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.
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IN THIS ISSUE:
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS:
+ Magnetic Probe Tracks Implanted Cells in Cancer Patients
+ Cochlear Implants Maintain Nerve Health in Deaf Cats
+ Mouse Study: New Muscle-Building Agent Beats All Previous Ones
NEWS BRIEFS:
Hiatus for the JHM Science e-Newsletter
HHMI Grant To Fund Nanotech Graduate Program
AWARDS AND HONORS:
Rao Elected to Biophysical Society Council
IN THE NEWS:
David Ryugo on ABCNews.com
Se-Jin Lee in United Press International
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Do you have an interesting research finding about one month from publication or presentation? Fax your manuscript or galley proofs to the Office of Corporate Communications at 410-614-8951, or identify the correct media relations person online at
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/mediaII/Staff/index.html
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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS:
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11/18/05
Magnetic Probe Tracks Implanted Cells in Cancer Patients
By using MRI to detect magnetic probes of tiny iron oxide particles, a Dutch and U.S. research team for the first time has successfully tracked immune-stimulating cells implanted into eight melanoma patients.
"Our results show that the MRI-based technique was more accurate than tracking the cells using radioactivity and that ultrasound failed to accurately guide injection of the cells into lymph nodes in half of the patients," says Jeff Bulte, PhD, an associate professor of radiology at Hopkins' Institute for Cell Engineering who developed methods to optimally label cells with the clinically approved iron oxide particles.
This new application of the probes -- already clinically approved by both European and U.S. agencies for MRI scanning of the liver -- could dramatically improve efforts to test and use cellular therapies such as vaccines to treat cancer or prevent its recurrence or stem cells to repair damaged organs, say the researchers. The team's report appears in the November issue of Nature Biotechnology.
"On the MR images, we can see the lymph nodes, and we can see the magnetically labeled dendritic cells, and we can tell very clearly whether they are in the same place," says the study's first author, Jolanda de Vries, an assistant professor at the Nijmegen Center for the Molecular Life Sciences of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center in The Netherlands.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2005/11_18a_05.html
Nature Biotechnology Nov. 2005;23(11):1407-1413.
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v23/n11/abs/nbt1154.html
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12/2/05
Cochlear Implants Maintain Nerve Health in Deaf Cats
New research at Johns Hopkins has clearly demonstrated the ability of cochlear implants in very young animals to restore hearing by reversing or preventing damage to the brain's auditory system.
By studying cats that are born deaf, the researchers discovered that cochlear implants maintain the structure and connections of the nerves that convey information about sounds to the brain. The work suggests that implants will do a better job of preserving auditory nerve structure if inserted while the brain is still developing the sense of hearing, the researchers write in the Dec. 2 issue of Science.
In their experiments, the researchers compared cats that received cochlear implants, normal hearing cats, and congenitally deaf cats who hadn't received implants. It was clear before the end of the three-month experiment that the cats with implants could hear.
"Each implanted cat was trained to know that a particular sound -- a rhythmic cadence, finger-snapping, or hand clap, for instance -- signaled a special food treat," says David Ryugo, PhD, a professor of otolaryngology and of neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Hearing and Balance Center. "These cats would respond to these sounds the same way your pet cat comes when you shake its food box."
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2005/12_01_05.html
Science 2 Dec. 2005;310(5753):1490-1492.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/310/5753/1490
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12/5/05
Mouse Study: New Muscle-Building Agent Beats All Previous Ones
The Johns Hopkins scientists who first created "mighty mice" have developed, with pharmaceutical company Wyeth and the biotechnology firm MetaMorphix, an agent that's more effective at increasing muscle mass in mice than a related potential treatment for muscular dystrophy now in clinical trials.
The new agent is a version of a cellular docking point for the muscle-limiting protein myostatin. In mice, just two weekly injections of the new agent triggered a 60 percent increase in muscle size, the researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online Dec. 5 and available publicly through the journal's website.
The researchers' original mighty mice, created by knocking out the gene that codes for myostatin, grew muscles twice as big as normal mice. An antibody against myostatin now in clinical trials caused mice to develop muscles 25 percent larger than those of untreated mice after five weeks or more of treatment.
The researchers' expectation is that blocking myostatin might help maintain critical muscle strength in people whose muscles are wasting due to diseases like muscular dystrophy or side effects from cancer treatment or AIDS.
"This new inhibitor of myostatin, known as ACVR2B, is very potent and gives very dramatic effects in the mice," says Se-Jin Lee, MD, PhD, a professor of molecular biology and genetics in Johns Hopkins' Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. "Its effects were larger and faster than we've seen with any other agent, and they were even larger than we expected."
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2005/12_08a_05.html
PNAS (Published online before print) 5 Dec. 2005; doi:10.1073/pnas.0505996102
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0505996102v1
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NEWS BRIEFS:
Hiatus for the JHM Science e-Newsletter -- Joanna Downer, PhD, assistant director of science communication at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the writer and editor of the JHM Science e-Newsletter, is leaving Hopkins as of Jan. 1, 2006. The JHM Science e-Newsletter will likely cease production at that point and will resume in some form when a replacement is found. Until then, find news about Johns Hopkins research at
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/index.html
HHMI Grant To Fund Nanotech Graduate Program -- A $1 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, announced Nov. 22, will help create a new graduate training program in Nanotechnology for Biology and Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University. The NBMed program will draw from doctoral students in nine departments in the Johns Hopkins Schools of Engineering, Arts and Sciences, and Medicine. The goal is to provide a broader range of knowledge and skills to people embarking on careers in biology and medicine, giving them tools needed to develop new biomaterials, drug delivery systems, biosensors and diagnostic devices, says Denis Wirtz, PhD, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of the program.
Co-directors include Peter Devreotes, PhD, director of cell biology; Kathleen Stebe, PhD, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering; Peter Searson, PhD, a professor in of materials science and engineering; and Michael Edidin, PhD, a professor of biology.
http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home05/nov05/nano.html
AWARDS AND HONORS:
Rao Elected to Biophysical Society Council -- Rajini Rao, PhD, professor of physiology in the Johns Hopkins Institute of Basic Biomedical Sciences, has been elected to serve a three-year term on the Council of the Biophysical Society. The Biophysical Society, founded in 1956, was established to encourage development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics.
IN THE NEWS:
David Ryugo on cochlear implants' effects on ABCNews.com. "How Cochlear Implants Help Restore Hearing," by Ed Edelson, HealthDay, Dec. 1, 2005.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthology/story?id=1364476
http://www.jhu.edu/clips/2005_12/02/restore.html
(Must be at a Hopkins computer to access this page.)
Se-Jin Lee on myostatin inhibitor in United Press International. "Study: New Muscle-Building Agent Effective," United Press International, Dec. 8, 2005.
http://www.jhu.edu/clips/2005_12/09/study.html
(Must be at a Hopkins computer to access this page.)
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--JHMI--
