February 11, 2011

Five Case Western Reserve Research Breakthroughs that Could Rock Your World

You've probably heard Case Western Reserve University's slogan: "Think Beyond the Possible." Sounds good, right? But what's even better is that there's plenty of muscle behind the pretty words. Researchers from all four corners of the Quadrangle and beyond are making important discoveries that show great potential to make the world a better place.

We're so proud of Case Western Reserve's accomplishments (and think you'll be, too), that we've complied a short list of recent medical, bioengineering, public health, and engineering breakthroughs that could change your life in the next ten years.

Maybe you've got a kid sister who texts all the time, or you're worried about landfills with thousand-year-old trash someday covering the earth. Maybe someone you know has seriously impaired vision or a heart condition or a family history of breast cancer. Well, then, read on about what your university is doing to make a difference.

Teens + Hyper-texting = Trouble

CWRU researchers have unsettling news for teenagers texting 120+ messages per school day.

A couple of years ago, after listening to parents' concerns at a Shaker Heights community meeting, Dr. Scott Frank, MD, MS, decided to put together some hard data on the effects of texting on high school students. Frank, the founding director of the Master of Public Health program at Case Western Reserve's School of Medicine, rounded up some colleagues and drafted a survey with questions about teens' online and phone habits, as well their tendency to engage in risky behaviors. He sent the surveys to high schools throughout Cuyahoga Country; 4,257 students ended up participating.

The results, which Frank presented in November 2010 at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in Denver, caused quite a stir, meriting coverage in the Plain Dealer, the New York Times, and BBC News.

Nearly 20 percent of teens who participated in the study reported "hyper-texting," or sending more than 120 messages per school day. They were 40 percent more likely than their less-text-happy counterparts to have tried cigarettes; twice as likely to have used alcohol; 43 percent more likely to be binge drinkers; and 41 percent more likely to have used illicit drugs. They were also 55 percent more likely to have been in a physical fight; 3 ½ times more likely to have had sex, and 90 percent more likely to report four or more sexual partners.

But wait, there's more...

Additionally, 11.5 percent of teens said they spent a whopping three or more hours per school day on social networking websites. Hyper-networkers were 62 percent more likely to have tried cigarettes, 79 percent more likely to have tried alcohol, 69 percent more likely to be binge drinkers, 84 percent more likely to have used illicit drugs, 69 percent more likely to have had sex, and 60 percent more likely to report four or more sexual partners.

Whew. That's a lot of "more likelies."

Although it's not clear whether texting and social network directly leads to troubling behaviors, "it does make sense that these technologies make it easier for kids to fall into a trap of working too hard to fit in," Frank told the New York Times. "If they're working that hard to fit in through their social networks, they’re also trying to fit in through other behaviors they perceive as popular, like smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, having sex" and other risky activity."

Four percent of teens in the study actually managed to fit in more than 120 text messages and more than three hours of social networking in a single school day. Those uber-users were twice as likely as nonusers to fight, smoke, binge drink, become victims of cyberbullying, think about suicide, miss school, and doze off in class.

On the bright side, nearly a fourth of students (22.2 percent) reported that they did not engage in social networking on school days, and another 35 percent social networked for less than an hour per day.

Along with his research, Dr. Frank maintains an active family practice and is health director for the city of Shaker Heights. He told the Plain Dealer that he hoped the study would be a "wake-up call for parents to open a dialogue about social networking, texting, "and what is happening in the rest of their lives."

Cooking Up an Earth-Friendly Foam

CWRU researchers created an alternative to petroleum-derived styrofoam packaging using milk.

Moooove over, Styrofoam, there’s a greener (but just as strong and fluffy) packing material in town, and it's based on a common protein found in cow's milk.

David Schiraldi, Ph.D., a macromolecular science and engineering professor at Case Western Reserve, recently led a research group in developing the "cured, foamlike material," that's strong enough for commercial use.

Called AeroClay, it's a combination of the milk protein casein (which is already used in adhesives and paper coatings and comprises 80 percent of the protein in cows' milk); a bit of ordinary clay; and a pinch of reactive molecules called glyceraldehydes that give the material some muscle.

Schiraldi says the epiphany that led to the breakthrough arrived in rather mundane fashion.

"One day I was coming back from the store where we buy pet supplies and I was carrying a 45-box of cat litter for our cats," he says. "And it just struck me: 'We know how to make this stuff low density. Why don’t we make a low-density cat litter?' So I mentioned that to the graduate student who said, 'Of course this is possible.' And we ran into the lab."

First they freeze-dried clay, then mixed the clay with a variety of materials. When they added casein, baked the mix in an oven, then freeze-dried and cured it, they got a extra-light yet durable substance that they could actually work with.

"We had a product that had a product that has 1/10 the density of normal commercial cat litter but absorbs as much liquid volume per volume," says Schiraldi.

According to an article on the breakthrough in Discovery News, the research team used a blender to make the substance, adding a scoop of clay and water to make a clay smoothie, then adding casein powder. The glycerol-based material stiffened the chemical bonds. The resulting dirty-looking liquid was poured into molds and frozen, then freeze-dried to remove water.

"The process we used is simplicity itself," says Schiraldi.

Sturdy up to 200 degrees Celsius, the material could potentially used in insulation, packaging, furniture, and cushions. Even better, it appears to be biodegradeable; the research team tracked it breaking down by one third within a month.

And it might not take long to come to a takeout container near you: AeroClay is now patented, and Schilradi and others have launched a Cleveland-based company, AeroClay, Inc., to produce the material for commercial use.

"We never thought we would take polymers from our lab here at Case Western Reserve University and use them to make kitty litter, clean up oil spills on the ocean, to insulate your house," says Schiraldi. "The possibilities are endless. We can turn the foam into something that's magnetic or conducts electricity. Every time we turn around, we find something that’s possible with these materials."

See Schilradi (with cat) talk about the creation of Aeroclay at: youtube.com/watch?v=Kr32ROtgOZw

Lasers: What the Heart Wants

The pulsing light from an infrared laser might help solve a few mysteries of the human heart.

Controlling heartbeats with lasers? CWRU researchers are finding ways.

Michael Jenkins, a postdoctoral researcher in biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve, decided to delve into the laser's possibilities after he unearthed an obscure 1960s research paper in which scientists used light to speed up the heart rate of a chicken embryo.

Wondering whether an infrared laser might have a similar effect, Jenkins decided to try his own study. He enlisted the collaborative help of Vanderbilt University Professor Eric D. Jansen, an expert on using infrared laser to stimulate nerves.

The team studied the laser's effects on the heart rate of a bird embryo, determining that the laser could pace contractions without damaging cardiac tissue.

The infrared pulse may create a rate of change in temperature in the heart tissue that opens ion channels (proteins that allow the flow of ions through the cell membrane) prompting an electrical impulse to make the heart contract.

Michiko Watanabe, Ph.D., professor of pediatrics, genetics, and anatomy at Case Western Reserve’s School of Medicine, says the findings may help scientists learn more about the relationship between heart rate in utero and heart problems later in life.

"If we can precisely control pacing, we could figure out how structure, function, and gene expression all work together," he said.

The study, "Biophotonics: A Light to Move the Heart," was published in the September 2010 issue of Nature Photonics. “The mechanisms behind many congenital defects are not well known,” the research team noted. "But there is a suspicion that when the early embryonic heart beats slower or faster than normal, that changes gene regulation and changes development."

Researchers are now experimenting with adult heart tissue to determine whether the laser could be used as an implantable pacemaker or to pace an adult heart during surgery.

The findings could also ultimately be useful in developing a pacemaker for a child or baby's heart, or even in utero—although this would require much more study. Such an alternative is needed because traditional pacemakers, used long-term, require electrodes that can cause damage to a young heart over time and actually contribute to heart failure in children.

A Vision for a Better Future

Thanks in part to a professor's groundbreaking research, Case Western Reserve just received a $10.1 million grant—its largest ever from the National Eye Institute—for research and development of new treatments for diseases of the retina.

Researchers in the departments of Pharmacology, Ophthalmology, and Biomedical Engineering will study the potential of FDA-approved drugs for treating the early stages of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness. They will also look at potential applications for the treatment of Stargardt's disease (inherited juvenile macular degeneration) and retinitis pigmentosa (inherited peripheral vision loss).

Current treatments for advanced macular degeneration (AMD) manage only the late stages of the disease. The hope is to treat the disease earlier and thus save more vision in affected patients.

Such a treatment could have a huge impact: 1.3 million people in the U.S. are legally blind, and 8 to 10 million others show signs of developing AMD.

The research builds on the previous work of Dr. Krzysztof Palczewski, Ph.D., the John H. Hord Professor and Chair in the Department of Pharmacology, identifying eye mechanisms that metabolize Vitamin A. The body needs to metabolize Vitamin A to send nerve signals to the brain to enable vision. In healthy patients, metabolization happens quickly. But in older patients and patients with retinal diseases, a critical biochemical reaction that is part of a series to recycle Vitamin A slows down. This causes a toxic byproduct, produced by the breakdown of Vitamin A, to accumulate. The toxin gradually damages the retina and may contribute to AMD and impaired vision.

The research team--which also includes scientists from Cincinnati Drug Discovery Center, University of Pennsylvania, and Washington University—will explore how these trial drugs (and compounds from existing drugs) will penetrate and stay in the eye without hurting vision. They'll also look at new drug delivery systems. The intent is to speed up the drug development process before clinical testing.

"The research being funded by the NIH is critical to availing patients of new, more effective treatments, particularly for diseases like AMD, for which there is currently no cure," says Palczewski.

During the study, researchers will use a non-invasive imaging technology developed by Case Western Reserve Dr. Palczewski's research group to monitor the retina to detect molecular changes, defects, and harmful, toxins.

"The grant strongly positions the School of Medicine and collaborating organizations to play a significant role in advancing the treatment of retinal diseases in order to restore quality of life to countless patients," says Jonathan H. Lass, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and University Hospitals Case Medical Center and director of the University Hospitals Eye Institute. "It's a tremendous achievement."

Dr. Akiko Maeda, MD, Ph.D., a senior instructor in the departments of Ophthalmology and Pharmacology, relocated from Japan to work on the study with Dr. Palczewski, who is also a senior fellow of the American Asthma Foundation.

"We have an idea as to what drugs could be most effective for our purposes," Maeda says. "During my clinical practice in ophthalmology, I was very frustrated with the lack of treatment options for many patients with retinal degenerative diseases. I became determined to dedicate myself to developing new treatments for these patients through basic science research.

"I am very excited to develop our ideas for treating currently incurable retinal diseases."

Finding Cancer's 'On' Switch Could Help Stop Its Spread

A Case Western Reserve faculty member is part of a research group whose findings could lead to a better alternative to chemotherapy in cancer treatment.

Ge Jin, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Dental Medicine, was one of a six-member team that discovered a protein triggering the spread of cancer. The team's findings were reported in the February 2010 issue of Nature Cell Biology.

The protein, called disabled 2 (Dab2), turns on a process called epithelia-mesenchymal transdifferientiation (EMT). EMT plays a role in releasing epithelial cells on the surface of a solid tumor and transforming them into transient mesenchymal ells that can start to grow into a new tumor. This process is often fatal in breast, ovarian, pancreatic, and colon-rectal cancers.

The researchers, led by Philip Howe, Ph.D., in the Department of Cancer Biology at Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute, started by working backwards from EMT to find its trigger. They then discovered that a compound called transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-B) was the trigger for forming the Dab2 protein.

When researchers eliminated Dab2, EMT was not triggered.

"This is a major piece in cancer research that has been missing," says Jin.

Most tumors are epithelial. EMT happens when cells dislodge from the tumor's surface and transform into a "fibrous mesenchymal cell maker" that can migrate.

Understanding this process may help scientists develop new treatments to destroy late-stage cancer cells—countering metastatic tumor growth and leaving alone healthy cells. This could be better alternative to chemotherapy, which destroys the good cells along with the bad.

Posted by: lpk4 (Lana Kasunic) February 11, 2011 02:42 PM | Comments (0) | Trackback

February 07, 2011

CWRU Enters the Peace Corps' Annual Top Colleges Rankings for First Time

CHICAGO, February 1, 2011 – This year for the first time ever, Case Western Reserve University enters the Peace Corps’ list of top small-sized colleges and universities nationwide producing Peace Corps volunteers. Case Western is No. 23 in the rankings with 16 alumni currently serving as Peace Corps volunteers, an increase from 7 volunteers recorded in the field the previous year. Since Peace Corps was founded in 1961, more than 150 Case Western alumni have served in Peace Corps.

Posted by: lpk4 (Lana Kasunic) February 7, 2011 01:15 PM | Comments (0) | Trackback