The IRP community is profoundly saddened by the passing of S. Perwez Hussain, Ph.D., Senior Investigator in the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He died on November 24, 2023, after living with stage 4 colon cancer for many years.
For over 25 years, Perwez led translational research that could be brought into clinical trials for patients with pancreatic cancer and he established the pancreatic cancer research program in the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis. He was known as an exceptional scientist, caring mentor, kind colleague and friend to many.
Dr. Richard Remigio Studies the Health Repercussions of Changing Environmental Conditions
Summer 2023 started off on an ominous note. On June 7th, New Yorkers woke up to a deep orange skyline over Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, resembling a scene from a dystopian novel. Air quality indices there reached ‘code maroon,’ warning that being outdoors was dangerous even for healthy people. Americans and Europeans would subsequently endure some of the highest summer temperatures on record, and in August, wildfires devastated the Hawaiian island of Maui.
These and many other recent events have made it clear how much climate change already affects people’s lives. One of the people trying to combat those consequences is Richard Remigio, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
IRP’s Darryl Zeldin Investigates New Ways to Combat Bacterial Pneumonia
Our immune system is supposed to block infections like pneumonia, and in most instances, it does. Even so, nearly 1 million Americans each year become sick enough from pneumonia to require a visit to the hospital, and for about 50,000, the lung infection is deadly.
Multiple types of infectious organisms can cause pneumonia, and doctors use antibiotics to treat cases caused by bacteria. Unfortunately, bacteria are resilient organisms that have waged an evolutionary battle against our antibiotics ever since penicillin was first discovered, leading to alarming rates of antibiotic-resistant infections. It’s no wonder, then, that the public health community calls attention to this life-threatening conundrum each November during Antibiotic Awareness Week.
Treatment Strategy Could Mop Up Virus Hiding in Patients’ Bodies
As temperatures drop in the fall, a variety of species from groundhogs to bears prepare to wait out the winter in their dens. Much like these animals, HIV also goes into hibernation when conditions are tough, a trait that has long stymied efforts to develop a cure. However, IRP researchers recently tested a promising strategy that might one day be used to flush out and kill dormant remnants of HIV.
Andrew Singleton and Ellen Sidransky Lauded for Genetics Research
Throughout history, some of the most important insights about devastating illnesses have come from identifying genes that contribute to them. Parkinson’s disease, a neurological condition that robs patients of the ability to move, is just one example of this pattern — and one that IRP researchers have made critical advances on in recent years.
Reflecting the IRP’s groundbreaking research on Parkinson’s disease, in September, IRP senior investigators Ellen Sidransky, M.D., and Andrew Singleton, Ph.D., were awarded the prestigious Breakthrough Prize for their research on the genetic causes of the illness. The world’s largest scientific award, the Breakthrough Prize honors “transformative advances toward understanding living systems and extending human life.” Each year, one award in the Life Sciences category is reserved for research on Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Sidransky and Dr. Singleton, along with a third Parkinson’s researcher, Thomas Gasser, M.D., Ph.D., at the University of Tübingen in Germany, will share the $3 million prize.
Less Powerful Magnetic Fields Improve Heart and Lung Imagery
On November 8, 1895, a physics professor in Bavaria was working in his darkened laboratory when he noticed glimmers of light breaking through a piece of heavy black paper and lighting up a screen behind it. As he placed thicker and heavier items between the source of light and the screen, the light remained. That was the day Wilhelm Röntgen accidentally discovered x-rays and changed medicine forever.
As we celebrate World Radiology Day on the 128th anniversary of that discovery, medical imaging now allows people to see inside the human body with a clarity Dr. Röntgen scarcely could have imagined. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in particular, has seen huge advances due to the development of bigger and stronger magnets. In contrast to that trend, IRP Stadtman Investigator Adrienne Campbell-Washburn, Ph.D., has instead combined better software and hardware with a less powerful magnetic field to create a new type of ‘low-field’ MRI that is particularly useful for taking pictures of the heart and lungs and for guiding minimally invasive procedures.
The cumulative years of experience among the IRP’s large cadre of cancer researchers is truly astounding, with numerous scientists having spent half a century or more studying the disease at NIH. As incredibly valuable as their hard-earned wisdom is to finding new treatments for cancer, any scientific field also benefits tremendously from a constant influx of young talent. That’s where the IRP’s Lasker Clinical Research Scholars Program comes in.
The Lasker program identifies extremely promising early-career physician-scientists in a wide variety of fields and provides them with funding and resources to start their own independent labs at NIH. Over the past year, purely by coincidence, all of the Lasker Scholars selected happen to specialize in the study and treatment of cancer. Read on to learn more about the new ideas and bounding enthusiasm these fresh faces are bringing to NIH’s fight against the disease.
Insights From Mouse Study Could Aid Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder
A headache or stubbed toe is annoying enough as it is, but for people in recovery from opioid use disorder, everyday aches and pains — and even sensations that would ordinarily not be painful at all — can be amped up to the point that they become quite distressing. A new IRP mouse study has helped scientists home in on the specific brain cells that might cause this phenomenon, providing a first step towards an intervention that could make it easier for people to stop using addictive opioid medications or illegal drugs like heroin.
As legendary chef James Beard once said, “Food is our common ground, a universal experience.” Beyond a basic need to stay alive and obtain healthful nutrients, food is a source of pleasure, a reflection of culture, and a link to others. However, for many of us, food is also a challenge. There’s the food we love and the food that’s good for us, and the two aren’t always the same.
As we celebrate World Food Day on October 16, we spoke with IRP senior investigator Tonja Nansel, Ph.D., who is seeking explanations for the nutritional choices we make.
“The dietary quality of the U.S. population is well below recommended guidelines, and that’s the case regardless of income, education, and background,” Dr. Nansel says. “Simply put, we’re all eating badly.”
Traditional ways of assessing the effectiveness and safety of potential new drugs don’t exactly mimic the human body. After all, we are not jumbo-sized mice, nor are we flat swaths of a single type of cell spread across a petri dish. As a result, many drugs that initially show promising results when tested on cell or animal models turn out to be disappointing in clinical trials.
That’s why scientists like the IRP’s Marc Ferrer, Ph.D., are developing more realistic models of human tissues, which give a more accurate picture of how well a drug might work in people. As we observe Eczema Awareness Month in October, we spoke with Dr. Ferrer, Director of NIH’s 3D Tissue Bioprinting Laboratory, about the efforts of his group to create a better model of human skin for testing treatments for that condition, which causes dry, itchy skin for more than 30 million Americans.
This page was last updated on Friday, January 14, 2022
