Stay Tranquilo - Fighting Childhood Cancer Through Research & Collaboration | Chris Hagemeyer, Live Like Bella

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Chris shares his journey from earning his PhD and researching pediatric brain cancer to joining Live Like Bella, where he now helps build partnerships and initiatives designed to make a greater impact for children and families facing cancer.We dive into the Comprehensive Childhood Cancer Network (CCCN) — Live Like Bella’s collaborative initiative aimed at creating a centralized ecosystem for childhood cancer resources, research, clinical trials, education, and support.Chris also discusses:🎗️ His journey from pediatric cancer researcher to Live Like Bella🔬 The latest advancements in childhood cancer research🤝 Why collaboration between hospitals, researchers, physicians, and families matters🌐 The Comprehensive Childhood Cancer Network and its new family resource portal🤖 How AI and shared data could impact the future of pediatric cancer research🏥 Florida’s growing investment in childhood cancer research💰 Why pediatric cancer remains underfunded compared to adult cancer🎤 Live Like Bella’s upcoming Childhood Cancer Research Symposium💃 Bella’s Ball and how supporters can get involved❤️ What it truly means to Live Like BellaLive Like Bella continues to honor Bella Rodriguez-Torres’ legacy by helping families, funding research, advocating for childhood cancer initiatives, and connecting the people working toward better outcomes for children everywhere.The 6th Annual Live Like Bella Childhood Cancer Research Symposium takes place September 24–25, with the CCCN portal officially becoming available to the public on September 25.Bella’s Ball follows on September 26.Whether through donating, volunteering, attending an event, or simply spreading awareness, there are countless ways to support the mission.🎧 Tune in for an inspiring conversation about research, collaboration, hope, and the continued legacy of Bella.#StayTranquilo #LiveLikeBella #ChildhoodCancer #PediatricCancer #CancerResearch #ChildhoodCancerAwareness #LiveLikeBellaFoundation #StayTranquiloPodcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

With the Comprehensive Childhood Cancer Network, the symposium, what else excites you about the work that Live Like Bella is doing and kind of what the future of research and pediatric cancer looks like? Yeah, I think we're getting more into some of these specific projects. They're spinning out of the CCCN. I mentioned the first one with Mangrove Ford a Child. We're working on creating a survivorship consortium in growing each of these projects to a point of sustainability.

and then moving out of the other. There is an appetite for these researchers to work together. I think everybody wants to. They just need some sort of connector between the two. And that's where like Bella steps in to be that connector. And that's what we do. We don't need to be the ones that are doing the research or telling researchers how to research. But we can certainly be the ones that bring people together and give them sort of the administrative support that they need to do with their research demands.

All right. back to another special episode of Stay Tranquilo. Today we are joined by Chris Hagemeyer, the director of research partnerships at Live Like Bella. He is a PhD scientist who spent years researching pediatric brain cancer before moving into partnerships and working with Live Like Bella. Chris, thanks so much for being here and taking the time to talk about all the amazing work that you guys are doing. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah. So obviously there's a lot of exciting projects. This is actually our third episode with a team member from Live Like Bella. So we had Raymond, we had your current CEO, and I believe you are our third.

So yes, love obviously being able to share the spotlight of all the amazing things that you guys have done as an organization and obviously keeping the life and the tradition of Bella's life going, right? Obviously, it's something that has impacted the community here locally, drastically, but at this point now nationally, right? So I definitely want to talk a lot about the work that you guys are doing, some of the initiatives with the CCCN, which is the comprehensive childhood cancer network.

But before we do, I want to share a little bit about yourself, right? Tell me how you got to working with Live Like Bella, what your previous roles were and your path to your current role. Yeah, sure. So I started as a PhD student at Forte State University. Oh, we got an old. Hell yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Go, NOLS. Not the best football years for us, but, you know, so when I was doing my work there, Nicole actually came and visited the research lab. I was doing work on a pediatric brain cancer called DIPG or diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. And that work was being funded by a Live Like Bella Research Initiative grant. And so Nicole had been going around to visit all the labs that were doing work under that initiative. And so I got to know Nicole from that point on. And as a grad student doing research, you can very easily get discouraged and stuck, I think, in your research. Like my whole goal, you know, DIPG affects around 300 kids in the U.S. per year. And, you know, the survival,

you know, we don't really have any survivors. You know, we just had a first FDA-approved drug come out onc 201 two years ago that has done a fairly decent job of prolonging survival but we still don't have any effective therapeutics for it and so as a grad student you know determined to make some sort of impact you know i was immediately met with with a lot of blockades that you know smarter people than me have met and um yeah i was looking for motivation and so when nicole told me all about what lived like bell was doing and the work that they did with families and the work that they did lobbying to the state legislature for more research. I thought that was a great way to continue to get progress in my career on the side of doing research.

And so I started working with them, helping organize the annual symposium every year. I got to meet a child with cancer. I had never met a child affected by cancer. I had met families that had been affected by DIPG. And it was a huge perspective change for me to really understand that this was. was a problem and a reality that families were dealing with every day. This wasn't a puzzle that I was working on in my lab. And, you know, coming back from those events was hugely energizing. And, you know, so I just stayed in contact with Nicole and the Live Like Bell organization and just, you know,

made myself available whenever I could. And, you know, when I graduated, I texted Nicole, seeing if she wanted to come to my defense. And she was like, yes. And I also wanted to to talk to you about something else because we were working she was working on creating the cccn at the time and um and so yeah then she shortly called me later that that month and explain that we were about to get a research grant or hoping that we're going to get a research grant and they would like to bring me on the team and uh you know for me it was it was a easy choice you know it was the impact that this organization has made um for families all across fort and all across the the world really is huge.

And that was sort of what I was chasing for, I think, back when I was, you know, a young grad student ready to make impact. And I think there are several ways you could do that. It doesn't have to be in the bench trying to create a new therapy. It could be working with other organizations helping advocate be a liaison between the legislature and researchers. So, yeah, and the rest of his history, we've been doing great work the last year. Absolutely.

And it feels like it was ultimately meant to be, right? And when you look at the kind of linear path to getting to where you are today, it's pretty incredible, right? It feels like destiny almost. Yeah, yeah. I think Nicole would and Raymond would both say that's Bella working her magic. Absolutely. And what was your motivation to even get into the research space from the beginning?

So, yeah, I guess getting into research probably started my sophomore year of undergrad. Okay. And I ended up dropping a calculus course. I wasn't doing well at the time, and I needed to fill in some space, and I heard that you could get credit hours by doing research in a lab, and had emailed a bunch of professors, and I knew I loved learning about science, and I wanted to understand how to apply that in some sort of work field.

And so I sat outside of professors' offices for several hours, and eventually got into a lab, and it was doing plant genetics. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to do at the time. I wanted to do humans. But at that point in time, I think understanding the rudimentary principles of genetics could be done on any model. And maize or corn was just one of those models. And then from there, one of the professors I had on my committee was also a professor in the College of Medicine at Forte City University, who ended up being my principal investigator for grad school.

Wow. So then that kind of created the transition that I made from working in plant genetics to pediatric cancer. So it was a little bit of like, I got to go this way before I can get this way, but it brought you back to the main thing that you really wanted to get into. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. So at this point now, how long have you been with Live Like Bella? A little over year. Awesome.

So as an official employee, a little over year, from working with them since the minute I met Nicole was probably, it's been about five years. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. So obviously you mentioned the Comprehensive Childhood Cancer Network, right? The CCN. Talk to me about what that program is. I know it's something that you guys have been in the works for,

but we've been to multiple events and you guys have been really advocating about what the impact that this network can really do. So if you can kind of share some light as to what the network is. Yeah, of course. So the CCCN or the comprehensive childhood cancer network is the way that I describe it is it's the collaborative framework

that brings all of the stakeholders in Florida together for the, the common purpose of improving not only outcomes for kids with child of cancer, but improving access to resources, improving access to information, and creating this collaborative ecosystem. And I think one thing it does is it formalizes a lot of what Live Like Bella was already doing. You know, when a parent would hit up Nicole, our CEO, for information about what was going on at University of Miami

or how do we get in contact with somebody from University of Florida to create an official mechanism, create a steering committee of representing the interests of the researchers, the physicians, the families to create one central access point. And how that's sort of manifested

in the first stages is creating a portal for families to use. And this portal is in the way that I would describe it as a one-stop shop where families can get everything they need. So you can imagine as a family struggling with child that cancer, you have a lot of information that's being thrown at you at once. You have a lot going on.

You don't have a ton of time to make decisions and trying to centralize where they can get their resources on whether it's financial support, psychosocial support, support for clinical trial searching, general education about what they're about to go through. That makes it easier on the family. And utilizing our network, to make that portal more efficient and reach out to all the families that need it,

not only in Florida, but across the country. And to kind of understand previously, right, obviously there was a problem and you guys were providing a solution in the space. Yeah. Essentially people were kind of just all scattered, right? So if I'm looking for possible research opportunities for, you know, my child that's going through this situation, or I'm looking for maybe a medication that may work or the right doctors,

essentially you guys are trying to create a hub where all of this data lives and is easily accessible in one place, correct? Yeah, exactly. And I think there's the perspective of a family wanting all of the information that you need in one place. There's also the perspective of a researcher that wants to know, hey, I want to do some statewide work that really requires a lot of cooperation from multiple institutions. How can I go about pitching that idea and creating that idea? You know, not every institution has a history of working together. And so this CCCN also provides a platform for researchers to also work together and find the partners that they need, the physicians to find the patients that they need to help fill clinical trials.

You know, so it really does bring everybody together. And I'm assuming, right, when you guys were building this out, right, obviously you want to help the families, but you had to have some sort of diligence process of finding the researchers to work with, right, and kind of almost on board onto this platform. Yeah, so right now the portal is going to be starting just family. The researchers are playing more of an integral part on our steering committee and helping guide us in what our next move is. So, you know, when we want to apply for a grant, what does the state mean?

You know, how do we use these key opinion leaders in the PDF? cancer space to have a more coordinated effort and what the state's working on. I think when it comes to pediatric cancer, patient populations at each site are so small that it, it's incredibly difficult to do meaningful work without working with one another. And so that's what this tries to bring together. And is this in the form of like an app? So if I or how do I access this? So the portal itself, that will be a, it's a website.

Okay. It has a mobile version. On Live Like Bella's site? It'll be Live LikeBela.org slash CCCN. Got you. Okay. And that will be the web link that you can access the portal. And it's going to be live and accessible to public starting September 25th.

Wow. So we're excited to launch that at our symposium this year. Yeah. So the symposium I know is a big thing. How many years have you guys been doing the symposium now? It's been a while, right? Six. This is our sixth one coming up.

So talk to us about what that symposium is. Obviously, that's going to be the place where you guys launch this, right, and kind of bring it out to the space, right, for people to be able to access. So talk to us about the symposium, what it means to you guys, and how excited you guys are to kind of present this in real life. Yeah, of course. So, yeah, the symposium's happening September 24th and 5th. It's our sixth annual one, but it's the first time that we're doing a day and a half.

So we've expanded to try to include more speakers, more content, more networking events. And we're going to be showcasing sort of some of the progress that we've seen with the CCCN over the last year, as well as showcasing the portal. And we're going to have a full session on the 25th to talk about how the portal looks. We're going to have a live demonstration. We're going to have a kiosk present at the symposium so that anybody can go on there and test it out. We have some really great features on there. We try to leverage AI to help provide guided support when it comes to clinical trials.

So people can have some fun playing around with that. You know, we're going to have a question and answer session to be able to explain everything. We're going to be announcing one of our more recent grants that we received as part of what the CCCN is. So when I think about the CCCN, I think about the ability to spin out multi-institutional work. and one of our most recent projects was partnering with Florida Mangrove, which is a group of physicians that represents 14 institutions across the country to work on sharing data across institutions, which, you know, as we look at the growing interest in AI

and the power that that can hold, you know, sharing data, not just genomic or, you know, DNA, but also clinical data can provide some really impactful resources. for researchers to work on. So we have a lot scheduled for that symposium. We have a lot of great speakers. We have two keynote speakers. Dr. Doug Hawkins, who's the chair of Children's Oncology Group,

which is one of the largest clinical trial networks across the country for kids with cancer. Dr. Sam Blackman, who founded a pharmaceutical company called Day One biopharmaceuticals. They just recently got bought after a huge FDA approval for a low-grade glioma drug. Wow. We have a state representative coming to speak.

We have people, somebody from the FDA, Children's National. So we have a lot of really great. We have somebody from Rome, Italy. So it's really taken a big leap, I think, this year to include a lot more national speakers, international speakers. And partly is because we want to bring the right people to the table for our researchers to learn from, but also showcase to the rest of the world what we're working on here in four. Florida. And I think that's hugely important as well. Yeah, you talk about kind of this global representation on this stage, right? What have you seen from, you know, your time now that you've

been in the research space specifically, but what advances have you seen when it comes to pediatric cancer, when it comes to treatment and all these new technologies and opportunities as far as medicine that that can make families going through this maybe feel optimistic? Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I already mentioned this, but like one of the big drug improvements was that the Ong 201 was FDA approved. And I think that's huge progress. It was the first FDA approved drug for the pediatric brain cancer called DIPG. I believe that was in 2023. You know, I think that was huge progress.

I think we've seen a lot of progress in the immunotherapies that have been coming out. I think we've seen a lot of focus on data and data collection. understanding how we can better combine data sets from multiple sources, how we can leverage AI with that data to learn more about what our genetics are telling us. And then here on the state level, I think Florida has shown to be a huge investor in pediatric cancer. We work with a lot of other foundations that reach out to us wondering how they can get their states to do the same thing. And typically, Florida is always cited near the top, you know, next to the next. to Texas. And I think that makes us very proud to be part of a state like this that is,

you know, contributing a lot of money and to, I guess, cite cancer innovation fund was started, I believe, two years ago. And that's where we got the money to do the comprehensive child of the cancer network. It was $60 million a year last year. Now it's $70 million. Wow. They just, they also announced the Cancer Connect collaborative, which is $30 million every year for five years to the four speciality license. children's hospitals for pediatric oncology program development. So, you know, we're seeing these massive investments from the state of Florida, and I think it comes at a very great time.

You know, there's a lot of researchers that have been concerned about federal funding. Right. And to see their state step up in a very big way, I think, attracts not only researchers to the state, but also researchers that may traditionally do adult research, also exploring cancer for kids because sometimes those you have similar mechanisms that exist between the two that could make it easy to transition if there's funding available for pediatric cancer and so you know we we're always looking to to get people in a pediatric cancer research and you mentioned obviously the the power that florida or the impact that florida has has kind of put themselves as

one of the the leaders in this space do you feel like live like bella has been one of the main reasons why that's happened because I know they've been very involved and had thorough conversations. I remember my conversation with Raymond and the team. And that was one of the big things early on was pushing that the state needed to realize, like, hey, this is important and this is why we need to be a part of this. Yeah, 100%. You know, they live like Bella. And this is work that they were doing long before I had gotten here.

But, you know, Nicole and Raymond were the ones that helped establish the Live Like Bella pediatric research initiative that contributes to date over $40 million to pediatric cancer research for 75 studies across the state. They were the first ones. We were the first ones to put pediatric cancer on the state cancer plan, which is a plan that is administered by the C crab every year. It's a body that creates a five-year cancer plan for the state, and I believe every state has one. and it sets goals and until 2020 pediatric cancer had never been specifically listed in that and today it is and they just announced the newest five-year cancer plan last year so i think live like bell is is the primary driver that you see in why florida is is leading the charge here

absolutely so obviously the program with with the comprehensive childhood cancer network the symposium what else excites you about the work that live like bell is doing and kind of what the future of research and pediatric cancer looks like? Yeah, I think we're getting more into some of these specific projects that are spinning out of the CCCN. I mentioned the first one with Mangrove Ford a Child. We're working on creating a survivorship consortium and growing each of these projects to a point of sustainability and then moving out of the other.

And every time we are sort of, you know, we had a summit at the University of Florida earlier this spring and there is an appetite for these researchers to work together. I think everybody wants to. They just need some sort of connector between the two. And that's where like Bella steps in to be that connector. And that's what we do. You know, we don't need to be the ones that are doing the research or telling researchers how to research.

But we can certainly be the ones that bring people together and give them sort of the administrative support that they need to. do what they what they their research demands of them that's interesting i mean you kind of looking from the outside in you would think you know hey we're obviously all here to achieve the same purpose right and and get to the end goal if there really is an end goal of this but you know at least progression at the end of the day that's what everybody always wants but to see people working in unison there's always more power as a collective yeah 100 percent and i think in pediatric cancer it's it's the most relevant out of any field because, you know, we look at the funding and less than

4% of the NIH's cancer funding goes to pediatrics. You have far less support from the industry, you know, because we just, they don't see a market incentive when it comes to pediatric cancer. It's far less common than adult cancer. So, you know, that's an industry of hundreds of billions of dollars that aren't going to pediatrics. You know, so what you rely on, is mainly these government grants and foundational support for a lot of pediatric cancer. And is there a connection? I know you mentioned there's some somewhat of a connection, I guess, between the research that's done for adults versus for pediatric.

Is there any sort of data that people can kind of relay on, or is it too separated to really be able to garner too much information from those type of research? You know, there can be similarities. I think we've reached a point where we do acknowledge. that pediatric cancer is different than adult cancer, you know, biologically. And traditionally, that had been sort of the model is, let's take what we learn from adults and apply it. Try to apply it. And I think we've seen that pediatric cancer is biologically different. And trying to have more development from the ground up focused around pediatric, I think, is great.

I mean, but there sometimes are those shared mechanism. You know, cancer. is sort of elucidates what we see as the potential for what a cell can do, right? And it hijacks all that machinery and it shows us like, oh, wow, it can persevere through chemo and radiation and all these harmful things, you know, things we never thought were possible. And so that same machinery is used in pediatrics, maybe just in a different manner. And understanding what all that means is how I would best describe sort of those differences and similarities that we see between pediatrics. And that just emphasizes how much more important it is really to prioritize pediatric cancer at the end of the day.

Yeah, 100%. What, you know, for the listeners here, right? Whether you're someone that's gone through this, having gone through this, but what can supporters do, right? You know, if you're listening to this, I feel like at some point, if you haven't already, someone's always affected at some capacity by cancer, right? pediatric cancer specifically. I remember my cousin when she was, she was border, you know, I mean, 17, 18 years old.

But, you know, that was a huge challenge. She was living in Tennessee at the time. You know, I was kind of looking for the right doctors and approach to her treatment. She was stage four, too, right? So it was pretty aggressive at the time that she caught it. And I remember her going through that process. and there was obviously a disconnect as to like, what do we do?

And I remember you talking about urgency. Like there's got to be a level of urgency. So what can people do to support? What can they do to continue to feed into this cause? Yeah. I mean, every person's going to be different in their capacity to help, right? I think recognizing where your strengths lie, if you have money, money can always help. If you have time, you know, reaching out to your foundations to see where you can help with your time is important.

And I think just generally raising awareness, I think we've seen, you know, and I'm not sure how much of this is biased because I'm in the field and I start to see more material on pediatric cancer. But I do think that there's been an increasing urgency from the state and national level to, you know, how do we solve this issue? That's great. You know, I think from anybody that's watching, you know, most, you know, most foundations are very open to figure out a way to let you help.

And Live Like Bella definitely has a number of different ways that we allow our supporters to help. Well, I know Live Like Bella has two upcoming events. Obviously, the symposium, which is the 24th through the 25th. And then the Bean Automotive Group Bella's Ball, presented by Nicholas Children's, the 26. Can you tell us a little bit about Bella's Ball? Yeah, Bella's Ball is a phenomenal event. I think I've been to every single one, but the one two years ago. And it's an opportunity for us to bring our supporters and donors together.

You provide some updates on what, like Bella's been doing over the last year. I think, you know, show our appreciation for them and their support. And it's a great time, you know, a lot of dancing, a lot of great food, great conversations, great people. And, you know, if you haven't been, I would, I would highly encourage people to go. Absolutely. I'm sure, you know, it feels like Bella's presence is in the room, right? When you said the dancing and having the good time, like, it's exactly what Bella would really want out of this at the end of the day. Yeah.

And it's, it's interesting, too, because when I first went, I had no idea what to expect. I was like, it's going to be all sad or, you know, how do you, is, if you make it happy, is it going to neglect the seriousness of what it's representing? and it does a phenomenal job of blending the joy and recognizing some not joyful parts. And it really is a great time and it's very well done. That's awesome. Well, one question that I've asked everybody when they come on the show about something like this

is what does it mean to live like Bella? So I unfortunately never had the privilege of knowing Bella. But I think one of the stories about her that has sort of touched me and stayed with me is, is Raymond always talked about how when she was at the hospital, she didn't care about what she was going through. She cared about what everybody else was going through. And I think that's the kind of perspective that can bring joy to anybody's life. Because sometimes you get so caught up in what you're going through

or why life was unfair to you, you know, when you find a way to shift that perspective of how do I help other people, you know, she would paint her face as a clown and just to go entertain some of the other kids. And I thought that was just a really great example of how to, you know, take your own life and push it to the side

and find joy in helping other people. Absolutely. I mean, if that's not a lesson that I think anybody can carry with themselves, right the end of the day you know we all go through a level of challenge in our life but it doesn't mean it's not an opportunity to help the other people around you that are also going through maybe something similar right and i think bella is the perfect example of that right in a moment where you know there's so many questions and doubts and you know wondering you could play the why me

card right and everybody around could be that but for her it was like you know what I'm going to light in the room no matter what's going on right now. And I think everybody could take a page out of that and say, hey, we should live life more like that. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Well, Chris, thanks so much for the time. Is there any final words, thoughts that you maybe want to share with the people?

If not, all good. No, thank you for having me on. I hope to see all of your followers at the symposium. It's free to attend. Okay. And hopefully the ball as well. And yeah, thanks for having me on. Yeah, no, absolutely.

The work that live like Bella is incredible. We've had the privilege, again, of hosting multiple of the team here. And being able to share the legacy of Bella, right? Something that, like I mentioned, when we spoke about Bella, is the impact that she still carries to today, right? And that's a big part of what you're doing. It's a big part of the whole team that live like Bella and the family of Bella. All the amazing work that they've done,

her legacy continues every single day and we're happy to be a part of it. So if there's anything you can do to support Live Like Bella, please do, show up to the events, maybe make a donation, whatever it is that you can possibly do. Please do because the work that they're doing is obviously making a difference in the community and affecting so many people across the world. So thank you, Chris, and thank you to everyone on the team. Thank you. Thank you guys, as always for tuning in, and we will catch you on the next one.