Coming soon: Medscape’s “Developments to Watch”

by on July 1, 2011 at 7:08 am | 0 Comments
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Dr. Evan Snyder (right) interviews his colleague, Dr. Steven Smith, on the Medscape set.

Dr. Evan Snyder interviews his colleague, Dr. Steven Smith, on the Medscape set.

Last week, Sanford-Burnham’s Fishman Auditorium, on the Institute’s La Jolla campus, was transformed into a temporary television studio. It was hardly recognizable under the bright lights and set dressing. Medical website Medscape recorded interviews with three Sanford-Burnham researchers for a new video series called “Developments to Watch.” The talk show-like discussions were hosted by Dr. Evan Snyder, who directs the Stem Cells and Regenerative Biology Program at Sanford-Burnham. Dr. Snyder is both a medical doctor who regularly sees patients and a scientist who conducts research in his own lab – the perfect person to help explain how discoveries made today might one day help patients.

Medscape is part of the network of sites run by WebMD. With this newest video series, Sanford-Burnham scientists will be providing expert commentary and information to help keep Medscape’s audience – primary care physicians, specialists and other health professionals – up-to-date on the latest medical research and what it means for their patients.

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On the Cutting Edge

by on April 13, 2011 at 8:55 am | 0 Comments
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Neural stem cells, image by Dr. Ilyas Singec, Snyder laboratory

On April 12, Dr. Evan Snyder, who directs the Stem Cells and Regenerative Biology program at Sanford-Burnham, was interviewed by Shally Zomorodi of Fox 5 News about recent advances in stem cell research. Dr. Snyder singled out four different areas where researchers are making great progress: diseases in a dish; using stem cells to protect other cells; recreating organs for transplant and using stem cells to treat diseased tissues or cancers (particularly in the brain) with targeted gene therapy. Dr. Snyder noted that all these approaches are fairly advanced.

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Bring It! with Sanford-Burnham and HeadNorth

by on March 10, 2011 at 7:59 am | 0 Comments
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bringit_archive

On April 21, Sanford-Burnham will partner with the HeadNorth Foundation for the third time to present Bring It!, a game show-style event that challenges teams to compete in a wide range of challenges. This year’s theme, “Rock on for Stem Cell Research” promises a full evening of networking and fun for a great cause, held at the Del Mar Fairgrounds Activity Center. HeadNorth is a San Diego-based nonprofit dedicated to providing help and hope for spinal cord injury survivors. It was founded in 2006 by Eric Northbrook after a motorcycle accident severed his spinal cord.

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Some thoughts on rare diseases

by on February 18, 2011 at 1:12 pm | 2 Comments
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The Rare Disease Symposium is being held on February 25 at Sanford-Burnham's La Jolla campus.

When Dr. Jannine Cody’s daughter Elizabeth was born with a chromosome 18 defect, physicians told her the girl would never progress beyond a vegetative state. Chromosome 18 conditions result from gene deletions or duplications in that chromosome. Not willing to accept this prognosis, Dr. Cody focused herself on studying the disease, eventually earning her Ph.D. in Human Genetics. She is now a researcher at the University of Texas, San Antonio and founder and president of the Chromosome 18 Registry and Research Society. Her daughter Elizabeth is now in her 20s and has gone to college.

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Basic research bolsters clinical care

by on February 8, 2011 at 1:18 pm | 0 Comments
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Dr. Jaime Green

Dr. Jaime Green

Bone marrow (stem cell) transplants have been a life-saving tool for patients with leukemia and lymphoma. However, like most cancer treatments, they come with significant risk. Patients can be immune-compromised for as long as a year, making them vulnerable to pathogens that most people would fight off easily.

One such pathogen is cytomegalovirus (CMV), a member of the herpes virus family. People usually get CMV early in life (from childhood to early adulthood), experience mild symptoms and move on. However, for immune-compromised patients, CMV can be a serious and deadly complication.

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Fighting Diabesity

by on February 1, 2011 at 7:40 am | 1 comment
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On January 27, a group of biotech leaders met at the Amylin Pharmaceuticals headquarters in San Diego to discuss the challenges of treating diabesity (the confluence of diabetes and obesity) and how the biotech community is meeting those challenges. Sponsored by Xconomy.com, the event featured panel discussions and quick presentations that highlighted the terrible consequences of the diabesity epidemic and the strategies being used to stem the tide.Sanford-Burnham’s Chief Business Officer, Dr Paul Laikind, gave a quick overview of the Institute’s approach to finding new treatments. He highlighted the critical importance of the Prebys Center, our small molecule compound screening center, and how Sanford-Burnham is using this technology for early stage drug discovery. He also discussed our recently announced partnerships with Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Takeda Pharmaceutical, which will lead to new discoveries and hopefully new medicines. The Takeda collaboration is particularly relevant, as it will target obesity.

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Protecting Beta Cells from the Immune System

by on December 20, 2010 at 12:08 pm | 11 Comments
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Type 1 diabetes is caused by an overactive immune response that kills off insulin-producing beta cells. While beta cells can be transplanted to replace the ones that have been lost, the immune system will eventually kill those off as well.

For transplantation to be a viable treatment, the immune system must be controlled. Current transplant recipients take immunosuppressive drugs to prevent their T cells from attacking replacement beta cells, presenting patients with a stark choice between diabetes and a suppressed immune system.

Sanford-Burnham adjunct assistant professor Dr. Pamela Itkin-Ansari is taking a different approach. Her laboratory has placed human pancreatic precursor cells in an immuno-protective device and transplanted them into mice. She was testing whether precursor cells will mature into productive beta cells in the body and whether the encapsulation device, made from a material akin to Gore-Tex, could prevent the immune system from attacking transplanted cells.

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Four ways patient advocates help drive research

by on December 16, 2010 at 2:53 pm | 5 Comments
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How can patient advocates help drive basic research?

How can patient advocates help drive basic research?

Last week I attended the Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa, an annual event organized by CONNECT. The meeting included all the stellar scientific panels I expected and one I didn’t expect: “Patient Advocacy 2.0 – Can they participate?”

The panel discussed opportunities for patient participation and the ethics involved. I was captivated by panel member Dani Grady’s story of surviving breast cancer and her advocacy for increased cancer research funding, education, improved patient care and more patient participation in clinical trials. It was interesting to hear how a patient’s perspective can improve clinical trials and the drug approval process. But as I sat there, I couldn’t help wondering… how can patients participate in basic research – the earliest phase of biomedical discovery, during which the molecular underpinnings of disease are only just beginning to be understood?

So I did a little research of my own.

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Stem Cells and Brain Tumors

by on December 13, 2010 at 8:15 am | 3 Comments
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As a young scientist in the 1990s, Dr. Evan Snyder, now director of Sanford-Burnham’s Stem Cells and Regenerative Biology Program, had never worked on cancer. But when his close friend Dr. James Galambos died from a glioblastoma, he promised the family he would do everything he could to find a cure. In 2000, Dr. Snyder, Dr. Karen Aboody, now at City of Hope, and colleagues published a paper that described how stem cells could be used to treat cancer. A recent article on the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM) website highlighted this breakthrough:

Neural stem cells, it revealed, are attracted to tumors like moths to a light. If they could be made to carry a chemotherapeutic payload, they could serve as weapons against the wanton spread of metastatic brain cancer.

CIRM committed $37 million to successfully move this promising research into clinical trials. To learn more about how stem cells can be used to target tumors, read Manipulated Medicine.

The City of Hope trial has also been featured on CBS News.

Top 10 reasons to be thankful for science

by on November 25, 2010 at 9:00 am | 0 Comments
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It’s that time of year when we pause to remember what we’re thankful for. We can think of many reasons to be thankful for science. Here are the top 10:

Beacause science…
10.  says fat can be good
9. uncovers new drug targets
8. is art
7. turns disease on its head
6. finds new uses for old drugs
5. inspires kids
4. is better than science fiction
3. explains how cancer works
2. provides a “do-over”

And the #1 reason we are thankful for science? Because it saves lives (and makes them better).

Why are you thankful for Science? Please leave a comment below…and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Good Fun for a Great Cause

by on October 26, 2010 at 11:54 am | 2 Comments
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Last weekend, flappers and gangsters arrived in vintage cars to dance the night away at Sanford-Burnham’s gala—Speakeasy: Hidden in Plain Sight. The gala raised $2.2 million to support biomedical research at Sanford-Burnham.

This year’s gala was held at the Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa, where the ballroom was transformed into a Prohibition-era dance hall. Malin Burnham, T. Denny Sanford, and Conrad Prebys were honorary chairs. Life Technologies was the presenting sponsor, thanks to CEO Greg Lucier, Chairman of the Sanford-Burnham Board of Trustees.

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Hibernating herpes viruses

by on October 14, 2010 at 9:39 am | 1 comment
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Herpes viruses are good at hiding. They infect human cells and lay dormant there until replication is activated by stress or some other environmental factor. One type, Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), is one of only a few viruses known to cause cancer.

In a study that appeared online September 17 in the journal EMBO Reports, Sanford-Burnham’s Dr. Tariq Rana and colleagues found that KSHV stays quiet by expressing certain microRNAs (miRNAs), small strands of genetic material that interfere with protein production.

“KSHV dormancy is believed to be essential for tumor formation, yet some forms of cancers caused by the virus have also been linked to viral reactivation,” explains Dr. Rana, professor and director of Sanford-Burnham’s RNA Biology Program. “This study helps us better understand the KSHV life cycle, thus providing new insight into how the virus causes cancer in some populations.”

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Drug design in 3D

by on October 5, 2010 at 1:13 pm | 0 Comments
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Let’s say you are a scientist studying Protein X, a protein that normally tells cells to divide but, when malfunctioning,  causes unchecked cell division that leads to a tumor. You think blocking this deviant Protein X might stop cancer. So you take Protein X to your colleagues in Sanford-Burnham’s Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics(Prebys Center), where robotic systems can screen hundreds of thousands  of chemical compounds to find that one needle-in-a-haystack (or handful of needles) that inhibit Protein X. From there, you continue developing these winning compounds, hopefully into a new anti-cancer drug.To boost the Prebys Center’s drug discovery efforts,  scientists in Dr. Nicholas Cosford’s laboratory, part of Sanford-Burnham Cancer Center’s Apoptosis and Cell Death Program, are putting on their 3D glasses. They recently teamed up with French company MEDIT SA to use and enhance a new software platform built around a computer program called MED-SuMo. This platform breaks down 3D images of known protein structures to find chemical fragments that might bind and inhibit Protein X (or other interesting proteins) in real life.

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Running for Research

by on October 1, 2010 at 10:35 am | 1 comment
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Judy Wade is all smiles, arriving at Sanford-Burnham’s La Jolla campus sporting shorts and a T-shirt that reads, “Will Run for Coffee.” She really means it. Though she never ran before joining Team Sanford-Burnham, it now seems that running is part of Wade’s identity.The annual run with Team Sanford-Burnham allows participants to run side-by-side with the very scientists whose work they are supporting. “When they formed this team about five years ago, I thought it would be a good idea to do something new for a good cause,” Wade recalls. “I wasn’t a runner. I didn’t even like it, but now I love it.”

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Where Structure Meets Function

by on September 30, 2010 at 10:06 am | 2 Comments
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The human genome project taught us a lot about the number and sequences of our genes, but not a whole lot about what they do. In the years since, scientists have been using that genomic information to examine the structures of proteins, the molecules that carry out our genes’ instructions (see DNA 101). Structural information is being used to answer biological questions about protein function – how they facilitate chemical reactions, carry molecular signals in and out of cells and control cellular movements. There’s a growing need to understand how multiple proteins work together to accomplish all that and more.As part of their Protein Structure Initiative (PSI), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) at the National Institutes of Health has awarded a five-year, $6.8 million grant to a team led by Sanford-Burnham’s Dr. Robert Liddington and Stanford University’s Dr. W. James Nelson. PSI was formed in 1999 to help researchers establish the structure of more proteins, faster. Now in its third phase, called PSI:Biology, PSI structure determination centers are partnering with scientists like Dr. Liddington and Dr. Nelson to address important biological questions linking a protein’s structure and its function.

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