May 2014
Table of Contents
|
Shared Resource Spotlight
|
Biostatistics Shared Resource Core
The VCU Department of Biostatistics hosts a newly updated Linux Beowulf cluster containing one management server and one failover server, 30 computation nodes, 10GBE internal network connection and an enterprise-level failover network storage with 360TB capacity. This cluster supports the statistical analysis of large memory jobs in parallel, such as big data analysis of electronic health record data and data from high-throughput genomic platforms like next generation sequencing data.
Adam Sima, Ph.D., recently joined the BSR and supports Massey members in the Developmental Therapeutics and Cancer Prevention and Control programs.
|
|
 |
|
Leaders' Update 
A message from Director Gordon Ginder
Thank you to all who attended and participated in the Massey Cancer Research Retreat last Friday.
This message continues with:
|
Research Highlights
|
Device found to reduce chemotherapy-induced pain
A recent clinical trial utilizing the Calmare Pain Therapy Device provided further evidence that the treatment can significantly reduce chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy symptoms without the use of drugs or invasive treatments.
|
 New research investigates whether physician specialty and experience affect rates of serious adverse events from colonoscopies
Researchers have discovered that, for simple procedures, physician specialty did not have a negative effect on the rates of serious adverse events from colonoscopy, but it did for complex colonoscopies.
|
Center News
|
|
More than 150 cancer researchers across VCU attended Massey's annual Cancer Research Retreat on Friday, May 23. The morning session featured lectures from Massey research program members as well as keynote speakers William C. Hahn, M.D., Ph.D., and Deborah Schrag, M.D., M.P.H., from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. After lunch, a poster session provided student researchers and postdoctoral fellows an opportunity to showcase their research contributions and compete for Excellence in Cancer Research Awards.
Congratulations to the following poster session award winners:
- First place- Nirmita Patel, postdoctoral research fellow at Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center, whose research focused on the potential to target colorectal cancer stem cells by interfering with the function of glycosaminoglycans, which play a key role in cancer cell growth, invasion and metastasis.
- Second place- Siddharth Saini, a fellow in the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Palliative Care in the Department of Internal Medicine at the VCU School of Medicine, whose research discovered that a lipid normally found in the blood, lysophosphatidic acid, plays a key role in a cell signaling process that promotes ovarian cancer cell proliferation.
- Third place- Research by Jeremy Meier, a student in the M.D.-Ph.D. Program at the VCU School of Medicine, on the connection between a tumor promoting gene STAT3 and protein cyclophilin D.
|
Pulitzer Prize-winning author speaks at VCU
Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D., Ph.D., an oncologist at Columbia University and author of "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer," delivered two cancer-related lectures at Virginia Commonwealth University on Wednesday, May 21.
|
Member Showcase
Tobacco researchers at Massey
A tobacco-focused research group is developing within Massey's Cancer Prevention and Control research program.
New members Darlene Brunzell, Ph.D., Aashir Nasim, Ph.D., Alison Breland, Ph.D., and J. Randy Koch, Ph.D., have joined researchers Robert Balster, Ph.D., Thomas Eissenberg, Ph.D., M. Imad Damaj, Ph.D., Michael Miles, M.D., Ph.D., and Hermine H. Maes, Ph.D., to bring together their expertise to develop groundbreaking research in tobacco control and addiction that has the potential to shape tobacco regulatory policy.
|
Researcher Recognition
|
 | |
Cancer Molecular Genetics, Developmental Therapeutics
member
|
Grossman inducted into honor society for physician-scientists
Steven R. Grossman, M.D., Ph.D., deputy director of Massey and member of the Cancer Molecular Genetics and Developmental Therapeutics research programs, has been inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation, an organization that represents leaders in academic medicine who are dedicated to the advancement of research that extends our understanding and improves the treatment of human diseases.
|
|
|
