University News

National Cancer Institute awards $14 million to UC Davis Cancer Center

The National Cancer Institute, the nation's top cancer research organization, has renewed its designation of UC Davis Cancer Center for five years. The distinction comes with US$14 million in new federal funding through the year 2010 to support the cancer center's rapidly expanding research program, now comprising 179 scientists at work on 317 cancer projects on three campuses.

The hard-won renewal follows an exhaustive scientific and administrative evaluation of UC Davis Cancer Center programs by a 23-member NCI-appointed review panel made up of directors and scientists from top cancer centers around the country.

California has nine NCI-designated centers. Only two are in Northern California, at UC San Francisco and UC Davis. UC Davis Cancer Center serves the Central Valley and inland Northern California, a region the size of Pennsylvania.

But the impact of NCI designation is greatest on the more than 8,000 patients every year who depend on UC Davis Cancer Center for state-of-the-art treatment and access to clinical trials.

Penny Rosner, 51, a Redding nurse, had advanced lung cancer and was considered terminally ill four years ago. She was referred to UC Davis Cancer Center, where she enrolled in a clinical trial of a new molecularly targeted drug, Iressa. The trial was designed by the director of clinical research at UC Davis Cancer Center, one of the first lung cancer specialists in the nation to see Iressa's potential for treating Rosner's relatively rare form of lung cancer, known as broncheoloalveolar carcinoma. Today Rosner's cancer has retreated and remains stable. She is working, traveling with her husband of 34 years, skiing with her family and watching her three grandchildren grow up.

In addition to caring for individual patients, it is the mission and obligation of NCI-designated cancer centers to improve the health of communities. NCI funding has allowed UC Davis Cancer Center to lead a national effort to reduce cancer in Asian Americans. UC Davis researchers will use similar strategies in other ethnic groups, with a goal of making the Sacramento region the first in the nation to eliminate ethnic disparities in cancer. UC Davis is also partnering with county government, other health-care systems and community organizations to reduce the cancer mortality rate in Yuba County. Yuba County's age-adjusted death rate for all cancers is 236.1 per 100,000, the highest rate of any county in California.

The NCI, a component of the National Institutes of Health, was established under the National Cancer Act of 1937 as the federal government's principal agency for cancer research and training. The National Cancer Act of 1971 broadened the scope and responsibilities of the NCI and gave rise to the NCI's Cancer Centers Program. The program supports 60 NCI-designated cancer centers throughout the United States to sustain broad-based, coordinated, interdisciplinary programs in cancer research. According to the NCI, designated institutions "are characterized by scientific excellence and capability to integrate a diversity of research approaches to focus on the problem of cancer."

UC Davis Cancer Center first achieved NCI designation in July 2002. That designation came with a US$3.9 million grant over three years. The cancer center's research partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the first of its kind in the nation, was a key factor in winning designation. In that partnership, physicians and scientists work to turn technology developed for the defense industry into new cancer therapies, detection methods and prevention strategies.

In addition to its main facility on the UC Davis Medical Center campus, UC Davis Cancer Center has affiliate cancer centers in Marysville ( Fremont-Rideout Cancer Center) and Merced (Mercy UC Davis Cancer Center) and an infusion center in Roseville.

The UC Davis Cancer Center research program brings together scientists from 17 schools, divisions and programs on three campuses -- the UC Davis Medical Center campus in Sacramento, the main UC Davis campus in Davis and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore. This blend of institutions and disciplines gives the research program a unique personality and the potential to contribute to the national cancer agenda in important ways.

In Sacramento, the research program draws investigators from the UC Davis School of Medicine as well as the California Department of Health Services and the National Science Foundation-sponsored Center for Biophotonics, Science and Technology. In Davis, it draws scientists from the world-renowned UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the departments of nutrition, chemistry and biomedical engineering, among others, as well as the USDA Western Human Nutrition Research Center. At Livermore, home of the world's fastest computer and most powerful laser, 40 scientists are actively engaged in cancer research through the UC Davis Cancer Center research program.

UC Davis Health System has invested $90 million in the cancer program over the past 15 years, recruiting 65 new research scientists and building a 52,000-square-foot Cancer Center and 50,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art cancer research facility. A 7,000- square-foot expansion of the Cancer Center?s radiation oncology clinic was recently completed. Another $15 million has been committed for additional new research and clinical space.

Since first gaining NCI designation in 2002, the Cancer Center's achievements include:

• Increasing funding for cancer research by 48 percent, from $43.5 million to $64.4 million
• Offering more than 350 clinical trials, 41 of them originated by UC Davis Cancer Center physicians
• Recruiting 30 new scientists to the cancer research program
• Adding an associate director for cancer disparities and a director of outreach research and education, to build on cancer awareness, prevention and early detection efforts throughout the region, especially in underserved areas
• Joining the Healthy Yuba County project, to address the cancer mortality rate in Yuba County, which is the highest in the state
• Winning a $5.5 million grant to spearhead a national effort to address cancer disparities affecting Asian Americans

A list of specific research accomplishments is available by request.

The $14 million grant accompanying NCI designation renewal is earmarked for support of UC Davis Cancer Center administration and core research operations, called shared resources, over the next five years. Shared resources provide sophisticated technical services to researchers throughout the cancer program.

UC Davis Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute-designated center between San Francisco and Portland, Ore., is a program of the UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center.

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$14 Million Funding for Research into Resource-rich Economies

Representatives of BP and the University of Oxford announced the endowment of the BP Chair in Economics and the foundation of the Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource-Rich Economies.

With BP funding of about US$14 million over ten years, this will become a global centre of excellence, headed by the BP Professor of Economics, in the analysis of resource-rich economies.As such it will:

• undertake original and objective research;
• act as the core of a global network;
• endeavor to share best practice, including in countries that host large natural resource investments.

This initiative was born out of the recognition by BP of the opportunities natural resources provide for economic growth and development, but also recognition of the challenges of ensuring that the benefits of natural resource wealth lead to sustained economic growth and development.

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Sir Martin Rees Appointed to House of Lords

Professor Sir Martin Rees, Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics and Master of Trinity College, has been appointed to the House of Lords as one of five new non-party-political peers. The title he will take has yet to be decided.

Sir Martin was among five new non-party-political peers recommended by the House of Lords Appointments Commission and announced recently. A former Royal Society Research Professor, Sir Martin will also become President of the Royal Society in December.

The other four non-party-political peers are:

• Dame Ruth Deech, the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education. Previously she was Chairman of the UK Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority, a Mandela Rhodes trustee and Principal of St Anne's College, Oxford.
• Michael Hastings, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at the BBC and Chairman of Crime Concern. His previous roles in the BBC include Head of Public Affairs leading the Political and Parliamentary Affairs Department and the first Community Affairs Unit. He is also a trustee of Volunteering England and a former Commissioner for Racial Equality.
• Adair Turner, the Chairman of the Independent Pensions Commission and Chairman of the Low Pay Commission. Previously Mr Turner was Director General of the Confederation of British Industry from 1995 to 1999. He is Vice Chair of Merrill Lynch Europe, a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and the Cass Business School and a member of the Cambridge Foundation.
• Jo Valentine, the Chief Executive of London First. She is also a National Lottery Commissioner and a Board member of the New West End Company, the Central London Partnership, Think London and a trustee of Teach First.

They will sit on the crossbenches in the Upper House.

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MIT’s Curry Accepts National Consulting Post

MIT Executive Vice President John Curry announced that he will leave MIT in early September to join the Huron Consulting Group, a national financial and operations consulting firm headquartered in Chicago. Curry will be managing director in Huron's higher education practice and will work out of the firm's Boston office.

Curry, who came to MIT in 1998 as the Institute's first executive vice president., is responsible for the Institute's overall administrative and financial affairs, including operations, financial management and planning, human resources, information services and technology, facilities and capital construction, audit, campus security, the office of sponsored research, environmental health and safety and legal services.

Curry has spent his career in finance and operations in higher education. Before joining the MIT administration, he was vice president for business and finance at the California Institute of Technology, administrative vice chancellor and chief financial officer at the University of California at Los Angeles, and vice president for budget and planning at the University of Southern California. He holds a B.A. in physics and an M.A. in mathematics from West Virginia University in his home state. He completed coursework for a doctorate in mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University and an National Institute of Mental Health Fellowship in Organizational Research and management internship at Stanford University before entering higher education management.

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Two Federal Grants Fund Michigan Nursing Retention Efforts

Efforts to recruit and retain nurses at the University of Michigan Health System have received support from two major federal grants that will fund professional development, individualized career planning, and a program that involves more nurses in decision-making.

One grant, called “Nursing Connections: Strategies to Enhance Nurse Retention,” is designed to reduce nurse turnover and vacancy rates by 5 percent a year for each of the five years of the grant, and to improve the patient experience with UMHS's more than 3,000 nurses.

In partnership with the Stephen M. Ross School of Business' Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship, UMHS Nursing Services will offer focused education to nurses through workshops and other unit-based sessions on improving communication and collaboration as a means of reaching these goals. The five-year, US$811,500 grant is from the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The second grant will fund a new Center for Professional Development and Mentoring, which will provide career planning, mentoring and specialized education for nurses at UMHS. This partnership with the U-M School of Nursing – called “A Framework for Professional Nurse Development: The Power of One” – is funded for three years through a US$704,000 grant from HRSA.

The “Nursing Connections” grant is targeted at creating cultural changes, in which nurses are actively involved in what Calarco describes as “a more empowered culture” by being active participants in clinical and administrative decisions.

Many UMHS nurse managers already have participated in the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship workshops; the grant allows the effort to be extended to clinical care supervisors, more nurse managers, and unit staff. They will take workshops in the theory and process of positive organizational scholarship (POS), an emerging discipline in organizational studies which focuses on ways in which organizations and their members flourish by developing environments which focus on appreciation, collaboration, vitality and fulfillment. POS focuses on the dynamics in organizations that develop human strengths, resilience and restoration.

The “Framework for Professional Nurse Development” grant supports an increase in the number of nursing personnel at UMHS who will advance their education and careers by receiving specialized training and education. Nurses will receive a customized strategic career plan for professional development, as well as the support of a mentor.

They also will have opportunities for career advancement and cross-training. Included in this will be an on-site Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at U-M Hospital , offered by UMHS Nursing Services and the U-M School of Nursing.

In an effort to increase the diversity of the workforce, 10-week summer internships will be offered to students from racial and ethnic minority groups. The goal is to build a workforce of skilled and committed nurses who have the talent and ability to care for an ever-increasing diverse population. The new center also will strengthen nurses' competence in caring for a diverse population with training provided by the School of Nursing's Office of Multicultural Affairs.

The co-investigators on the grant are Carol Loveland-Cherry, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, professor and executive associate dean for academic affairs at the School of Nursing; and Patricia Coleman-Burns, Ph.D., a ssistant professor and director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs at the School of Nursing.

The grants are part of UMHS Nursing Services' wide-reaching efforts to improve recruitment and retention by fundamentally changing the practice culture. The efforts are paying off; while the national average for nursing vacancies is about 15 percent, UMHS has a rate of just 8 percent.

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Researchers Make Breakthrough in Bone Tissue Replacement

An international team of biomedical engineers led by Vanderbilt’s V. Prasad Shastri has demonstrated it is possible to reliably grow healthy new bone in one part of the body and use it to repair damaged bone elsewhere.

The research, a dramatic departure from the current practice in tissue engineering, is described in “In Vivo Engineering of Organs: The Bone Bioreactor,” published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Robert S. Langer, co-author of the paper and Institute Professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the research has far-reaching implications.

Orthopedic surgeons now repair serious bone breaks by removing small pieces of bone from a patient’s rib or hip and fusing them to the broken bone. The same method is used to fuse spinal vertebrae to treat serious spinal injuries and back pain. The method works, but the removal operation is extremely painful and there is risk of serious complications.

If the new method is confirmed in clinical studies, new bone will be able to be grown for all types of repairs. For people with serious bone disease, it may be possible to grow replacement bone at an early stage and freeze it so it can be used when needed, Prasad said.

Living bone is continually growing and reshaping, but numerous attempts to coax bone to grow outside of the body – in vitro – have failed. Recent attempts to stimulate bone growth within the body – in vivo – have had limited success but have proven to be extremely complex, expensive and unreliable.

Shastri and his colleagues took a new, simple approach. They took advantage of the body’s natural wound-healing response by creating a special zone on the surface of a healthy bone in hopes that the body responds by filling the space with new bone.

The approach lived up to their highest expectations.

Working with mature rabbits, a species with bones very similar to humans, the researchers were delighted to find that this zone, which they call the “in vivo bioreactor,” filled with healthy bone in about six weeks. And it did so without having to coax the bone to grow by applying the growth factors required by previous in vivo efforts. Furthermore, they found that the new bone can be detached easily before it fuses with the old bone, leaving the old bone scarred but intact.

Long bones in the body are covered by a thin outer layer called the periosteum. The layer is a little like scotch tape: The outside is tough and fibrous but the inside is covered with a layer of special pluripotent cells which, like marrow cells, are capable of transforming into the different types of skeletal tissue. So Shastri and his collaborators decided to create the bioreactor zone just under this outer layer.

They created the space by making a tiny hole in the periosteum and injecting saline water underneath. This loosened the layer from the underlying bone and inflated it slightly. When they had created a cavity the size and shape that they wanted, next the researchers removed the water and replaced it with a gel that is commercially available and approved by the FDA for delivery of cells within the human body. They chose the material because it contained calcium, a trigger for bone growth. Their major concern was that the bioreactor would fill with scar tissue instead of bone, but that didn’t happen. Instead, it filled with bone that is indistinguishable from the original.

The scientists intend to proceed with large animal studies and clinical trials necessary to determine if the procedure will work in humans and, if it does, to get it approved for human treatment. At the same time, they hope to test the approach with the liver and pancreas, which have outer layers similar to the periosteum.

Other contributors to the study include the late Dirk Schaefer, who was an orthopedic surgeon at Kantonsspital-Basel in Switzerland; Robert P. Marini, chief of clinical surgical facilities of MIT’s Division of Comparative Medicine; and Joshua Aronson, an undergraduate student at MIT.

The research was funded by a grant from Smith and Nephew, Endoscopy.

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Weizmann Institute Scientists Discover How an HIV Protein Fragment Shuts Down an Immune Response

The HIV virus hides out in the very immune system cells that are meant to protect the body from viral infection. But how does it prevent these cells from mounting a full-scale attack against the invader? In research published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation , a team at the Weizmann Institute of Science has shown how a part of a protein on the virus’ outer surface interferes with the cells’ normal immune response. But their work may have wider implications: this molecular fragment, which has such a devastating effect in one disease, might turn out to be an effective treatment for other disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis.

In the initial stages of HIV infection, the protein coatings of the viruses fuse with the outer membranes of T cells – immune system cells that recognize foreign invaders and alert other types of immune cell to come to the rescue. The genetic material of the virus, which is basically a strand of RNA, then forces the cell’s DNA to make copies of it. Newly minted viruses created by the host DNA later break out of the cell membrane to infect other cells. Many believed that the very act of breaking into T cells and hijacking their DNA was enough to destroy the ability of these cells to call up immune support. But Institute scientists Prof. Yechiel Shai of the Biological Chemistry Department, Prof. Irun Cohen of the Immunology Department and graduate students Francisco Quintana and Doron Gerber thought there must be more to the story. T cells identify invaders using receptors, like security antennae, on their outer walls. A virus, especially one with its own surface equipment for seeking out specific T cells, would be hard-pressed to slip past these receptors without raising the alarm. The scientists surmised that the virus must be able to actively disable some part of the immune cell’s system. 

They investigated a peptide fragment called FP (fusion peptide), a segment of the HIV protein gp41 found on the viral envelop. FP was known to play a role in the complex process in which the viral envelop fuses with the cell membrane in the initial stage of cell infection. The researchers suspected that FP, which is only exposed for a short period during this process, may have enough time to affect the immune response as well. Indeed, they found that FP locks on to several proteins on the cell walls that are involved in invoking a large-scale immune response, effectively shutting them down.

From their new understanding of how a tiny virus can gain control of the body’s immune response, the scientists made an intuitive leap. In autoimmune diseases, the same T cells that play host to HIV viruses are overactive, mistakenly attacking the body’s cells instead of foreign invaders. If the viruses use FPs to override the cells’ call for help, could their actions, which block one type of immune response without killing the cell, be applied to these autoimmune diseases? To check their theory, the research team tested FP on rats suffering from an autoimmune syndrome similar to human rheumatoid arthritis, and on cultured human T cells. As they predicted, the rats treated with FP showed a significant reduction in joint swelling and other symptoms of arthritis.

Shai points out that using FP, a tiny piece of a piece of the HIV virus, would pose no danger to patients as it lacks any ability to either infect cells or to reproduce. Rather, as the scientists note in their paper, the study of a destructive virus may contain important lessons on how to regulate the immune system.

Prof. Irun Cohen's research is supported by the Minna James Heineman Stiftung; the Robert Koch Minerva Center for Research in Autoimmune Disease; and Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Theodore Cohen, Chicago, IL.  Prof. Cohen is the incumbent of the Helen and Morris Mauerberger Professorial Chair in Immunology.

Prof. Yechiel Shai's research is supported by Robert Koch Minerva Center for Research in Autoimmune Disease; and the estate of Julius and Hanna Rosen.  Prof. Shai is the incumbent of the Harold S. and Harriet B. Brady Professorial Chair in Cancer Research.

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Penn Researchers Take a Big Step Forward in Making Smaller Circuits

Physicists at the University of Pennsylvania have overcome a major hurdle in the race to create nanotube-based electronics.  In an article in the August issue of the journal Nature Materials, available online now, the researchers describe their method of using nanotubes tiny tubes entirely composed of carbon atoms -- to create a functional electronic circuit.  Their method creates circuits by dipping semiconductor chips into liquid suspensions of carbon nanotubes, rather than growing the nanotubes directly on the circuit.

"Given their amazing electric properties, nanotubes have been a subject of keen interest for creating such things as chemical sensors, flexible electronics and high-speed, high-device-density microprocessors for computing," said Alan T. Johnson, associate professor in Penn's Department of Physics and Astronomy.   "The problem is that the properties we like best about nanotubes their size and physical properties also make them very difficult to manipulate."

Instead of growing nanotubes in a pattern on a silicon chip, as is conventionally done, the Penn researchers devised a means of "sprinkling" nanotubes onto chips.

Single-walled nanotubes are formed by turning a single sheet of carbon atoms into a seamless cylinder approximately one nanometer a billionth of a meter in diameter. Nanotubes can be either semiconducting or "metallic" the latter is highly conductive to electricity depending on the exact geometry of the carbon atoms.   Semiconducting nanotubes make for exceptional transistors, which is why so much attention has been devoted to finding a way to use them in electronics.

Previously, most nanotube circuits have been made by growing each nanotube on the surface of a chip, using a process known as chemical vapor deposition.  Unfortunately, this method often results in a circuit comprised of both types of nanotubes, metallic and semiconducting.  Furthermore, the growth direction of the nanotube is arbitrary, and their diameters are large.  Small diameter carbon nanotubes are more useful for switches.

The researchers, along with post-doctoral associate Mohammad F. Islam, found their biggest challenge in purifying the mass-produced nanotubes. The process they used to create nanotubes in bulk frequently adds impurities usually stray bits of carbon and leftover catalysts that ultimately detract from the quality of the nanotubes.

The Penn researchers found a purification scheme for the nanotubes by heating them in moist air with a gentle acid treatment and then using magnetic fields to separate the nanotubes from the impurities.  They deposit the nanotubes by dipping a chip covered with a glue-like substance into the nanotube solution, and then they wash off the excess glue and whatever solvents that remain.

The resulting circuits take advantage of unique electrical properties of nanotubes and can be produced in bulk.  Since the researchers can create nanotubes via processes separate from the chips, this process allows for a better control of the quality and diameter.  The Penn researchers believe there is a definite role for nanotechnology in the future of electronics.

Funding for this research was provided by grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA.

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Planetary Scientists Discover Tenth Planet

A planet larger than Pluto has been discovered in the outlying regions of the solar system with the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory, California Institute of Technology planetary scientist Mike Brown announced.

The planet is a typical member of the Kuiper belt, but its sheer size in relation to the nine planets already known means that it can only be classified as a planet, Brown says. Currently about 97 astronomical units from the sun (an astronomical unit is the distance between the sun and Earth), the planet becomes the farthest-known object in the solar system, and the third brightest of the Kuiper belt objects.

Brown made the discovery with colleagues Chad Trujillo, of the Gemini Observatory, and David Rabinowitz, of Yale University, on January 8.

Brown and Trujillo first photographed the new planet with the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope on October 31, 2003. However, the object was so far away that its motion was not detected until they reanalyzed the data in January of this year. In the last seven months, the scientists have been studying the planet to better estimate its size and its motions.

Scientists can infer the size of a solar-system object by its brightness, just as one can infer the size of a faraway light bulb if one knows its wattage. The reflectance of the planet is not yet known--in other words, it's not yet possible to tell how much light from the sun is reflected away--but the amount of light the planet reflects puts a lower limit on its size.

Determination of the upper limit of the size of the planet is constrained by results from the Spitzer Space Telescope, which has already proved its mettle in studying the heat of dim, faint, faraway objects such as the Kuiper-belt bodies. Because the Spitzer is unable to detect the new planet, the overall diameter must be less than 3,000 kilometers, Brown says. A name for the new planet has been proposed by the discoverers to the International Astronomical Union, and they are awaiting the decision of this body before announcing the name.