Congratulations to everyone who participated in the Department of Medicine 2010 Research Day. The event had a tremendous turnout of faculty and young investigators. We are very proud of the research you are producing.
Check out the pictures from this CWRUmedicine event …
The Case Western Reserve University Department of Medicine has contributed several historical breakthroughs in the fields of medicine and health. Indeed, the CWRU School of Medicine boasts eight Nobel laureates among its faculty and alumni, including former professor of physiology John J.R. Macleod, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1923 for the discovery of insulin, and alumnus Paul C. Lauterbur, B.S. Chemistry ’51, who shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 2003 with Sir Peter Mansfield for discoveries in magnetic resonance imaging. Other notable research accomplishments by School faculty are the first surgical treatments of coronary artery disease, the first simulated milk formula for infants, development of the first heart-lung machine for use in open heart surgeries, the first successful genetic alteration of human cells in a test tube and creation of the first artificial human chromosome.
Today, research being conducted by faculty and students at the Department of Medicine ranges from examining infectious diseases of the developing world to creating the first stool test that detects colon cancer, and much more. Of additional note, the School of Medicine was awarded $64 million from the National Science Foundation to form the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative in partnership with three hospital affiliates.
The Case Western Reserve University Department of Medicine is affiliated with some of the best hospitals in the United States and is committed to developing a research portfolio that is aligned with their strategic clinical initiatives. Department affiliates include University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Cleveland Clinic, The MetroHealth System and Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Through these partnerships, several cutting-edge technologies and research facilities are available to faculty and students. Core facilities of the School are the Case Medical Center, which comprises Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Health System, the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, and the MetroHealth Medical System Rammelkamp Center for Education and Research. Additional prominent facilities include the Case Center for Imaging Research, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, Center for Aids Research, National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center (the only one of its kind in the United States), Center for Proteomics and Bioinformatics, and Center for Global Health and Disease.
To maintain such a high standard of biomedical research, the Department of Medicine continually looks to the future.
Learn more at CWRUmedicine.org
Moderate to Severe Sleep Apnea Triples Stroke Risk in Men, Study Finds
WebMD | April 8, 2010
Obstructive sleep apnea more than doubles the risk of stroke in men and also increases the danger in women, new research indicates.
The finding comes from a major study of 5,422 people aged 40 and older who had no history of stroke. Researchers say increased risk of stroke appeared in men with mild sleep apnea and rose with severity.
Men with moderate to severe sleep apnea were about three times more likely to have a stroke than men with mild or no sleep apnea, researchers say.
The increased risk of stroke in women with obstructive sleep apnea was significant only in cases of severe apnea, according to the study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Stroke
Data were taken from the Sleep Heart Health Study, which is ongoing at a number of locations. The participants in the beginning performed a standard at-home sleep test to determine whether they had sleep apnea, and if so, its severity.
They were followed for about nine years, and during that time, 193 suffered strokes — 85 men out of 2,462 enrolled and 108 women out of 2,960.
“Although more women had strokes, relatively more men with sleep apnea than without sleep apnea had strokes, and less so in women,” study author Susan Redline, MD, MPH, of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, tells WebMD in an email. “I think that the relatively greater impact of sleep apnea on risk of stroke in men relates to the likely longer duration of sleep apnea in men than women.”
Researchers say more than 15 million strokes occur worldwide every year, and that about a third are fatal. Increased risk of stroke in people with sleep apnea exists even without other risk factors, such as weight, high blood pressure, race, diabetes, and smoking.
Men may be more at risk because they develop sleep apnea at younger ages, the researchers say, and thus go untreated for longer periods.
Learn more at CWRUmedicine.org
theHeart.org | US researchers have pinpointed a genetic factor that affects diseases of both the heart and blood vessels and identified a molecular pathway shared between the two. They propose that a subset of human heart and vascular disease may be due to deficiency of this genetic factor, known as Krüppel-like factor 15 (Klf15), and that amending the pathway in some way could help ameliorate both diseases.
Dr Saptarsi M Haldar (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH) and colleagues report their findings online April 7, 2010 in Science Translational Medicine.
“Often, people think of cardiac disease and vascular disease as separate entities, but they often run together—for example, in Marfan’s syndrome or in aging, when there are degenerative changes to both the heart and blood vessels,” senior author Dr Mukesh K Jain (Case Western Reserve University) explained to heartwire.
Some years ago, his research team identified the genetic factor Klf15 and showed that it was expressed in both the heart and aorta; they also demonstrated that in human tissue from patients with heart failure or aortic aneurysmal disease, the expression of Klf15 was markedly reduced. The new research is an attempt to identify a common molecular pathway for these effects that could represent a potential therapeutic target.
Both heart and blood vessels affected by Klf15 deficiency
“We hypothesized that maybe the absence of Klf15 or its relative deficiency might be unhealthy, so we generated mice to mimic this,” Jain explains. The mice, which were completely deficient in Klf15, were then stressed using angiotensin 2, and they developed heart failure and, “quite unusually,” aneurysms at the same time, he notes, “so we showed that both the heart and blood vessels of the mice were affected by deficiency of Klf15.
“We then wondered whether there was a common molecular mechanism that might explain this shared pathology,” he continued.
They went on to show that enhancement of the activity of p53—a protein most often associated with protection against cancer—appeared to be causing the adverse effects in the setting of Klf15 deficiency.
Furthermore, they showed that Klf15 functions as a “molecular brake” on p53 function by inhibiting p53 acetylation, which is a critical “on” switch for this protein.
These molecular effects were operative both in the Klf15-deficient mice and in human tissues from heart-failure patients, which were also found to be Klf15 deficient.
Boosting Klf15 production or blocking p53 acetylation may be of benefit
“This now lends us the opportunity to try to identify a chemical compound that might either boost the activity of Klf15 or somehow block the acetylation of p53, which might help ameliorate diseases affecting both the heart and blood vessels,” Jain noted. As well as aging and Marfan’s syndrome, this includes peripartum cardiomyopathy and in particular a subset of women who develop aortic dilatation as well as heart failure in the setting of pregnancy, he explained.
The discovery of new molecular pathways that are amenable to therapeutic manipulation is of immense clinical value,” he says, adding that research into compounds targeting Klf15 or p53 is already under way. Researchers have already demonstrated that a compound called curcumin, the active constituent of the spice turmeric that is often used in Asian cooking, is able to block the acetylation of p53, and they are actively trying to identify other compounds that could enhance the expression of Klf15.
Read the abstract on CWRUmedicine.org
Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals are pleased to announce the awarding of a $4.7 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to Dr. Jonathan Stamler, Director of the Institute for Transformative Molecular Medicine (ITMM).
The grant will fund development of a new class of drugs that selectively vasodilate under hypoxia and thereby enhance performance at high altitude (e.g. soldiers on mountains in Afganistan).
It is also anticipated that the grant will generate new physiologic information on high-altitude adaptation and new therapeutic interventions to treat patients suffering from conditions where oxygen delivery is impaired, including heart failure, ischemic heart disease, stroke, sickle cell disease and diabetes.
Studies will involve a transdisciplinary approach, including the Department of Anesthesia (James Reynolds) the division of Pulmonary Medicine (Kingman Stroh), and the Harrington-McLaughlin Cardiovascular Institute (Sahil Parikh).
Learn more at CWRUmedicine.org
“Comparisons of different insulin infusion protocols: a review of recent literature”
Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2010 March
Krikorian A, Ismail-Beigi F, Moghissi ES.
Division of Clinical & Molecular Endocrinology
Case Western Reserve University
University Hospitals, Cleveland
Read the abstract at CWRUmedicine.org
“Mitochondrial dynamics in Alzheimer’s disease: opportunities for future treatment strategies”
Drugs Aging. 2010 Mar 1
Bonda DJ, Wang X, Perry G, Smith MA, Zhu X.
Department of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland
Read more at CWRUmedicine.org
“Separation and characterization of cardiolipin molecular species by reverse-phase ion pair high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry”
J Lipid Res. 2010 Apr
Minkler PE, Hoppel CL.
Center for Mitochondrial Diseases, Division of Pharmacology, Department of Medicine, Case Medical Center, University Hospitals, Cleveland
Read the full abstract on CWRUmedicine.org
We have over 250 full time faculty, 120 medical housestaff, 80 fellows and 400 support staff working at the CWRU School of Medicine, University Hospitals Case Medical Center and the Cleveland VA Medical Center Wade Park Campus.
We are proud of our premier, extramurally funded research programs, our delivery of high-quality, cost-effective patient care at University Hospitals (ranked as a Top Ten Health Care System by Thompson Reuters) and our VA Hospital (ranked first in the entire VA system for Health Care Delivery Measures).
We are also deeply committed to medical student, graduate student and post graduate training.
Our faculty, trainees and staff are committed to the highest standard of excellence in all of our activities in a collegial, integrated and interactive work environment.
We invite you to navigate our website to learn more about who we are and what we do. Visit us at CWRUmedicine.org
If we can be of help, please contact us.
Richard A. Walsh, MD
Chair, Department of Medicine
It doesn’t take much effort to see the impact social media is having on almost every avenue of our lives, both professionally and personally. Tools such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, just to name a few, are changing the way and frequency in which we communicate. It should be no surprise, then, that even Healthcare would find itself impacted by the influence and immediacy that social media provides.
We value your opinion and want to know what tools you use to stay up with the latest news and information. Give us your thoughts. Take our poll on social media in healthcare, and let us know what tool(s) you use.
Take the Poll and see results at CWRUmedicine.org
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