WVU Receives Renewal of NIH Center Grant
The National Institutes of Health granted an $11 million renewal to the WVU Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center (MBRCC). These funds will go to support the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) for a Signal Transduction and Cancer study that is lead by Dan Flynn, Ph.D., Deputy Director, MBRCC.
 "The MBRCC is focusing our research efforts upon those cancers that disproportionately affect West Virginians and the citizens of Appalachia. Partnerships between physicians and scientists will allow us to develop strategies to prevent and treat our patient populations and provide them with access to cutting-edge care."
- Dan Flynn, Ph.D. |
The program was originally funded in 2001. Renewal funding means that existing research will continue. In addition, WVU will be able to recruit several new scientists and provide them with the necessary laboratory space and other research facilities.
To date, researchers supported by the CoBRE have determined how tumors are able to develop blood vessels that promote tumor growth, and have also focused on determing how cell signals promote tumor growth.
The research team has generated an additional $10.8 million in competitive external funding since it was established.
Magnets May Stimulate Brain and Movement
Using magnetic fields to activate the brain and improve movement sounds like something out of a science-fiction novel. But one WVU neurologist is conducting research in hopes of findin g a happier ending to a story she hears all too often – stroke patients suffering motor skill loss.
The National Institute for Neurological Disease and Stroke has awarded Cathrin Buetefisch, M.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology, nearly $1 million to apply neurobiological principles to stroke patients’ rehabilitation. She will use magnetic stimulation in the portion of the brain responsible for movement.
The stimulation is painless. Patients wear a cap-style monitoring device while a flat panel is gently placed against the head. The panel sends out a magnetic field that induces current in the underlying brain and evokes responses in muscles that are detected on a monitor.
"Our hope is to improve the quality of life for stroke patients. If this treatment proves effective, we might be able to do just that."
- Cathrin Buetefisch, M.D. |
A portion of the funding, which will be dispersed over a 4-year period, will be used to examine which drug treatment therapies yield the best results for recovery after stroke. If the research shows promising results Dr. Buetefisch hopes to one day receive a grant for a multi-center clinical trial to test a combination of magnetic stimulation and drug therapy.
NIH Training Grant in Cardiovascular and Lung Disease Research
 The Office of Research and Graduate Studies at the WVU School of Medicine has recently received National Institutes of Health (NIH) approval for a pre-doctoral interdisciplinary training grant to support training of young scientists enrolled in the Ph.D. program. The training grant is entitled: Research Training Cardiovascular and Lung Diseases. This award will support the stipends, tuition and health insurance expenses for Ph.D. students over a five year period.
This training grant received an outstanding priority score of 1.29 which is exceptional for a first ti me application, and recommended full funding at $1.7 million. The NIH review complimented the strength of our student recruitment and the research expertise of the training faculty. The program director and principal investigator is Jamal Mustafa, Ph.D., Professor, Assistant Dean for Research, School of Medicine. The chair of the internal scientific advisory committee which will oversee the selection of top students as recipients of the fellowship awards is Thomas Saba, Ph.D., Associate Vice President, Health Sciences, and Associate Dean for Research, School of Medicine.
This interdisciplinary training grant pulls together faculty with scientific background in physiology, pharmacology, biochemistry, cell biology, genetics and molecular biology who are interested in inflammation, vascular injury, cardiac pathobiology, airway reactivity, lung epithelial biology, endothelial physiology, free radical biology, cell signaling pathways, vascular remodeling, and angiogenesis. These research areas are relevant to clinical problems of coronary artery disease, asthma, pulmonary fibrosis, hypertension, cardiac failure, and peripheral vascular ischemic disease.
WVU Researcher Identifies New Signature Gene Pattern Tied to Breast Cancer
Recently, there have been several advances in treatment and therapy for breast cancer. However, the rate of recurrence is still unpredictable. Researchers at WVU have discovered a gene pattern for identifying a patient’s odds of breast cancer recurrence.
The newly identified 28-gene signature pattern predicts recurrence and spreading, according to researcher Lan Guo, Ph.D., Research Assistant Professor, Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center (MBRCC).
 "This study discusses the gene test, which shows great promise for identifying patients at high-risk for recurring breast cancer. It allows physicians to tailor an individual’s treatment."
- Lan Guo, Ph.D. |
Dr. Guo uses a computer model to analyze gene characteristics of more than 1,400 breast cancer patients. The data covers cancers from the earliest to most advanced stages. The 28-gene signature can identify patients who have higher disease-free and overall survival rates.
Under Dr. Guo’s direction, the breast cancer research team at the MBRCC is building a database of breast cancer tumor samples that will allow researchers to develop a clinical protocol, using the gene-signature to predict patients’ outcomes.
Dr. Guo’s study, “Population-Based Molecular Prognosis of Breast Cancer by Transcriptional Profiling,” is featured as a sidebar story on the cover of the April edition of Clinical Cancer Research.
Researchers contributing to the article also include: James Harner, Department of Statistics chair; Yong Qian, Xianglin Shi and Vincent Castranova of NIOSH; and WVU graduates Yan Man and Liang Wei.
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