David Kessel, Ph.D., professor of Pharmacology for the Wayne State University School of Medicine, recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Kessel received the award at a July 8 meeting in Moscow sponsored by the International Conference on Porphyrins and Phthaliocyanines, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. The award was for his studies related to Photodynamic Therapy and was funded by the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, where the modern era of PDT began.

“When one of my friends received such an award, his first comment was: ‘Does this mean I don't have to do anything else?’ In my case, I realized that this was not going to work, since I still had a few more years of NIH grant support, students to deal with and the realization that I would be assigned to space in a landfill if I failed to keep my research program going,” Dr. Kessel said.

The award to Dr. Kessel was the academy’s first for achievements in the field of Photodynamic Therapy, a procedure for “selectively photosensitizing malignant tissues to light,” Dr. Kessel explained. The process is used for therapy of bladder, esophageal, lung skin, gastrointestinal and -- in experimental protocols -- prostate cancer.

Dr. Kessel, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan and Harvard Medical School, was named professor of Pharmacology and Medicine at Wayne State University in 1974. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health since 1959.

The International Photodynamic Association, founded in Japan in 1986, meets every two years, bringing together mainly clinical personnel but also basic scientists. At the 2007 meeting in Shanghai, Dr. Kessel was elected the association’s next president. He is charged with organizing the next meeting, scheduled for June 2009 in Seattle.

Elderly people who take a cholesterol-lowering drug after a stroke or mini-stroke lower their risk of having another stroke just as much as younger people in the same situation, according to research by a Wayne State University School of Medicine physician published in the Sept. 3 online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“Even though the majority of strokes and heart attacks occur in people who are 65 and older, studies have found that cholesterol-lowering drugs are not prescribed as often for older people as they are for younger people,” said study author Seemant Chaturvedi, M.D., F.A.A.N., F.A.H.A., professor of Neurology at the School of Medicine and director of the WSU-DMC Stroke Program.

“These results show that using these drugs is just as beneficial for people who are over 65 as they are for younger people,” added Dr. Chaturvedi, who is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

The study involved 4,731 people 18 and older who had a recent stroke or transient ischemic attack, or mini-stroke. The 2,249 people 65 and older were in one group, with an average age of 72, and the 2,482 people younger than 65 made up the other group, with an average age of 54. Within each group, about half of the people received the cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin and about half received a placebo. The participants were then followed for an average of four and a half years.

Overall, LDL, or low-density lipoprotein “bad” cholesterol, was lowered by an average of 61 points during the study for the elderly group, and by 59 points for the younger group. Those in the younger group reduced their risk for another stroke by 26 percent; the risk was reduced by 10 percent in the elderly group.

“We tested to see whether age had any effect on how well the treatment worked, and we did not find any differences between young people and older people,” Dr. Chaturvedi said. “It’s estimated that 20 percent of the U.S. population will be 65 or older by 2010, so it’s important that we identify ways to reduce the burden of strokes and other cerebrovascular diseases in this group. This is a step in that direction.”

The study was part of a larger study called the Stroke Prevention by Aggressive Reduction in Cholesterol Levels trial. The study was supported by Pfizer Inc., maker of atorvastatin.

Dr. Chaturvedi noted that the findings are not an indication that everyone over the age of 65 should be placed on statins to reduce the risk of stroke, though he said statin use to ward off strokes will likely increase. Instead, patients should be evaluated for their profile and risk of vascular disease before statins are recommended.

Working on the project with Dr. Shammas are Ramesh Batchu, Ph.D., associate director of the Surgical Oncology and Developmental Therapeutics laboratory at the Karmanos Cancer Institute and assistant professor of surgery at the School of Medicine; and Madhu Prasad, M.D., co-chief of Surgical Oncology at Karmanos and associate professor of surgery at the School of Medicine.

The funding from this award will allow Dr. Shammas’ lab to study telomeres, telomerase, and homologous recombination in the development and progression of Barrett’s esophageal adenocarcinoma (BEAC), a cancer associated with heartburn. Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes, the structures carrying genetic material or DNA. Normal human cells lose a portion of telomeric DNA each time a cell divides. As soon as the average length of telomeres in a cell dips below a critical limit, the cell dies. Cancer cells acquire the ability to maintain their telomeres at a specific length and therefore can continue to grow. The maintenance of telomeres in cancer cells is either achieved by activation of a protein called telomerase or by a process of genetic rearrangement, called homologous recombination. The lab will also test the inhibitors of telomerase and recombination, separately and together, for prevention and treatment of BEAC in mice.

"In this proposal we plan to investigate the roles of both telomerase and homologous recombination (HR), in development of Barrett’s esophageal adenocarcinoma, and to evaluate inhibitors of these pathways in prevention and treatment of this disease,” Dr. Shammas explained. “We will also identify combinations of inhibitors which completely block telomere expansion, by inhibiting both telomerase- and HR-dependent maintenance of telomeres, in human BEAC cells.

“Such treatments may prove to be more effective in inducing telomere shortening and apoptosis in cancer cells by acting at multiple levels, with little or no detrimental effect on normal cells,” Dr. Shammas said. “Moreover, inhibitors of HR could also help in cancer chemo­therapy, by impeding phenotypic heterogeneity arising in tumors and tumor acquisition of new resistant phenotype which is associated with chromosomal instability."

Ming Dong, Ph.D., associate professor of Computer Science in the College of Liberal Arts, is leading the team on this initiative. Farshad Fotouhi, Ph.D., Chair of Computer Science; Mark Haacke, Ph.D., professor of Radiology in the School of Medicine; and Jing Hua, Ph.D., assistant professor of Computer Science, are collaborating with Dr. Dong on this project.

According to the grant abstract, compared to the explosive collection of visual datasets, computation techniques for gaining knowledge from large, diverse, heterogeneous visual datasets have only evolved modestly. This project aims to bridge these gaps and to promote more effective utilization and better understanding of the data.

"The project will foster a strong research program in geometry-guided knowledge discovery in multimodality visual data, with an emphasis on neuroimaging applications," Dr. Dong. "The project can immediately help to elevate the existing resources and ongoing research to a unified, systematic level and strengthen computer science education."

The ultimate goal of the project is to apply the computational tools to computer-assisted diagnosis of brain diseases such as tumors and brain functional disorder. The research team is working to identify disease patterns in the human brain, thus providing both clinical and social benefits to a large sector of the population. In addition, the team hopes to disseminate the research results to both computer science and medical communities through free Web access of the software tools and the set of sample data.

"This project is a great example of the multi-disciplinary collaborative environment that is growing at Wayne State University," said Gloria Heppner, associate vice president for Research at WSU. "By bringing great minds together from departments such as computer science and radiology, new research ideas are being fostered that will ultimately impact the lives of many."

Four experts from the Karmanos Cancer Center and the Wayne State University School of Medicine will discuss the benefits of state-of-the-art surgical procedures available to cancer patients that result in quicker healing, minimal scarring and overall faster recovery. They are Michael Cher, M.D., chief of Urology at Karmanos and professor of Urology and Pathology at the School of Medicine; Robert Morris, M.D., chief of Gynecologic-Oncology and assistant professor at the School of Medicine; Madhu Prasad, M.D., co-chief of Surgical Oncology and associate professor at the School of Medicine; and Jeffrey Triest, M.D., assistant professor of Urology for the School of Medicine.

The procedures that will be discussed will include:

• the daVinci Surgical System, a sophisticated robotic platform that allows doctors to perform complex procedures;
• microwave ablation, the use of microwave energy to heat and destroy tumors;
• cryotherapy, needle-based freezing to destroy tumors; and
  
• laparoscopic surgery, a surgical technique using small incisions.

There will also be a demonstration of the daVinci robot. Guests can test drive the system themselves and learn how this innovative technology helps in the fight against cancer.

“Robot-assisted surgery offers greater precision and greater vision of structures inside the body so we can perform much more precise surgery,” Dr. Cher said.

To register for the free session call (313) 576-8041 or email thomasc@karmanos.org. Refreshments will be served.

The poster winners included:

• Jennifer Abrams, first place graduate division;
• Lauren Uroda, second place undergraduate division;
• Desmond Jackson, first place undergraduate division;
• Jonathan Michaux, second place undergraduate division; and
  
• Monique Lewis, first place graduate division

First place winners received $100 and second place winners received $50.

The Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity is a research program working to increase the number of African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders in the biomedical sciences.

The McNair Scholars Program works to prepare students to enter graduate school, with a goal of scholars achieving a doctorate degree within 10 years of graduating from Wayne State University. The program is named after Ronald E. McNair, who died on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.

The Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate program recruits, supports and mentors underrepresented minority students who earn doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.