Von Eschenbach to help dedicate Children’s Cancer Research Institute

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Von Eschenbach
Von Eschenbach

San Antonio (Feb. 20, 2004) – There could be no more fitting keynote speaker, at the dedication of a new cancer research institute for San Antonio, than a three-time cancer survivor. Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D., director of the National Cancer Institute, will bring his unique perspective as a cancer physician and survivor to the dedication of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio’s Children’s Cancer Research Institute (CCRI). The dedication begins at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 24, at the Health Science Center’s North Campus, 8403 Floyd Curl Drive in the South Texas Medical Center. The public is invited to attend.

Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., president of the Health Science Center, is a fellow cancer survivor. He will welcome Dr. von Eschenbach and other speakers including businessman and community leader Red McCombs, state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, UT System Chancellor Mark Yudof, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and CCRI Director Sharon Murphy, M.D. Cyndi Taylor Krier, vice chairman of the UT System Board of Regents, is an invited guest, and James Huffines, chair of the board’s Facilities Planning and Construction Committee, will officially accept the building on behalf of the Board of Regents.

The CCRI is supported by a $200 million endowment, the largest single endowment for cancer in the country. McCombs was instrumental in the early moves to place the endowment in San Antonio and will give personal insights into that process. The expected audience of 400-plus will include many other invited elected officials and community leaders.

Dr. von Eschenbach was named director of the National Cancer Institute in January 2002 and spent 25 years at the UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center as a leading urologic surgeon with major research interest in prostate cancer. In a recent article he wrote for USA TODAY, Dr. von Eschenbach pointed out that “devoting your professional life to fighting cancer does not ensure that you will avoid having to battle it personally – as I well know.” He has endured diagnoses of and treatment for melanoma, prostate cancer and basal cell carcinoma.

Perhaps no one is more interested in new research centers such as the one the Health Science Center is dedicating. The Children’s Cancer Research Institute is located in a sparkling $50 million building that will house laboratories for 18-20 of America’s top cancer scientists and their research groups. The CCRI will bolster the Health Science Center’s ranking in the top 15 percent of the public and private research universities in America.

The CCRI will be a top-flight research center where today’s cancer research will become tomorrow’s breakthroughs. “While my personal battles with cancer have been successful, I am also intimately familiar with many lost battles,” Dr. von Eschenbach wrote. “But as my own experience shows, cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence. We have made tremendous progress against this disease.”

He recently announced that the National Cancer Institute has a new goal “to eliminate suffering and death due to cancer by 2015.” Centers such as the Children’s Cancer Research Institute will figure prominently in meeting that goal.

Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars program receives grant

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San Antonio (Feb. 17, 2004) – The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio has received a $540,000 grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to administer the Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars program. This national career development program is designed to develop leaders in primary care academics by providing funding for junior faculty research.
Each year the program provides $300,000 for 15 junior faculty members in family medicine, internal medicine and general pediatrics, to conduct four-year research projects nationwide. Currently, there are more than 60 scholars participating in the program and conducting research on a wide variety of topics. Under the program, the scholars, sponsored by their medical schools, receive support to enhance their research productivity, develop innovative mentoring programs for medical students, and participate in the design and implementation of primary education initiatives. The program coordinates several activities including an annual meeting for the scholars to present their research findings and conference calls for the scholars to discuss professional issues.

Poison Center medical director invited to serve on federal board

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San Antonio (Feb. 17, 2004) – Miguel C. Fernández, M.D., medical director of the South Texas Poison Center at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, has been appointed to the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson invited
Dr. Fernández to serve on the Board of Scientific Counselors. The ATSDR, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, serves the public “by using the best science, taking responsive public health actions, and providing trusted health information to prevent harmful exposures and disease related to toxic substances,” according to its mission statement.

Dr. Fernández, associate professor of surgery at the Health Science Center, completed his postgraduate training in medical toxicology at the Arizona Health Sciences Center in Tucson and emergency medicine training at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has received numerous honors and awards. He is a fellow of the American College of Medical Toxicology and the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Dr. Fernández is a medical expert in toxicology and poison control and has been involved both nationally and internationally in the development of poison centers. Current projects include poisoning prevention education, herbal medication toxicology, acetaminophen toxicity, snakebite envenomizations, hyperbaric medicine, plant toxins and U.S.-Mexico border toxicology.

The South Texas Poison Center is a free and confidential public service available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 1-800-222-1222.

HSC researchers seek glaucoma-Alzheimer’s link

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Stuart McKinnon, M.D., Ph.D.
Stuart McKinnon, M.D., Ph.D.

San Antonio (Feb. 17, 2004) – A research group at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is examining the intriguing possibility of a link between glaucoma and Alzheimer’s disease. The group is working with rat and mouse models of glaucoma to seek a possible connection. Glaucoma is a blinding disease that is difficult to detect until substantial vision loss has occurred.

Alzheimer’s includes an increased incidence of cerebral vascular disease and hemorrhagic stroke marked by abnormal deposits of a toxic protein called amyloid in blood vessel walls, said Stuart McKinnon, M.D., Ph.D., department of ophthalmology. “There is debate about what causes the process. We have found that amyloid also is deposited in the eyes, optic nerves and brains of rats in an experimental animal model of glaucoma.”

Other groups have shown that patients with Alzheimer’s have higher incidence of glaucoma (as much as five times higher) and progression of their glaucoma is faster. “Glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease, so why should its mechanism be different from other neurodegenerative diseases?” Dr. McKinnon said. “We’ve been finding that glaucoma seems to share similarities with Alzheimer’s.”

Dr. McKinnon’s lab is looking at the eyes and brains of rats and transgenic mice that produce proteins known to be mutated in the inherited forms of Alzheimer’s. The group recently developed a mouse glaucoma model, one of the first for glaucoma, to examine mice that over- or under-express proteins involved in Alzheimer’s. The researchers are checking to see whether these mice are overly susceptible to glaucoma damage.

If a connection is found, it is possible that treatments for Alzheimer’s could be used to treat glaucoma and vice versa. It’s also possible that physicians one day might be able to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease early by looking at the eye.

There is a push to diagnose Alzheimer’s before patients lose their cognitive abilities. Scientists are working on ways to image the amyloid plaques. “In the animal models we use, amyloid shows up early, so we hope we can take advantage of that and develop a test to diagnose glaucoma in humans earlier, before vision loss occurs,” Dr. McKinnon said. Small animal imaging devices at the Health Science Center will be used, he said.

The McKinnon group also is one of the first to explore gene therapy as a potential treatment for glaucoma. The inserted gene modulated the process of programmed cell death in ganglion cells, the retinal cell type damaged in glaucoma.

Clinical trial studies drug’s ability to prevent diabetes

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Dr. Ralph DeFronzo
Dr. Ralph DeFronzo

San Antonio (Feb. 17, 2004) – The Texas Diabetes Institute, a partnership of the Health Science Center and the University Health System, is recruiting individuals for a four-year clinical trial of pioglitazone (brand name Actos) for the prevention of type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Ralph DeFronzo, professor of medicine at the Health Science Center and deputy director of the Texas Diabetes Institute, said the trial should demonstrate pioglitazone’s ability to improve the body’s sensitivity to insulin and prevent insulin-producing beta cells from dying.

Dr. DeFronzo is principal investigator for the ACT NOW Trial (Actos Now for the Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes), which will compare outcomes of pre-diabetic individuals receiving pioglitazone with those receiving a placebo.

Early in life, type 2 diabetics produce three or four times the amount of insulin produced by individuals who are not diabetic. The problem is that the body does not respond to the insulin, and the beta cells eventually start to fail.

Later in life, as the beta cells start to fail, the amount of insulin in the blood starts to fall. At this stage, even though the blood insulin levels are higher than in non-diabetic individuals, the amount of insulin isn’t enough because of the severity of the body’s resistance to insulin.

Pioglitazone is part of the thiazolidine family of medications. “Much of the basic research on this class of drug was done here,” Dr. DeFronzo said. “We were amongst the first to show that these drugs improve insulin sensitivity.”
Thiazolidine drugs also save beta cells from dying. “We believe this class of drugs cannot only improve how the tissues respond to insulin, but also improve how much insulin is made by the body, thereby preventing diabetes,” Dr. DeFronzo said.

The ACT NOW Trial will enroll patients at eight U.S. centers, including the Texas Diabetes Institute. The researchers will identify people who are pre-diabetic. Half will get pioglitazone and half placebo. Treatment will be for 39 months.

“We anticipate that 60 percent to 70 percent of the patients in the pioglitazone arm will not develop diabetes,” Dr. DeFronzo said. “If individuals are taking placebo and develop diabetes, they will receive pioglitazone.”

The researchers also believe that pioglitazone treatment, administered when people first develop diabetes, will prevent the blood glucose levels from rising and thus prevent blindness, kidney failure and nerve damage. Diabetics also are more prone to heart attacks and stroke. There is good evidence that the thiazolidines may prevent atherosclerosis, Dr. DeFronzo said.

By taking ultrasound wave readings of the subjects’ carotid arteries, the researchers will test for thickening of the artery, signaling atherosclerosis. “We believe this drug will cause regression of the atherosclerosis,” Dr. DeFronzo said.

Hispanics are at higher risk for type 2 diabetes and its complications, such as heart disease, stroke, amputations, blindness and kidney failure. The study coordinators seek to enroll large numbers of Hispanics and African Americans.

To be screened for eligibility, call (210) 358-7200. The study is looking to enroll pre-diabetics – individuals who are at high risk to develop diabetes later in life. Pre-diabetics include individuals with a strong family history of diabetes (including gestational diabetes) and individuals who are significantly overweight. There is no cost to participate, and subjects will be reimbursed for their time. Dr. DeFronzo’s group will enroll 75 to 100 patients.

Dr. DeFronzo emphasized the importance of weight loss and exercise. It’s been shown that exercise activates an important biochemical pathway to increase insulin sensitivity.

The ACT NOW trial is supported by a $7.4 million grant from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, makers of Actos.

UTHSC research team receives grant from The Mind Science Foundation

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AwardVerghese_BODY
(Second from left) Abraham Verghese, M.D., the Marvin Forland Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics, receives the 2004 Tom Slick Research Award in Consciousness from Mind Science Foundation (MSF) Executive Director Joseph Dial and (from left) Paul Ingmundson, M.D., MSF trustee; MSF Chair Sandy McNab and Emilio Romero, M.D., psychiatry professor and MSF Scientific Advisory Committee Chair.

San Antonio (Feb. 10, 2004) – Abraham Verghese, M.D., the Marvin Forland Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics, and Therese Jones, PhD., associate director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, received a 2004 Tom Slick Research Award in Consciousness from The Mind Science Foundation.

“We are thrilled to be one of seven research teams in America and across the world to be chosen for this award,” Dr. Verghese said. “We were funded for what I think is a unique project: to look at the construct and evolution of empathy.”

The awards are named after Tom Slick, who established the foundation to explore the human mind. Of the 20 research teams worldwide considered for the award, only seven were chosen.

“In our invitation to submit, we made it clear that we wanted to encourage collaboration with younger researchers as a means of stimulating interest in the field of consciousness among promising young scientists,” said Emilio Romero, M.D., professor and deputy chairman in the department of psychiatry at the Health Science Center and chair of The Mind Science Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Committee.