speaker 1:Joanna, thanks so much for your time today. This was a fantastic conversation for me, and I know that the listeners certainly are going to be a lot more informed about the work that you do. It's the Jackson Laboratory. You can go to the website, jax.org, Jackson Laboratory. That'll be in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1:Joanna, anywhere else you want folks to go on the web? Anywhere else that they should go to help with your work and your efforts?
Speaker 2:Either the Jackson Lab or Connecticut Children's web page has information about both my work here and at Jack's. I think that's that those are the main two sites where you'll find my stuff for there's not a lot of Joanna Gell's. If you Google me, I'm there.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. No Instagram page for you that the folks can can follow you?
Speaker 2:Not for my research. You know, I've shared. If you wanna see a lot of pictures of my dog, I could send it to my Instagram.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Awesome stuff.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, Joanna.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate getting the word out about something so rare but so important.
Speaker 3:Yes. Thanks for sticking with it. Thanks.
Speaker 1:Alright, Jen. That was our first interview for the Nick Strong podcast. So I you know, obviously, I don't know anything other than the stuff that I've read from your newsletters and the stuff that you and Tim talked about, but Joanna certainly helped shed a lot of light on a really, really technical subject in a short amount of time. So she seems fantastic. And, you know, I'm I assume that's one of the reasons why you and Timmy have connected so closely with the Jackson Lab and continue to help support them.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think she did a great job trying to narrow it down and explain exactly what germ cell tumors are. I mean, still to this day, I have a million questions that I don't fully understand, but I get the majority of it. I think the most important thing is that, you know, they're sticking with this research because, like she said, it is such a small amount of people that get this, especially here in North America, and it's really difficult to find people to support their research. So that's
Speaker 1:We didn't ask her this, but why do you have a sense of why it's so difficult to find people to support this?
Speaker 3:So I think just like what she said, you know, if they only see, let's say, five kids
Speaker 1:in The United
Speaker 3:States that are affected by this, but then they have, you know, thousands of kids that are affected by a different type of cancer, well, that's what they're gonna fund is Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Just a numbers game at that point. It's an unfortunate numbers game. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you're talking about especially anybody, but especially someone's kid. You know, it's pretty sad that they don't really take it that seriously and want to fund stuff like that, but that's what we're here for.
Speaker 1:It had me thinking is, like, maybe that's something that we can help deliver. Maybe through this podcast and interviews of, like, other people that can, like, share their stories and share their knowledge so that this podcast can be a resource for somebody, you know, faced with that situation, but Yeah. It'll be fun.
Speaker 3:Fortunately, yes. You know, you're kinda literally given a book when you get a cancer diagnosis, and it's like, hey. Here's the meds that you're gonna get. Here's the side effects that you can get, and this is what to do, not to do, and that's what you're given. And then you're kind not that you're on your own.
Speaker 3:You know, you have all the doctors and nurses, which are amazing in my experience. They were all phenomenal. But you are, you know, constantly online and googling everything, trying to figure out what's best for your kid. But there's no, you know, yes, you get that book, but that doesn't mean that's how it's gonna go.
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy, life and the health care system. It's like, when you give birth, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:It's like, here's a pamphlet. See you. You know? And it's just like, there's very, very few places that one turns to to to kinda learn this stuff. But, you know, just looking at their website, they have a whole educate at jaxx.org, the Jackson Laboratory website.
Speaker 1:They have a whole education and learning section. I mean, I believe they do obviously more than what Joanna and I you and I and Joanna talked about. Research on Yeah.
Speaker 3:Different other diseases too. So
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, I mean, at least it's good to see that that these folks try and try to inform people. And and like you said, depending on where you're at in the world and you're going in to talk to the doctors, hopefully, they're doing a a great job with you as well. So we will continue down this journey of interviewing more folks, stories, and lessons learned through these, through everyone's different journey that we might be talking to. Really excited to continue doing this with you.
Speaker 1:Jen, fantastic job today on your first podcast, first official hosted podcast. You've been doing a lot of podcasts. Have you been on a a recent podcast that we can plug here?
Speaker 2:So it is called help and hope happen here, and it's a pediatric cancer podcast. And Mark Levine is the host of it, and
Speaker 3:he is amazing. And he does a ton of work for pediatric cancer, mostly through Dana Farber. So highly recommend.
Speaker 1:And can we get him on the show?
Speaker 3:Very possible, actually. I could contact him.
Speaker 1:Okay. I like it. I like where this is going already.
Speaker 3:Okay. I don't Alright. Used to be in interviewed, so that would be interesting.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening, everybody. Tune in to what we're calling at this stage in the game, the Nick Strong podcast. Thanks for hanging out today, Jen.
Speaker 3:Thank you.