ITI Management
| |
The ITI Campaign Council Members:
-
Tracey Avery
-
Marie Barry
-
Alicia Kao, MD
-
Leslie Denend, PhD
-
Matthew Frank
-
Marcia Goldman
-
Kristin Loomis
-
Robert Moore
-
Harry Saal, PhD, Chair
-
Sue Siegel
The ITI Editorial Team:
-
Marie Barry, Campaign Council Member
-
June Lang, Senior Director of Development, ITI and Programs
-
Michele King, ITI Program Manager
|
"Reflections" by Wendy Pang, MD/PhD and 2003 SIMR alumnus
I was a high school student in the Center for Clinical Immunology at Stanford (CCIS) program in the summer of 2001. I had just completed my senior year of high school and had no previous experience in experimental science or medical research. At that time, I had thought that I would study computer science or engineering in college and pursue a career in the high tech industry. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work in Dr. Judy Shizuru's lab at Stanford that summer investigating different barriers to successful bone marrow transplantation. I had loved my biology and chemistry classes in high school, learning about biological and biochemical processes, but I never appreciated how that knowledge was obtained in the first place. In the Shizuru lab, I was doing experiments to try to answer questions about biological processes that were unknown, getting answers that would someday be put into the textbooks, and I loved the experience. I loved doing experiments in the lab so much that I returned to the Shizuru lab the summer after my first year at Harvard. It was because of my amazing experiences in the Shizuru lab that I decided to major in biology, do undergraduate research for three years in a lab at Harvard, return to Stanford for my MD/PhD training in the Weissman lab, and pursue a career as a physician scientist. I defended my Ph.D. this past February and I am currently completing my medical school clerkships right now. I am applying for residency programs in internal medicine and I aim to do a fellowship in hematology. I hope to one day be able to translate my laboratory research into improved medical diagnostics and treatment for patients. Looking back, I realize that I was truly lucky to have been a part of CCIS, because that experience inspired me to pursue this thrilling and rewarding career path. |
| |
BECOME AN ORGAN DONOR
Many lives are lost each
year because of a chronic shortage of organ donors. The only way to be sure that your desire to be an organ donor is recognized in time to help save a life is to register with the
California Donor Registry
|
| Join Our List |
 | | |
| |
ITI Summer Highlights
- June 20-22, 2011: ITI and the US-Japan Cooperative Medical Science Program held its 45th Joint Conference on Immunology and Viral Diseases at Stanford
- July 27, 2011: ITI sponsored an educational event at the new Graduate School of Business Orberndorf Event Center to learn how Diseases are Cured by the Body: Championing the Human Immune System. The event featured Stephan Busque, MD, a transplant
surgeon whose goal is to eliminate immunosuppress
ive drugs and their harmful effects following organ transplantation; Atul Butte,MD, PhD, whose research explores new directions in diagnoses and therapies by exploring billions of data points now available on the internet; Connie Weyand, MD, who demonstrated to the audience how the immune system works and how telomeres play a critical, and perhaps predictable role in our longevity. - August 13, 2011: ITI held a symposium on Nanotechnologie: Point of Care Diagnostics, Imaging and Therapeutics. This event was attended by over two hundred participants who came to hear the latest on disease detection using microscopic amounts of blood or testing the human breath to detect tubeculosis, and other nanotechnolo
gy use in global health and immune monitoring.
|
| |
| |
ITI NEWS AND UPCOMING PUBLIC EVENTS
SAVE THE DATE! November 1, 2011: 6th Annual Oscar Salvatierra, Jr, MD, Lecture in Transplantation "Achievements of Organ Transplantation and Prospects for the Future." Professor Sir Roy Calne, FRS, Cambridge University
Human Immunology Project Consortium Conference, (HIPC) November 10-11, 2011, Stanford
SAVE THE DATE!
Chronic Viral Infection in Transplant Recipients Symposium, February 24, 2012, Stanford
4/1/2009-3/31/2014 U19 Grant Renewal on "Influenza Immunity: Protective Mechanisms against a Pandemic Respiratory Virus." Total $19,101,184.00 (including supplements)
7/12/2010-6/30/2015
New U19 Grant on "Vaccination and Infection: Indicators of Immunological Health and Responsiveness." Total $16,716,191.00.
Questions? contact Michele King at 650 723-3084 or mking@stanford.edu
|
|
|
 | |
2011 Stanford Institutes of Medicine High School Summer Interns
|
Dear Friends:
Welcome to the Summer/Fall issue of the ITI Newsletter. We are proud to present science and stories that are at the forefront, and very important to human health.
Featured in this issue is the Institute's high school summer intern program, also known as the Stanford Institutes of Medicine Research Program (SIMR). After ITI Associate Director Garry Fathman, MD, created the program 12 years ago with former faculty member, Alan Krensky, MD, P.J. Utz, MD, (see interview below) immediately stepped in to manage it. While the main goal of SIMR is to restore America's leadership in medical science by preparing high school students for careers in medicine, the program also serves gift minority students. Thanks to SIMR, students from the Bay Area and beyond are able to work along Nobel Prize laureates and other world-class scientists whose seminal work is published in prestigious scientific journals. Wendy Pang, a SIMR student in 2001, writes about her journey since attending the program in the piece titled "Reflections."
We would like your comments or questions on any of our stories. Enjoy!
Mark Davis and Carlos Esquivel
Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection (ITI)
|
| ARTICLE HEADLINE | | 
5 Questions to Dr. P.J. Utz, Associate Professor, Immunology and Rheumatology
When SIMR got its start more than 10 years ago did you think it was going to be such a success? Does the present program line up with your original vision?
SIMR has exceeded my expectations by a order of magnitude. Initially I thought it would be just eight to ten kids working in labs. Now they are almost 60, with a goal to get to one hundred. I expect by 2015 it will be the largest, and honestly the best, high school program in the world. This is made possible only by the rich environment at the Stanford School of Medicine and the willingness of some of the world's best labs to take students in.
What was the original idea to start such a program other than the obvious: getting youth interested in science and medicine? Generally there were eight students, including four from the Arthritis Foundation, working in labs. So I just organized them in order to give lectures and give them some sort of continuity. I had been in a similar program at Roswell Park in Buffalo that now has been running for over fifty-five years, and this model, as well as discussions with Alan Krensky and Garry Fathman, gave me the idea and resources to pursue this program.
Did you benefit from such a program when you were in high school, is that what made you choose this career path? I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, outside Scranton, home of The Office, no such opportunities existed then or now to my knowledge. Because my school and area were poor and had no such opportunities, it has driven me to make this available to kids in the Bay Area, particularly kids from backgrounds like mine.
Why did you choose the field of immunology and rheumatology? In the time you have practiced, what have been the biggest advances and what are your hopes for the future in terms of immunology and rheumatology?
I chose immunology and rheumatology based on my first summer in research at Roswell, where I worked with Raphael Wilson and Pat Bealmear, pioneers in germ free biology, and the godparents of David, the Boy in the Bubble. We worked on his bone marrow transplant, which ultimately failed. I then turned down three programs to come to Stanford for medical school, largely because of its reputation in immunology and commitment to research. Clinically, rheumatology is the coolest of all medical disciplines, in my opinion, because the diseases are so complex. I like the challenge.
How is RA going to be treated 10 years from now? What is the big bet for a cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis and lupus? Our best bet for a cure for rheumatoid arthritis is to keep funding William Robinson's research. He is arguably the best young, or even old, physician scientist in the country working on RA. In lupus, the first drug in forty years was just approved this year. Another decade of work is needed to fully understand the illness, and come up with targeted therapies. The Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection and the methods being developed by Dr. Garry Nolan, myself, Steve Quake and many others will likely have an impact on the disease.
|
| ARTICLE HEADLINE | |
 | |
2011 SIMR Graduation and poster session
|
Forget summer break: Med school training programs offer challenges to future scientists, doctors
Susan L. Young, July 11, 2011
For many high school and college students, July is a time for swimsuits and summer jobs, but for others, it's the season to hang out in labs with human cadavers, in hospitals following physicians as they work, and in classrooms learning about immune cells. It's time for summer educational programs.
The School of Medicine has a long commitment of providing summer educational opportunities to young people, and this year is no exception, though funding these programs involves new and difficult challenges.
These experiences, however, are seen as vital to producing future generations of scientists. In these programs, the medical school opens its doors to highly motivated students interested in the biomedical sciences and lets them explore health and science careers with first-hand experience. Many of these students come from under-resourced schools or low-income families; a few weeks on campus can be an important step toward achieving a dream career as a clinician or scientist.[Full story]
| | |
|
|
The Bodyguard: Tapping the Immune System's Secret
Bruce Goldman, Summer 2011
So, how's your immune system doing? It's not a question you've likely heard before. Give it about five years, though, and that will all change, if a forward-looking pack of Stanford immunologists have their way.
These scientists are out to generate a simple battery of tests, performed on blood obtained from a single needle-stick in a doctor's office, to let you know what shape your immune system is in. Not just whether it's acting up, or idling too slow, but specifics you and your doctor could use to guide your next medical move. You've got the sniffles: Is it an allergy, or an infection? You're getting older: Do you need a bigger dose of the annual flu shot, or is the standard one going to work just fine? You feel great: Are you cruising asymptomatically toward an autoimmune disease that will flare up five years hence, and if so, how can you prevent it?
For now, from the standpoint of the practicing clinician the immune system remains a black box, says Garry Fathman, MD, a professor of immunology and rheumatology and associate director of the Institute for Immunology, Transplantation and Infection.
"If a patient were to ask me, 'How's my immune system doing today?' I would have no idea how to answer that, and I'm an immunologist. None of us can answer that. Right now we're still doing the same tests I did when I was a medical student in the late 1960s," he says.
"What we need is a scorecard: a routine, standardized, easily interpreted blood test you take before you get sick - analogous to the ones you get for cholesterol or glucose levels," says Mark Davis, PhD, the director of the institute. "This would let you and your doctor know how well your immune system is functioning in general - and, if it's malfunctioning, how, and with what consequences."
[Full Story]
|
|
 | |
Studies by Marina Sirota, Joel Dudley and Atul Butte demonstrate an approach that could quicken the pace of combating difficult diseases by matching them with drugs that are already approved for other indications.
|
Stanford/Packard scientists find new uses for existing drugs by mining gene-activity data banks
Bruce Goldman, August 17, 2011
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have paired up medicines and maladies with help from a molecular "Match.com." When the scientists applied an "opposites attract" algorithm to publicly available databases, surprising sparks flew: They found potential compatibilities between numerous existing drugs and diseases for which those drugs had never before been thought to be beneficial.
So far, preclinical tests have borne out at least two of these findings: Cimetidine - a widely used, cheap, over-the-counter anti-ulcer drug - may be a good fit for a form of lung cancer; and topiramate - an off-patent anti-seizure drug with a solid safety profile - may be therapeutic for inflammatory bowel disease.
Scientists led by Atul Butte, MD, PhD, associate professor of systems medicine in pediatrics, combed public databases with a sophisticated computer algorithm and identified numerous drug-and-disease pairs that may have a therapeutic future together. The coupling is based on the opposing directions in which a given disease and a given drug alter various genes' activity in tissues. [Full Story]
|
| ARTICLE HEADLINE | |
 | |
Laurent Abi-Rached, Paul Norman and Libby Guethlein are co-authors of research on how the genome of geographically-distinct human populations vary in the amount and type of immune-system genes inherited from evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. People in Papua New Guinea, for instance, have a particularly high percentage of one type of immune-system gene that is rarely found in people in Africa.
|
CANOODLING WITH CAVEMEN GAVE HEALTHY BOOST TO HUMAN GENOME, STANFORD STUDY FINDS
Susan L. Young, August 25, 2011 For a few years now, scientists have known that humans and their evolutionary cousins had some casual flings, but now it appears that these liaisons led to a more meaningful relationship.
Sex with Neanderthals and another close relative - the recently discovered Denisovans - has endowed some human gene pools with beneficial versions of immune system genes, report researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Although modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans share a common ancestor in Africa, the groups split into separate, distinct populations approximately 400,000 years ago. The Neanderthal lineage migrated northwestward into West Asia and Europe, and the Denisovan lineage moved northeastward into East Asia. The ancestors of modern man stayed in Africa until 65,000 years or so ago, when they expanded into Eurasia and then encountered the other human-like groups. In some cases, the rendezvous were amorous in nature. Last year, a partial genome sequence of Neanderthals, who died out approximately 30,000 years ago, revealed that these trysts left as much as 4 percent Neanderthal DNA in the genetic blueprint of some present-day humans. Last December, the genome of another human cousin, the extinct Denisovans, made clear that up to 6 percent of some people's genomes are Denisovan in origin. Now, a team of researchers led by Peter Parham, PhD, professor of structural biology and of microbiology and immunology, has found that these matings had a positive effect on modern human fitness. "The cross breeding wasn't just a random event that happened, it gave something useful to the gene pool of the modern human," said Parham, who is senior author on the study. The useful gift was the introduction of new variants of immune system genes called the HLA class I genes, which are critical for our body's ability to recognize and destroy pathogens. HLA genes are some of the most variable and adaptable genes in our genome, in part because the rapid evolution of viruses demands flexibility on the part of our immune system. [Full Story]
|
| ARTICLE HEADLINE | | Study draws connection between narcolepsy and influenza
Michelle L. Brandt, August 21, 2011
The onset of narcolepsy appears to follow seasonal patterns of H1N1 and other upper airway infections, according to a new study of patients in China that was led by Stanford University School of Medicine narcolepsy expert Emmanuel Mignot, MD.
The findings, published online Aug. 22 in Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society, show that a peak in narcolepsy cases occurred five to seven months after a peak in flu/cold or H1N1 infections in the country.
"Together with recent findings, these results strongly suggest that winter airway infections such as influenza A (including H1N1), and/or Streptococcus pyogenes are triggers for narcolepsy," Mignot, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and his colleagues wrote in the paper.
The study follows recent reports that a particular H1N1 vaccine, not one used in the United States or China, seemed to lead to narcolepsy. This new paper, however, found no correlation between vaccination and narcolepsy among the patients studied in China. "The new finding of an association with infection, and not vaccination, is important as it suggests that limiting vaccination because of a fear of narcolepsy could actually increase overall risk," the authors wrote.
Approximately 3 million people worldwide suffer from narcolepsy, a neurological disease that is characterized by daytime drowsiness, irregular sleep at night and cataplexy - a sudden loss of muscle tone and strength. In 2009 Mignot and colleagues confirmed scientists' long-held suspicion that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease, caused when patients' immune systems kill the neurons that produce the protein hypocretin. [Full Story]
|
| ARTICLE HEADLINE | |
 | |
Dr Ed Engleman
|
Type-2 diabetes linked to autoimmune reaction in study
Krista Conger, April 17, 2011Type-2 diabetes is likely to have its roots in an autoimmune reaction deep within the body, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the University of Toronto. The finding, coupled with a similar study by the same group in 2009, vaults the disorder into an entirely new, unexpected category that opens the door to novel potential therapies. One possible therapy that proved effective in laboratory mice, an antibody called anti-CD20, is already approved for use in humans to treat some blood cancers and autoimmune diseases, although the researchers say further study is needed to determine whether it might work against diabetes in humans. "We are in the process of redefining one of the most common diseases in America as an autoimmune disease, rather than a purely metabolic disease," said Daniel Winer, MD, a former postdoctoral scholar in the laboratory of Stanford pathology professor Edgar Engleman, MD. "This work will change the way people think about obesity, and will likely impact medicine for years to come as physicians begin to switch their focus to immune-modulating treatments for type-2 diabetes." [Full story]
|
|
|
All articles in this newsletter are reprinted with the permission of the Stanford Medical School's Office of Communication and Public Affairs. |
|
|
