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Researchers have uncovered a protein they say controls how the body produces fat cells.

Called Thy1 it has a fundamental role in controlling whether a primitive cell decides to become a fat cell, the Daily Mail reports. Experts say it could be harnessed in obesity treatments.

We believe that weight gain is not necessarily just a result of eating more and exercising less, said lead author Richard Phipps of the University of Rochester. The Rochester team discovered that a protein, Thy1, has a fundamental role in controlling whether a primitive cell decides to become a fat cell, making Thy1 a possible therapeutic target, according to a study published online this month by the FASEB Journal.

University of Rochester researchers believe they're on track to solve the mystery of weight gain -- and it has nothing to do with indulging in holiday eggnog.

hey discovered that a protein, Thy1, has a fundamental role in controlling whether a primitive cell decides to become a fat cell, making Thy1 a possible therapeutic target, according to a study published online this month by the FASEB Journal.

The research brings a new, biological angle to a problem that's often viewed as behavioral, said lead author Richard P. Phipps, Ph.D. In fact, some diet pills consist of antidepressants or anti-addiction medications, and do not address what's happening at the molecular level to promote fat cell accumulation.

Since its discovery several decades ago, gene therapy has been a medicinal sphinx, with doctors as enamored by its potential as they are frustrated by the riddles it presents. Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center are working to solve one of those riddles.

In order for gene therapy to be effective, doctors must discern how to deliver DNA to a cell's nucleus, which requires a comprehensive understanding of how DNA and proteins move through cell cytoplasm. Knowledge of this system could lead to huge leaps in gene therapy effectiveness, and could potentially allow researchers to push forward on research into many currently-untreatable diseases.

The research is supported by a 4-year, $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. One of the best examples is cystic fibrosis, said David A. Dean, Ph.D., professor of Pediatrics and Neonatology at URMC and the study's lead researcher. For cystic fibrosis, we know what the affected gene is, and we know what the mutation is. We know the physiology. The road block is the delivery - getting the corrective DNA in there and to the right cells for the right amount of time.

Physicians know what a healthy human lung looks like, but researchers have never before created a comprehensive map that specifically measures lung development from birth through childhood.

Now, researchers at University of Rochester Medical Center have launched a five-year effort to develop such a map. The project, called the Human Lung Molecular Atlas Program, or LungMAP, includes researchers from several other institutions and is supported by more than $20 million from the National Institutes of Health, $6.1 million of which was awarded to URMC.

With a detailed map of human lung development, health care providers will be able to more readily identify children who may be at risk for lung problems. For example, physicians know that infants who are born prematurely are more likely to develop emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in adulthood or later in life.

“But we don’t always know which ones, or how severe their complications will be,” said Gloria Pryhuber, M.D., professor of Pediatrics and Environmental Medicine and the study’s lead researcher at URMC. “So that’s what this is really all about — we need to know more about how the lung is formed and heals normally, in order to encourage pre-term infants to develop more normally, and to help adult lungs to heal from diseases like pneumonia and emphysema.”

Sara Knowlden, a graduate student in the Georas Lab, has been awarded Best Graduate Student Poster at the URMC 6th annual Lung Research and Training Day for her poster entitled, Global inhibition of autotaxin alters the inflammatory response to house dust mite in mice. Congrats Sara!

Professor of Medicine, Steve Georas, has been awarded and NIH R01 grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The grant is entitled Epithelial barrier dysfunction and mucosal immunity in asthma.

NHLBI provides science-based, plain-language information related to heart, lung, and blood diseases and conditions and sleep disorders and funds a wide range of NHLBI programs and research projects.

Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center have commenced a study that will be used to help shape the Food and Drug Administration’s regulations on e-cigarettes, hookahs, and miniature cigars in the coming years.

The five-year study, which is supported by a $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, in conjunction with the FDA, began Aug. 1.

“We know that traditional tobacco cigarettes cause numerous diseases,” said Thomas J. Mariani, Ph.D., associate professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Environmental Medicine at URMC and the study’s lead researcher. “We intend to determine the disease risk associated with nontraditional tobacco-related products, like e-cigarettes.”

Since the early days of Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb, Rochester-area innovators have been making astounding discoveries in optics and imaging. Researchers at the University of Rochester are beginning a major study that will add to the region’s imaging expertise, while also advancing global understanding of how the body’s immune system works.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a five-year, $9 million Research Program Project Grant (PO1) to scientists in the School of Medicine and Dentistry to adapt and develop cutting-edge imaging techniques, allowing them to view the immune system while it is fighting infection and disease.

University of Rochester Medical Center researchers have won a $3 million grant to support influenza research. The award from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is going to support ongoing research by New York Influenza Center of Excellence, a 7-year-old flu research center led by URMC scientists John Treanor M.D. and David Topham, Ph.D..

This award is an acknowledgement of the highly productive contributions our center has made to the overall understanding of how the immune response to flu is regulated, Treanor said.

Exposure to cigarette smoke is known to cause changes in the chromatin -- the complex of DNA and proteins that make up a cell's nucleus. This can lead to chronic lung disease. UR researchers Irfan Rahman, Professor of Environmental Medicine and Pulmonary Diseases, and Alan Friedman, Assistant Professor of Environmental Medicine, are shedding light on the role of histones in this process. Histones are key proteins that pass along genetic information from parents to children, play a role in gene expression, and act as spools for DNA to wind around.

Their study, featured on the cover of the Journal of Proteome Research (February 2014), reports that cigarette smoke induces specific post translational modifications in histones H3 and H4, which could serve as biomarkers to help identify and predict chronic lung diseases (COPD and lung cancer) induced by cigarette smoke. Their data may also help in our understanding of the epigenetic changes that occur during the development of these diseases.

Computer-generated model of how the human immune
system responds to the influenza virus.

The University of Rochester Medical Center has been awarded $4.7 million from the Federal government, with several options for additional funding, to establish a center to study the germs that cause lung disease.

The agreement with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, took effect earlier this month. The agreement, renewable on a year-by-year basis, could last potentially for seven years. If the agreement lasts the full seven years, contract funding may be at least $35 million, and support could reach as much as $50 million, if NIAID exercises all its options.

Creation of the new center was led by microbiologist David Topham, Ph.D., an influenza researcher who also directs the Health Sciences Center for Computational Innovation.

The beginning of life is an incredibly delicate period. Not only do those first few days of life play an important role in the development of a human being, but gestation, infancy and childhood play an integral role in lifelong health. Most adult diseases have origins in that time period. Asthma, heart disease, diabetes – all have roots in early life and carry a heavy burden individuals, families and the health care system.

“We have just begun to scratch the surface of what so-called ‘diseases of aging’ have their origins in predictable or even preventable risk-imparting conditions or events of childhood,” said Nina F. Schor, M.D., Ph.D., William H. Eilinger Chair of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and pediatrician-in-chief of Golisano Children’s Hospital.

That is why the Department of Pediatrics at URMC is launching a new program to study how early life impacts adult health and what can be done to prevent disease. The Perinatal and Pediatric Origins of Disease (or PPOD, for short) program will be directed by Michael A. O’Reilly, Ph.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Environmental Medicine, and Oncology. O’Reilly’s research has focused on the harmful effects of oxygen on premature lungs, but he and colleagues in Pediatrics, Obstetrics, Environmental Medicine, Primary Care and Ophthalmology are interested in examining more than just lung biology.

“What starts in the lungs may not end there. We need to look at the effects of prematurity more broadly and look at the long-term effects of early birth and its treatments,” O’Reilly said “The March of Dimes estimates that prematurity costs society more than $26 million every year.”

Jacqueline Williams, Ph.D., was named chair of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute's Scientific Advisory Committee for its Center of Acute Radiation Research. Williams is grant director and core leader of the Center for Biophysical Assessment and Risk Management Following Irradiation at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

NSBRI is a NASA-funded consortium of institutions studying the health risks related to long-duration spaceflight and developing countermeasures to mitigate the risks. The CARR, which is headed at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, is responsible for studying the acute effects of exposure to space radiation during exploration missions. The Scientific Advisory Committee provides advice on the Center's productivity and effectiveness.

Williams is also a member of NSBRI's External Advisory Council, which is composed of leaders in research fields central to the Institute's mission and advises management on strategic issues and programmatic effectiveness.

Williams is an associate professor of Radiation Oncology at the Medical Center's James P. Wilmot Cancer Center. She has 30 years experience in radiation biology research and education. She has conducted radiation studies for health care on Earth and for radiation exposure during spaceflight.

Williams holds leadership positions in the Radiation Research Society, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, and the Southwestern Oncology Group.

The Cardiff, Wales, native earned a bachelor's degree in zoology/pharmacology from the University of Nottingham and a Ph.D. in radiation biology from the University of London. She came to Rochester in 1990.

The normal rat lung on the left is dense with healthy blood vessels. On the right, PAH has clogged vessels to the point that most have disappeared from the scan (only those with blood flowing through them show up).

Patients with a rare, deadly disease that mostly affects young women felt a dramatic reduction in breathlessness using an approved drug, according to study results published online today in The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.

The treatment, continuous intravenous (IV) treprostinil, has already been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) based on its similarity to an approved treatment delivered subcutaneously (SC, directly in the skin). Practicing physicians and the experts writing treatment guidelines, however, had hesitated to endorse the treatment because it did not have its own placebo-controlled study. The current study addresses that deficiency, researchers said. Results confirmed that the study drug brought about a lifestyle-changing reduction in the main symptom of PAH: breathlessness due to related heart failure.

“A continuous IV infusion of treprostinil reduced feelings of breathlessness in these patients, really freeing them to move again,” said R. James White, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Medicine, Pharmacology & Physiology within the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and lead author of the study. “Patients went from a life where taking a shower caused breathlessness to one where they can take a long walk or climb a flight of stairs before they have that same feeling, a substantial improvement in daily capabilities,” said White, who also conducts basic science research within the Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute.

R. James White, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Medicine, Pharmacology & Physiology within the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, was tapped to serve as guest editor of the current edition of Advances in Pulmonary Hypertension, which published online today. White is recognized by the Pulmonary Hypertension Association as a leader in treatment and study of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a rare, often fatal, disorder affecting blood vessels in the lung and causing increased blood pressure in the pulmonary artery that leads from the heart to the lungs. He along with his staff, Karen Frutiger and Toni Heininger, offer PAH patients from Albany to Erie the opportunity to participate in clinical trials and to join a growing support group.

PAH symptoms include shortness of breath with minimal exertion, fatigue, chest pain, dizziness and fainting. In many cases, the cause is unknown and those affected, young adult women. While many patients may receive a presumptive diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension (PH) based on the results of an echocardiogram, only a few will actually have the rare disorder, PAH.

Each year, thousands of premature infants battle to breathe. Thanks to life-saving interventions developed in the past couple decades – steroids given to their mothers to stall pre-term labor, mechanical ventilation, air enriched with extra oxygen, and surfactant, a crucial wetting agent that makes breathing less work – most of these newborns survive with enough lung function to grow and go home.

But as the eldest of this new survivor population now embarks into young adulthood, research suggests that the same miraculous interventions that kept them alive in their first weeks of life may haunt them later on. University of Rochester Medical Center researcher Michael O’Reilly, Ph.D., unveils new research probing just how one such intervention – breathing oxygen-enriched air in those first weeks – may warp signaling pathways that rev up the body to fight respiratory infections, like flu.

The article appeared in the May edition of the American Journal of Respiratory Critical Care Medicine.

A unique effort to reach out to, educate and support patients in the Rochester area with pulmonary hypertension has attracted the attention of the national Pulmonary Hypertension Association (PHA) and led to a feature article in the association’s newsletter.

The kudos reflect the growing reputation of R. James White, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Medicine, Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of Rochester Medical Center as a researcher in the search for a cure for pulmonary hypertension. Also recognized is the hard work by White’s staff, Karen Frutiger and Toni Heininger, in persuading local patients to participate in clinical trials that could lead to a cure and to join a growing support group.

The University of Rochester Medical Center will participate in a new nationwide network of seven Centers for Medical Countermeasures Against Radiation to improve the country’s response to a radiological attack, such as with a dirty bomb. The National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease awarded the university $21 million, over five years.

University officials believe this is the largest grant the NIH has awarded to the University of Rochester.

“We are proud to be a part of the important effort of helping our nation better prepare for the devastating warfare techniques that have evolved and threaten our country and the world each day,” said C. McCollister Evarts, M.D., CEO of the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Rochester researchers have established the Center for Biophysical Assessment and Risk Management Following Irradiation which will focus on finding ways to measure levels of radiation exposure in humans, treat the toxic effects of radiation, and, importantly, identify a means of predicting the long-term health risks posed by low levels of radioactive particles.

“There’s an unfortunate absence of anything we can give people if there is a radiological attack,” said Paul Okunieff, M.D., chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Rochester’s James P. Wilmot Cancer Center, and co-principal investigator.

“We have vaccines being tested and antibiotics available for chemical or biological attacks,” Okunieff said. “Now, with this funding, we are able to fast-track the science and develop concrete plans to monitor and treat people in the event of a radiological attack.”

The project allows the University of Rochester to expand on expertise it has developed over decades: how to prevent healthy tissue from being harmed during radiation therapy for cancer, and how radiation and other toxins affect the body over time.

The university also has a long-established expertise in the study of inhaled toxins on the lungs and other organs. In fact, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the university was enlisted to analyze the ultra fine dust particles collected from around the World Trade Center, and to assess their effect on the lungs of rescue workers and Manhattan residents.

Experience in those scientific areas fit into the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s new initiative, said co-Principal Investigator Jacob N. “Jack” Finkelstein, Ph.D., professor of Environmental Medicine, Radiation Oncology and Pediatrics.

During the next five years, the University of Rochester will collaborate with Dartmouth Medical School, the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, and other laboratories, on five projects. These projects are designed to develop fast and accurate tools to identify radiation exposure in large numbers of people.

• Project 1: Using blood and skin tests to measure the body’s inflammation response to toxic radiation exposure. Scientists also hope to identify and evaluate at least 10 different drugs or natural remedies that might protect the body from harmful radiation.
• Project 2: Understanding how inhaled radioactive dust or other ultra fine particles harm lung tissue and cells, especially in the lower doses most likely to occur during a radiological attack. Also, scientists will identify agents that could mitigate the organ damage.
• Project 3: Calculating a radiation dose by monitoring the teeth. Scientists will use a field instrument, developed at Dartmouth, to test its ability to screen victims’ radiation exposure within minutes. This project’s goal is to meet a critical need: to be able to determine very quickly after an incident whether people have received a dose of radiation that could cause immediate, serious health problems.
• Project 4: Using a blood test that is currently used to detect if drugs are geno-toxic to humans, to determine if the same test could evaluate levels of radiation exposure and predict future cancer risk.
• Project 5: Developing a skin test that could measure DNA damage in the cells of the superficial layers of skin following radiation exposure. Just as in Project 4, this research would also attempt to predict the risk of a person developing cancerous tumors in the future.

In addition to Okunieff and Finkelstein, the research group includes Jacqueline P. Williams, Ph.D., associate research professor of Radiation Oncology; Yuhchyau Chen, Ph.D., M.D., associate professor of Radiation Oncology; and Sally W. Thurston, Ph.D., assistant professor of Biostatistics.

In keeping with its mission to expand research, the University of Rochester Medical Center has launched a Lung Biology and Disease Program that unites a dozen top scientists from various departments onto one floor of the UR's newest building at the west end of the campus. The program, which also serves as an umbrella for as many as 40 researchers, will be fully operational by June. Recruitment of new faculty, and some construction and laboratory setups will continue throughout the year.

The new program focuses attention on the lungs and related, modern-day health concerns: toxic exposures due to pollution and chemicals; asthma and other chronic lung ailments; respiratory infections; lung cancer. It will allow the scientists - once separated geographically and by professional discipline - to work more effectively as they investigate lung disease from the molecular stage to how it strikes patients, young and old, and the best treatments on the horizon.

"When you're interested in the disease process, understanding the whole picture is critical," says Deborah A. Cory-Slechta, Ph.D., Dean for Research and director of the Aab Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the UR. "This is a group of very talented physicians and researchers who were interactive already, but the intense, team-based approach will allow them to take advantage of what goes on in each others' labs in a much more dynamic way."

Richard Phipps, Ph.D., professor of Environmental Medicine, Oncology, Microbiology, Immunology and Pediatrics, has been appointed director of the Lung Biology and Disease Program. Phipps, whose research for 19 years at the UR has focused on lung disease and immunology, has a patent pending on a new way of immunizing against a serious infection that afflicts patients with cystic fibrosis and HIV.

"Each organ has its own truly unique aspects in terms of how it gets injured and how it is repaired," Phipps says. "We think it's going to be very productive to focus on the lung from many different angles, as opposed to the approach of studying diseases only at a fundamental level and then applying that knowledge to the lung."

Supporting lung biology research makes sense for a number of reasons:

• The UR has been a leader in this field for years. In the 1980s, for instance, scientists here were instrumental in developing what is now a standard therapy for premature infants, a liquid medication called surfactant that helps tiny, underdeveloped lungs work better. More recently, in environmental medicine, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the Medical Center (as one of five sites nationally) an $8 million grant to study the link between exposure to urban air particles and poor health. The association between air pollution and increased death rates is well documented, but now scientists are racing to identify which particles are toxic and why they cause lung disease.
• A cohesive approach will raise the UR's competitive stature and boost funding opportunities. For example, in a visit this month to the National Institutes of Health, Phipps learned of new funding for programs to combat bioterrorism. The UR will pursue grants to investigate how infectious agents find their way to the lungs and the consequences of the toxic exposure. The World Trade Center disaster has also magnified interest into the harm done by inhaled particles.
• The combined brainpower of cell biologists, immunologists and clinicians should result in new treatments. The lung program will maintain close ties with Strong Memorial Hospital's pulmonary and critical-care divisions, and will give the Medical Center greater access to the newest drugs being tested in clinical trials. A state-of-the-art facility in the basement of the new research building will also open avenues in gene therapy and other modern approaches to lung disease.

Another goal is to recruit new scientists and to encourage mentoring between senior faculty and young researchers. The program will conduct a seminar series and research-in-progress training, as a way to promote regular interactions among lung specialists.

At this point, the lung biology program is funded by existing research grants, including a $1.5 million training grant, directed by Mark Frampton, M.D., for pre-and post-doctoral students that was renewed by the NIH late last year. In addition, the NIH has invited a group of pediatric lung researchers, led by Frank Gigliotti, M.D., to apply for money to investigate the disease process that causes pneumocystic pneumonia, a very active area of research nationally.

Mark Utell, M.D., professor of Medicine in pulmonary and critical care, and co-director of the EPA Center, says the UR is smart to capitalize on a workplace culture that promotes collaboration. "Having the ability to convene top faculty from pediatrics, oncology, pulmonary and environmental medicine into tightly-knit, new laboratories, will position the university for great progress," he says.