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Research News

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.