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Research News

Good Cholesterol Doesn't Always Mean Good Health

Dr. James Corsetti is lead author on a paper in Artheriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology regarding a study using a unique outcome event mapping methodology coupled with genotyping to identify a group of patients in which high HDL cholesterol is associated with coronary disease risk. Read more...

Study Helps Explain Male Dominance in Liver Camcer

Dr. Chawnshang Chang is senior author on a paper reporting the results of a study that helps to explain why men get liver cancer more often than women and opens the door for a new treatment pathology. Other pathology authors were Dr. Charlotte Ryan and Dr. Shuyuan Yeh. Read more...

Cancer Cytogenomics Microarray Consortium

Dr. Anwar Iqbal is a member of the Steering Committee and Web and Communications Committee of the Cancer Cytogenomics Microarray Consortium. CCMC was formed by a group of clinical cytogeneticists, molecular pathologists, and molecular geneticists who are interested in applying microarray technologies to cancer diagnosis and cancer research. The mission of the consortium is to promote communication and collaboration among cancer cytogenetics laboratories.

UR Pathologist Elected to Leadership Team of Bone Research Society

Brendan Boyce, M.D., Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Director of Anatomic Pathology at the URMC, has been elected Secretary/Treasurer of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Resarch (ASBMR). He will assume his role at the end o the ASBMR 32nd Annual Meeting, which will be held in Toronto on October 15-19, 2010. Read more...

Androgen Receptor Plays Key Role in Wound Healing

In the December 2009 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, George Hoyt Whipple Professor Chawnshang Chang, Ph.D., and pathology graduate student Jiann-Jay Lai, Ph.D.. reported that androgen receptor, a molecular receptor pivotal to the action of male hormones such as testosterone, also plays a crucial role in the body’s ability to heal. Read more...

New Findings on Malignant Melanoma

A recent University press release features work of third-year resident Jennifer Pryor and pathologist Haodong Xu, published in Modern Pathology. They, and co-authors Patricia Bourne, Qi Yang, dermatopathologist Glynis Scott, and Betsy O. Spaulding of Dako Corporation, studied the role of the protein IMP-3 in malignant melanoma. Dr. Xu, corresponding author on the paper, summarizes:

"Malignant melanoma is a deadly disease if it is not caught early. The diagnosis may be difficult because some benign nevi mimic malignant melanoma. Insulin-like growth factor-II messenger RNA (mRNA)-binding protein-3 (IMP-3), also known as K homology domain-containing protein overexpressed in cancer (KOC) and L523S, is an oncoprotein and functions to promote tumor cell proliferation. We hypothesize that this molecule is involved in the development and progression of malignant melanoma. We are excited about our findings that IMP3 is expressed in malignant melanoma but not in benign nevi, even when dysplastic features are present; IMP-3 is expressed in a significantly higher proportion of melanomas than Spitz nevi; and IMP-3 is expressed in metastatic melanomas significantly more than in thin melanomas. In conclusion, IMP-3 appears to be involved in the progression of malignant melanoma and may play an important role in the regulation of the biologic behavior of this tumor. Additionally, IMP-3 may have diagnostic utility in distinguishing melanoma from benign nevic cells, dysplastic nevi, and Spitz nevi.

Further mechanistic studies are warranted to determine the role of IMP3 in the development of malignant melanoma."

URMC Pathologists and Residents Excel at National Meeting

The University of Rochester Medical Center was one of the top 10% of overall institutions in terms of numbers of first-authored scientific abstracts that were peer-reviewed by experts and accepted for presentation at the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology's annual meeting in San Diego, California, in March 2007. It was also one of the top fifteen programs in the world in terms of acceptance of scientific abstracts submitted for the USCAP Stowell-Orbison Awards Competition for pathologists-in-training. Congratulations to faculty (Jiaoti Huang, Ping Tang, Xi Wang, Haodong Xu) and residents/fellows (Krisztina Hanley, Sharlin Johnykutty, Todd Lester, Lin Li, Priya Nigwekar, Jennifer Pryor, Rochelle Simon, David Wagner).

Whipple Laboratory Receives New Grants for Study of Androgen Receptors

Recent accomplishments of Dr. Chawnshang Chang and his laboratory team include the funding of two new NIH R01 grants, a foundation grant, a paper appearing in the March issue of Nature Medicine, and a paper in the April issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The first NIH grant will support a study of the effects of androgen receptor (AR) on B cell lymphopoiesis. The clinical relevance of this work is underscored by the known relationship of gender to incidence of certain autoimmune diseases. The second NIH project will explore the role of AR in liver cancer incidence and progression. The Kennedy's Disease Association is funding a study of AR involvement in X-linked spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA, Kennedy's Disease), an inherited neurodegenerative disorder whose effects are only seen in males. In the Nature Medicine paper, Zhiming Yang and Yu-Jia Chang in Dr. Chang's laboratory show that a derivative of the biological compound curcumin (ASC-J9) ameliorates the SBMA phenotype in a transgenic SBMA mouse model by disrupting the interaction between AR and its coregulators (press release). The NCI Journal paper shows that AR plays a role in bladder cancer, which may explain its higher incidence among males (press release). First author on the NCI paper is Dr. Hiroshi Miyamoto, who was a member of the research faculty in Dr. Chang's lab before entering the Pathology residency program at URMC.

ECRIPS Award for Study of Predictors of Breast Cancer Progression

Dr. Ping Tang was recently funded by the New York State Empire Clinical Research Investigator Program (ECRIP) to study molecular markers prediting progression of ductal breast carcinoma in situ (DCIS). The ECRIP program encourages teching hospitals to train physicians as clinical researchers to advance biomedical research in New York's academic health centers. In recognition of her emerging national recognition in this field, she is first author of a review of recent advances in DCIS in press in Current Opinion in Obstetrics and Gynecology.