National Institutes of Health Names New Members of the National Commission on Digestive Diseases
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Elias A. Zerhouni, MD, recently announced the names of the newest members of the National Commission on Digestive Diseases. The Commission is composed of 16 members appointed by the NIH director for the duration of the Commission and is responsible for helping to chart the directions that NIH-funded research in the area of digestive diseases will take in the next decade. Members of the Commission bring expertise from a broad range of perspectives, such as members of academic or medical research and practice communities involved in digestive disease research, patient-oriented organizations, or individuals with close personal or family experience with digestive diseases. The insights and expertise of the Commission members are critical to the ongoing assessment of the state of NIH research on digestive diseases. The newly appointed members are as follows:
Bruce R. Bacon, MD, director, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, St. Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri
Barbara L. Bass, MD, Carolyn and John Bookout Chair, Department of Surgery, The Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas
Richard S. Blumberg, MD, chief, Gastroenterology Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
John M. Carethers, MD, Gastroenterology Section chief, Veterans Administration San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, California
Maurice A. Cerulli, MD, chief, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, New York Methodist Hospital, Brooklyn, New York
Eugene B. Chang, MD, Martin Boyer Professor of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Mitchell B. Cohen, MD, director, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
Margaret M. Heitkemper, RN, PhD, chair, Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Systems, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
Jane M. Holt, co-president, National Pancreas Foundation, Boston, Massachusetts
David A. Lieberman, MD, professor and chief, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, Oregon
Nancy J. Norton, BS, founder and president, International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Pankaj J. Pasricha, MD, chief, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas
Daniel K. Podolsky, MD, professor of medicine and chief, Gastrointestinal Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
Kenton M. Sanders, PhD, professor and chairman, Department of Physiology and Cell Biology, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada
Robert S. Sandler, MPH, MD, professor, Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition, Department of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Joanne A.P. Wilson, MD, professor, Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina
The Commission also includes members from the NIH and other federal government agencies involved in digestive disease research. The Commission's first meeting will be held on June 12, 2006, with subsequent meetings held as needed and called by the chair of the Commission, Stephen P. James, MD. For more information on the complete list of appointed and ex officio members and the Commission charter, visit the Commission Web site at <http://NCDD.niddk.nih.gov>.
Indiana University School of Medicine Creates Center for Environmental Health
The new Center for Environmental Health at Indiana University will focus on research aimed at more fully understanding the relationships between the environment and human health. Dr. James E. Klaunig, PhD, Robert B. Forney Professor of Toxicology and professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, will serve as the director for the new Center. Dr. Klaunig said that the Center will concentrate on the human health effects of the environment, which affects the initiation and development of a variety of chronic diseases, including cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, heart disease, asthma, and diabetes. The Center will examine environmental factors such as air, soil, and water pollutants, along with human health of lifestyle and personal decisions, such as smoking and diet, and the interactions that these factors have with individuals' genetic makeup. The Center will serve as an important multidisciplinary venture that will include collaboration between scientists and physicians at the Indiana University School of Medicine and faculty in the School of Science on the campus of Indiana University/ Purdue University at Indianapolis. Another important goal of the Center will be the translation of the discoveries of laboratory investigators into novel treatments for patients. Initially, the Center will focus on research directed toward understanding how various environmental factors influence cancer development and childhood diseases. In the future, new scientists will be recruited in such fields as epidemiology, environmental toxicology, environmental health, and genetic susceptibility. Dr. Klaunig also expressed his belief that the collaborative approach employed by the new Center for Environmental Health will aid the Center in applying for funding from governmental agencies such as the National Institutes of Health. The collaborative nature of the Center is evident from the diversity of investigators within the center, which are drawn from a number of different departments, including Pediatrics, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Pharmacology, Public Health, Medicine, and Geology, and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
NIH Awards $13.3 Million to Fund National Technology Center for Networks and Pathways
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently awarded a research team from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh a 5-year, $13.3 million grant that will go toward establishing a National Technology Center for Networks and Pathways. Research at the center will work to develop fluorescent probe and imaging technologies for the study of regulatory pathways and networks in live cells in real time. Molecular biosensors from these studies will be used to map cell-signaling pathways involved in disease. Eventually, it is hoped that such biosensors may evolve to the point where they may play a role in everyday medical practice. Senior Vice Chancellor and Dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Arthur S. Levine said that he believes that the development of “discrete intracellular fluorescent probes” represents the next crucial step in making use of the findings of the human genome and human proteome projects. Levine also said that the collaboration of the two universities promises to offer exciting advances for the whole of medical science and medicine. Within living cells, proteins must interact in precise cascades to effect a specific response, whether the response is the production of a hormone or growth in response to a stimulus. At present, medicine has the ability to measure specific hormones and to image important structural and anatomic features of patients. Creating methods to image and measure the components and processing of these signaling cascades in real time is a challenge that has not yet been met. The grant is one of three provided as part of the NIH initiative “Building Blocks, Biological Pathways and Networks Roadmap for Medical Research,” one of a series of NIH initiatives aimed at promoting translational research. The overall objective of the project is to develop new tools capable of measuring within single cells the location, quantity, and interactions of individual proteins. Such modalities would permit a much more detailed view of the signaling networks that exist within living cells and how such networks are altered in disease states. Alan Waggoner, principal investigator of the grant and director of the Center, says that the grant will allow for the development of a powerful toolbox to study the different interactions and activities occurring inside cells. The University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biologic Imaging, which is focused on the use of fluorescent microscopy to the study of living cells, will provide important expertise to the Center. Carnegie Mellon scientists are currently designing integrated molecular biosensors by fluorescently labeling a protein complex. These probes can be used to detect when a protein is created and where it travels or when and where a certain chemical reaction occurs. The new probes will be tested at the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford University, and the University of California at Berkeley, with each institution providing real-time feedback regarding the probes' performance to the probe developers.
John Hopkins Researchers Discover Gene Involved in Sudden Cardiac Death
Researchers at John Hopkins, in collaboration with scientists from Munich, Germany, and the Framingham Heart Study, United States, have discovered a gene that could increase a person's susceptibility to have an abnormal heart rhythm, which can cause sudden cardiac death. Using a strategy that permits examination of the entire genome, the investigators discovered the gene NOS1AP. The gene appears to influence considerably Q-T interval length, one particular risk factor for sudden cardiac death. Q-T interval length is the amount of time it takes the heart to recover from the ventricular beat. Having a shorter or longer than average Q-T interval seemingly increases a person's chances of succumbing to sudden cardiac death. Determining a patient's Q-T interval can be easily done via an electrocardiogram. Once a patient is determined to be at risk, various preventive treatments, including β-blockers and automatic defibrillator implants, can be used. The researchers decided not to single out suspected influential genes for study but instead used a whole-genome approach in the hope of finding a completely new and unknown target. The investigators studied about 1,800 American adults of European ancestry from the Framingham Heart Study and about 6,700 German adults from the German KORA-gen study with an extremely irregular Q-T interval. The researchers compared the genomes of people with irregular and normal Q-T intervals, searching for single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) common in people with an irregular Q-T interval length but not present in those with a normal Q-T interval length. A single SNP, located near the NOS1AP gene, was found to correlate with the Q-T interval. Researchers then discovered that NOS1AP is turned on in the left ventricle of the human heart, an area that affects Q-T interval length. Further studies showed that approximately 60% of Europeans may carry one copy of this SNP and that this SNP causes about 1.5% of the differences in Q-T interval, meaning that other genes may affect Q-T interval length. Future studies will focus on understanding how deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) variations affect gene function and how these function changes affect heart rhythm. The discovery of the gene will greatly increase the ability to identify individuals at risk of sudden cardiac death. The majority of the funding for the study was provided by the D. W. Reynolds Clinical Cardiovascular Research Center, with additional support provided by Johns Hopkins University, the National Institutes of Health, a GlaxoSmithKline Competitive Grants Award Program for Young Investigators, an unrestricted grant from Pfizer Inc., and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The authors on the study are Dan Arking, Wendy Post, Linda Kao, Morna Ikeda, Kristen West, Carl Kashuk, Eduardo Marbán, Peter Spooner, and Aravinda Chakravarti, all of Johns Hopkins; Arne Pfeufer, Mahmut Akyol, Siegfried Perz, Shapour Jalilzadeh, Thomas Illig, Christian Gieger, Erich Wichmann, and Thomas Meitinger of the GSF National Research Center of Environment and Health in Neuherberg, Germany; Christopher Newton-Cheh, Chao-Yu Guo, Martin Larson, and Christopher O'Donnell of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study; Joel Hirschhorn of Harvard Medical School; and Stefan Kaab of Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich.
New Protein Discovered Involved in Fast-Spreading Cancers
Stanford University researchers have found a protein that may help explain why tumors in low-oxygen environments are more lethal compared with tumors in high-oxygen environments. These studies found that tumors in low-oxygen environments produce the protein lysyl oxidase LOX, which increases the tumor's ability to spread to other parts of the body. Investigators involved with the study said that LOX could be a good target for future cancer therapies. Hypoxic tumors, tumors low in oxygen, can be found throughout the body, but researchers in this study focused on breast, head, and neck tumors. When the supply of oxygen from the bloodstream fails to meet the demand for oxygen of body tissues, including tumors, hypoxia results. Investigators found that patients with high levels of LOX were more likely to develop tumors in other parts of their bodies. In mice, they found that shutting down LOX production greatly reduces the spreading of tumors throughout the body. Also, the researchers found that LOX production could be shut down using an antibody similar to the protein HER2/Neu, which has significantly improved results in individuals with some types of breast cancers. Lead author of the study and professor of radiation oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine Dr. Amato Giaccia says that human trials could start as soon as t3 years from now. Other investigators associated with the study included Janine Erler, PhD, Kevin Bennewith, PhD, Monica Nicolau, PhD, Christina Kong, MD, Quynh-Thu Le, MD, and Stefanie Jeffrey, MD.
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Receives Nearly $1 Million for African AIDS Program
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine physicians recently received a grant from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) totaling $933,551 for the duration of 1 year. The funds will go toward the support of clinical and educational activities in Botswana, Africa, where the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic has gripped the country. Approximately 38% of adults between the ages of 15 and 49 years are infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), among the highest incidence of HIV within a population in the world. The Penn-Botswana Program began in July 2001 with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Merck Foundation. The program seeks to make antiretroviral therapies and education available to Botswana citizens infected with HIV/AIDS. Recently, the Penn-Botswana Program has expanded to include responsibility for six inpatient wards at the Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone and one in Francistown. Under faculty supervision, 40 University of Pennsylvania residents and medical students will participate in clinical programs at both hospitals in the current academic year. The possibility has arisen of further collaborations between the University of Pennsylvania and the government of Botswana, with talks of starting programs involving the University of Pennsylvania Wharton Business School, the School of Social Policy and Practice, and the School of Nursing.
National Institutes of Health Grants $3.4 Million to Haskins Laboratories
The National Institutes of Health recently announced the award of $3.4 million to Haskins Laboratories, a New Haven independent research institute that collaborates with Yale University and other institutions abroad, toward continuing the study of links between production and perception in speech. The project, which will span 5 years, will use such tools as speech synthesis, ultrasonography, optical tracking, perceptual assessment, and simple listening to explore this link. Douglas H. Whalen, vice president of research at Haskins, says that whether people perceive sounds or movements has important implications for the rehabilitation of stroke patients or misarticulating children. The research will include testing mathematical ways of allowing machines to automatically extract movements, mimicking how humans do it, a careful examination of specific acoustic elements that comprise speech that have important implications for speech rehabilitation, and an examination of speech imitation with foreign sounds.
University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute Receives Donation of $1 Million
The University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute's melanoma program recently received a donation of $1 million from retired US Steel Corporation chief executive officer and chairman Thomas Usher and his wife Sandra. The donation established the Sandra and Thomas Usher Endowed Fund for Melanoma. The activities supported by this grant will attempt to enhance methods to identify and treat melanoma. Mr. Usher, who was diagnosed in 1998, is a survivor of melanoma. It is hoped that these efforts will permit the development of new approaches, including vaccines or specific molecularly based treatments.
Susan Band Horwitz, PhD, Named as Recipient of Bristol-MyersSquibb Cancer Research Award
Susan Band Horwitz, PhD, was recently announced as the recipient of the twenty-ninth annual Bristol-Myers Squibb Freedom to Discover Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research. Dr. Horwitz serves as the Falkenstein Professor of Cancer Research and co-chair of the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York. Dr. Horwitz was honored for her contributions to cancer research, particularly with respect to studies related to the mechanisms of action of antitumor agents and the molecular pathways underlying resistance to such compounds. An independent panel of her peers selected Dr. Horwitz to receive the Distinguished Achievement Award, which includes a $50,000 cash prize. Dr. Horwitz earned her BA from Bryn Mawr College and her PhD in biochemistry from Brandeis University, and in 1968, she joined the faculty of Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In 1980, she was named co-chair of the Department of Molecular Pharmacology. In 1986, Dr. Horwitz was named Rose C. Falkenstein Professor of Cancer Research, and in 2000, she was appointed associate director for therapeutics at the Albert Einstein Cancer Center. Dr. Horwitz still currently maintains all three leadership positions. Previously, Dr. Horwitz served as president of the American Association for Cancer Research. Dr. Horwitz serves as a member of the Board of Scientific Advisors of the National Cancer Institute and the Yale Cancer Center Advisory Board. Dr. Horwitz has received multiple recognitions of her work, including the Cain Memorial Award of the American Association for Cancer Research, the Mayor's Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, and the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize from Harvard Medical School. Additionally, Dr. Horwitz is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
National Academy of Sciences Announces Selection of 72 New Members
Seventy-two new members and 18 foreign associates from 16 countries were recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences in acknowledgment of their distinguished and ongoing achievements in original research, bringing the total number of active members to 2,013. Foreign associates, totaling 371 following the latest elections, are nonvoting members of the Academy. Established in 1863, the National Academy of Sciences is a private institution composed of scientists and engineers committed to the advancement of science and its application for the welfare of society. A complete list of the newly elected members and their affiliations at the time of their election can be found on-line at <http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/04252006?OpenDocument>.
60 New Members Elected to Association of American Physicians
The Association of American Physicians (AAP) recently announced the names of 60 newly elected members for 2006. The AAP, founded in 1885 to advance scientific and practical medicine, is a nonprofit, professional organization composed of about 1,000 active members and 550 emeritus and honorary members from the United States and abroad. Election to the AAP occurs annually. Election to the AAP is a great honor, with members including Nobel laureates, members of the National Academy of Science, and members of the Institute of Medicine. A complete list of the newly elected 2006 members of the AAP can be found at <http://www.aap-online.org/>.
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Receives $4 Million for Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology
The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine was recently awarded a 4-year, $4 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for the creation of a new Center of Excellence in Environment Toxicology (CEET), one of 22 designated Environmental Health Sciences Centers and the first in Pennsylvania. The CEET will be a collaboration of 50 faculty members from 16 departments and 5 schools at the University of Pennsylvania. The Center will study the effects of environmental pollutants on human health, specifically seeking to gain insight into the mechanism by which environmental exposures lead to disease, such as lung disease, cancer, mesothelioma, asthma, and emphysema. Additionally, investigators will examine how environmental triggers can cause disruptions in the body's endocrine and reproductive systems, leading to complications such as preterm birth and birth defects. Researchers will use modern methods of genomics and proteomics to investigate the interaction between genetic predisposition and environment exposure and to recognize early signs of disease onset. Investigators will focus on identifying early indicators of disease, such as alterations in genes and proteins that could suggest a problem in the future. Pennsylvania is an ideal location for the CEET to examine the connections between environmental factors and disease. Pennsylvania is considered one of the most polluted states in the United States, and Pennsylvania is in noncompliance with the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Furthermore, Pennsylvania has the second-highest incidences of cases of cancer per 100,000 people, as well as high rates of asthma and birth defects. To accompany the research agendas of the Center, community outreach and education programs will also be initiated that focus on five Pennsylvania communities with various environmental concerns. The five communities are the Eastwick neighborhood in southwest Philadelphia; the neighborhood of West Philadelphia; Chester, in Delaware County; Pottstown, in Montgomery County; and Palmerton, in Carbon County, about 70 miles north of Philadelphia.