This is the twice-per-month electronic newsletter for basic, preclinical and translational research news related to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Please forward freely. Direct comments or questions to Joanna Downer, PhD, in the Office of Corporate Communications (410-614-5105, jdowner1@jhmi.edu).
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IN THIS ISSUE:
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS:
+ Imaging Study Shows Failing Hearts Are "Energy Starved"
+ COX-Produced Prostaglandin Hurts and Helps Brain Cells
+ "Blips" in HIV Levels Don't Foreshadow Drug-Resistance
NEWS BRIEFS:
Beachy To Give Dean's Lecture Feb. 28
Blelloch on Epigenetics, Neural Stem Cells and Cancer Feb. 28
Ostrander To Speak on Dog Genome Mar. 7
Comparative Medicine Year-in-Review Symposium Mar. 7
New Animal Protocol Forms Required
IN THE NEWS:
Mark Teaford in National Geographic News
Dan Lane in HealthDay
John MacDonald in Baltimore Magazine
Murray Sachs in the Jewish Times
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Do you have an interesting research finding about one month from publication or presentation? Send manuscripts to Joanna Downer at jdowner1@jhmi.edu or fax to 410-614-8951. Information about awards and honors received by laboratory personnel and others is welcomed also.
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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS:
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2/5/05
Imaging Study Shows Failing Hearts Are "Energy Starved"
Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) for the first time to examine energy production biochemistry in a beating human heart, Johns Hopkins researchers have found substantial energy deficits in failing hearts.
The findings, published in the Jan. 18 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, confirm what many scientists have conjectured for years about heart failure, and suggest new treatments designed to reduce energy demand and/or augment energy transfer.
"The heart consumes more energy per gram than any other organ," notes Paul A. Bottomley, PhD, lead researcher and director of magnetic resonance research at the Johns Hopkins Department of Radiology. "While scientists have long known that adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the chemical that fuels heart contractions and that creatine kinase is the enzyme for one of the sources of ATP, we believe this is the first time someone has actually measured the flux of ATP produced by this reaction in the beating human heart."
Bottomley and a team of cardiologists and radiologists at Hopkins used MRS to provide direct molecular-level measurements of the creatine kinase supply in normal, stressed and failing human hearts. Results showed that creatine kinase flux in healthy hearts is adequate over a fairly wide normal range of rest and stress conditions, but mild-moderate heart failure resulted in a 50 percent reduction in energy provided through creatine kinase flux.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2005/02_03_05.html
PNAS 18 Jan. 2005;102(3):808-813.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/3/808
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2/14/05
COX-Produced Prostaglandin Hurts and Helps Brain Cells
Laboratory studies have revealed that the certain products of the enzymes COX-1 and COX-2 can both protect and damage the brain, Johns Hopkins researchers report in the February issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry.
In their latest experiments, the Hopkins scientists discovered that the prostaglandin PGD2 can help prevent brain cells from succumbing to a laboratory "stroke" if it binds to one receptor, but causes the cells to die in greater numbers if it binds to a second receptor instead. Prostaglandins are involved in a wide variety of processes including relaxation and contraction of muscles and blood vessels, control of blood pressure and inflammation.
"Defining which prostaglandin pathways are good and which promote disease would help to design more specific therapeutics," says Katrin Andreasson, MD, assistant professor in the neurology and neuroscience departments at Hopkins. Specific therapeutics might help overcome the recently reported cardiovascular complications that can occur with long-term use of some COX-2 inhibitors, she notes.
Because the Hopkins team found that PGD2's positive effects generally outweigh its negative ones, the group speculates that it may provide a potential target for medicines to combat conditions that involve glutamate toxicity, including stroke, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2005/02_14_05.html
J Neurochem Feb. 2005;92(3):477-486.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1471-4159.2004.02870.x/full/
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2/15/05
"Blips" in HIV Levels Don't Foreshadow Drug-Resistance
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have concluded that sudden, temporary spikes in the amount of HIV in the body generally do not mean the virus is developing resistance to antiretroviral drugs.
In the Feb. 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers report that unless the spike is higher than 200 copies of the virus per milliliter of blood, or persists upon repeated testing, the so-called blip is a mathematical artifact that stems from the test used to gauge the amount of virus in the body, a measurement known as viral load.
"These results should provide relief to hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive patients in the United States currently taking highly active anti-retroviral therapy, or HAART, and reassure them that their medications have not failed," says Robert Siliciano, MD, PhD, a professor of infectious disease and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Johns Hopkins. "Physicians and patients now have a much better idea of when to worry about these blips and when not to worry."
The Hopkins team conducted a detailed genetic analysis and viral load measurements on 36 blood samples from each of 10 HIV-positive patients.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2005/02_15_05.html
JAMA 16 Feb. 2005;293(7):817-829.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/293/7/817
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NEWS BRIEFS:
Beachy To Give Dean's Lecture Feb. 28 -- Philip Beachy, PhD, professor of molecular biology and genetics and of oncology, will give the second Dean's Lecture of the academic year, Monday, Feb. 28, starting at 5 p.m. in Hurd Hall. His lecture is titled "Hedgehog Signaling in Development and Disease." The lecture is sponsored by the Dean's Office of the School of Medicine.
Blelloch on Epigenetics, Neural Stem Cells and Cancer Feb. 28 -- Robert Blelloch, MD, of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, will give a lecture titled "CNS: Epigenetic Regulation of Neural Stem Cells and Cancer," starting at noon, Monday, Feb. 28, in Meyer 1-191. The talk is sponsored by the departments of neurology and neuroscience.
Ostrander To Speak on Dog Genome Mar. 7 -- Elaine Ostrander, PhD, chief of the Cancer Genetics Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute and a key proponent of the canine genome sequencing project, give the John D. Strandberg Lecture, "Your Dog and Its Genome: Inquiring Minds Want To Know!", beginning at 1 p.m., Friday, March 7, in the Tilghman Auditorium. To register for the lecture contact Jane Paradise at 410-955-9767 or jparadis@jhmi.edu.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/comparativemedicine/news
Comparative Medicine Year-in-Review Symposium Mar. 7 -- The Department of Comparative Medicine's First Annual Year-in-Review Research Symposium will be held March 7 from 7:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. in Tilghman Auditorium in the Turner Building. Elaine Ostrander will be the keynote speaker (see announcement above). To register for the symposium, contact Jane Paradise at 410-955-9767 or jparadis@jhmi.edu. Breakfast and lunch will be served to symposium registrants. A complete schedule of the day's speakers is online. (Scroll down to Upcoming Events once at the departmental Website.)
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/comparativemedicine/news
New Animal Protocol Forms Required -- The Animal Care and Use Committee revised the animal use protocol forms in October 2004. Protocols submitted using the old forms will no longer be accepted. To obtain a current form visit:
http://www.jhu.edu/animalcare/forms1.html
IN THE NEWS:
Mark Teaford on evolution and diet in National Geographic: "Evolving to Eat Mush: How Meat Changed Our Bodies," by Hillary Mayell, National Geographic News Feb. 18, 2005.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0218_050218_human_diet.html
Dan Lane on appetite control in HealthDay: "Clue to Controlling Appetite Found," by Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, Feb. 21, 2005.
http://www.healthcentral.com/news/NewsFullText.cfm?id=524112
John MacDonald, new School of Medicine and Kennedy Krieger faculty member, in Baltimore Magazine: "Spinal Man," by Sarah M. Richards, Baltimore Magazine, March 2005.
http://www.jhu.edu/clips/2005_02/22/spinal.html (must be at a Johns Hopkins computer for access.)
Murray Sachs on the Johns Hopkins University-Technion Collaborative Program in Bioengineering and Biomedicine in the Jewish Times: "Medicine's 'New Frontier,'" by Barbara Pash, Jewish Times, Feb. 11, 2005.
http://www.jhu.edu/clips/2005_02/21/front.html (must be at a Johns Hopkins computer for access)
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Upcoming lectures and seminars:
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--JHMI--
