Sigma BioBlogs

In the most recent print edition of Biowire, we interviewed Dr. Hakim Djaballah at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

His high throughput screening laboratory provides both chemical and RNAi screening services and is helping oncology clinicians and basic researchers to harness the power of high throughput screening technologies towards a better understanding of signaling pathways in cancer cells and discovering novel drugs to treat cancer.

Dr. Hakim Djaballah in the lab

As a result they are developing new clinical strategies, and furthering the understanding of various types of cancer.

Here is a sampling of Dr. Djaballah’s collaborative publications.

Synthesis and in vitro examination of [124I]-, [125I]- and [131I]-2-(4-iodophenylamino) pyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidin-7-one radiolabeled Abl kinase inhibitors.

High-throughput identification of inhibitors of human mitochondrial peptide deformylase.

Identification of novel antipoxviral agents: mitoxantrone inhibits vaccinia virus replication by blocking virion assembly.

Get the full list.

We look forward to hearing more about the successes of the Dr. Djaballah and his collaborators!  Subscribe to Biowire to stay informed of news from Sigma Life Science and the researchers we serve.

Welcome to the second in our blog series on Dr. Reid Hayward of the University of Northern Colorado.

As we mentioned in our first blog, Dr. Hayward is using rat models to study the protective effect of exercise on chemotherapy patients.

One of the side effects of chemotherapeutic treatment with doxorubicin is cardiotoxicity, limiting the effectiveness of drugs by weakening the patient before the treatment can eliminate the cancer. In the use of doxorubicin, cardiotoxicity has taken the form of a weakened heart, with the heart chambers enlarged, and the walls thinned.  Physical activity has been shown to preserve the morphology of the heart during doxorubicin treatment giving the cancer patients a better chance of recovery.

In this video, Dr. Hayward talks about his lab’s findings around doxorubicin’s effects on heart morphology.

This is the first in our series of blogs about Dr. Reid Hayward of the University of Northern Colorado .  Dr. Hayward works with the Rocky Mountain Cancer Rehabilitation Institute (RMCRI) to investigate the protective cardiac effects of exercise on chemotherapy patients who are undergoing clinical treatment at the RMCRI.   The RMCRI has shown that chemotherapy patients who exercise endure the cardiac stress of doxyrubicin and other anthracycline chemotherapeutic agents much better than those who do not have exercise as a part of their treatment plan.

As Dr. Hayward says, “The RMCRI subjects are humans, mine are rats.”  His lab  studies the effects of doxorubicin (DOX) on the cardiovascular system of rats, to investigate what systems, and what molecular components are at work as exercise increases the odds of survival for the patients of RMCRI.

Dr. Hayward investigates morphology and physiology and most recently started to look at the molecular basis for this rehabilitation by studying the effects of exercise on multi-drug resistant protein knockout rats from SAGE™ Labs .

AACR is over 100 years old, with a membership of 30,000+.  The membership is quite inclusive, with a mixture of people from basic science research, clinical research, and also physicians, patients, survivors, and patient advocates all intent on studying and learning more about how to stop cancer.

We got the chance to meet many of them, and a few answered the question “Where does your bio begin? (You can still enter your video too!).

Communication, collaboration, research and education are all a part of AACR’s mission, with 6 Cancer journals for the thousands of scientist who are members, and also CR magazine, to provide information directly relevant for cancer patients, survivors, and patient advocates.

For AACR 2010, the volcanic ash prevented many European presenters from attending, so AACR shifted and met the need by patching the speakers through via video and teleconference.  Some of the recorded talks are here.

Plus an amazing twitter feed which is still active 4 days post-meeting as bloggers sift through their notes and communicate the information that they gathered during the meeting.

The science has come a long way too.  Many traditional topics were under exploration, such as studies around Ras and p53,  there  were also discussions about newer technologies for  such as microRNAs, using biomarkers for early detection,  nanotechnology, and systems biology.

Some blogs of note:

Sally Church’s blog. This lady knows the cancer community.  I got the chance to have coffee with her and she knew half the researchers walking in and out of the conference hall.

Nature writer Brian Maher has a series of short blogs about the sessions he attended.

Another look at Bert Vogelstein’s talk…

This AACR video details some fascinating statistics on cancer research

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet ruled the BRCA gene patents invalid.  The decision has a lot of impact to the life science industry both on the academic and industrial side.

There has been a lot of discussion online, and I thought a summary would prove useful.

Patient blogs…

Steph H

Teri S.

#BRCA – Twitter

Gene Patent – Twitter

Judge Sweet -Twitter

BRCA gene function – From YFG

Pros and Cons of Gene Patenting