November 1, 2016

11216drbrenner175Dr. Malcolm Brenner was recently named a member of the National Academy of Medicine, a prestigious panel of doctors that advises federal officials on health issues. Brenner is the director of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine, which is responsible for stem cell transplant programs at Texas Children’s and Methodist hospitals.

As a clinician-scientist, Brenner has pioneered basic and clinical research focused on use of gene transfer to augment the immune response to tumors. His contributions have led to the development of genetically modified T cells that can safely and effectively target cancer tumors.

Brenner has received many awards for his work including the American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy Outstanding Achievement, the American Society of Hematology Mentor Award and the Pioneer Award from the peer-reviewed journal Human Gene Therapy in recognition of his scientific achievements and leadership in the field.

This honor from the National Academy of Medicine was bestowed to Brenner during the academy’s annual conference on October 17.

11216nribrain640A new study published in the journal Neuron found that taking a pill that prevents the accumulation of toxic molecules in the brain might someday help prevent or delay Alzheimer’s disease.

According to researchers at Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the study took a three-pronged approach to help subdue early events that occur in the brain long before symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are evident.

“Common diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and dementia are caused in part by abnormal accumulation of certain proteins in the brain,” said senior author Dr. Huda Zoghbi, director of the Jan and Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s. “Some proteins become toxic when they accumulate and they make the brain vulnerable to degeneration.”

Tau is one of those proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. When tau accumulates as the person ages, it increases the vulnerability of the brain to developing Alzheimer’s.

“Scientists in the field have been focusing mostly on the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease,” said first author Dr. Cristian Lasagna-Reeves, postdoctoral fellow in the Zoghbi lab. “Here we tried to find clues about what is happening at the very early stages of the illness, before clinical irreversible symptoms appear, with the intention of preventing or reducing those early events that lead to devastating changes in the brain decades later.”

To find out which enzymes affected tau accumulation, the scientists inhibited about 600 enzymes called kinases one by one and found one, called Nuak1, whose inhibition resulted in reduced levels of tau.

By confirming this discovery in three different experiments – in fruit flies, mice and human cells – the researchers said the next step is to develop drugs that will block the production of Nuak1.

“If we can find drugs that can keep tau at levels that are not toxic for the brain, we would be able to prevent or delay the development of Alzheimer’s and other diseases caused in part by toxic tau accumulation,” Zoghbi said.

Click here to read the joint Baylor and Texas Children’s news release for more details on this study.

11216drgeorgeverghese175Texas Children’s is proud to announce Dr. Verghese George as the new division chief of women’s radiology at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women.

George, who also serves as associate professor of Radiology at Baylor College of Medicine, received his medical degree from the Armed Forces Medical College in India. After completing four years of residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology in India and the United Kingdom, he pursued residency training in Diagnostic Radiology at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. Subsequent to this, he moved to the U.S., and completed three fellowships: Abdominal Imaging (University of Washington), Body MRI (Yale University) and Nuclear Radiology (Yale University).

As new division chief of women’s radiology, George will merge his prior Ob/Gyn training with his clinical interest in Women’s imaging. His research interests include placental and pelvic floor imaging, and imaging of chronic pelvic pain including pelvic congestion syndrome and vulvodynia. His work focuses on multimodality abdominopelvic radiology in the adult population.

11216cancercenterdocsinside640Texas Children’s Cancer Center Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine will lead a statewide effort to understand the causes of childhood cancer through development of the Adolescent and Childhood Cancer Epidemiology and Susceptibility Service for Texas, or ACCESS-Texas, with support from a $6 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

“Much progress has been made in the treatment of childhood cancer, but in most cases we still don’t know why children get cancer,” said Dr. Michael Scheurer, Texas Children’s Cancer Center and ACCESS-Texas director and associate professor of pediatrics – hematology/oncology at Baylor. “The vast majority occur with no recognizable cause.”

ACCESS-Texas will focus on identifying genetic risk factors and gene-environment interactions that may lead to susceptibility to cancer among children and adolescents. A diverse population of children newly diagnosed with cancer and their parents will be enrolled in the program at eight childhood cancer treatment centers across the state: Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor, Children’s Hospital of San Antonio, UT Southwestern/Children’s Medical Center Dallas, Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Vannie Cook Children’s Cancer Clinic in McAllen and Texas Tech University children’s hospitals in Lubbock, Amarillo and El Paso.

“It is our mission to find a cure for all children with cancer, and ACCESS-Texas will help us understand why certain children get cancer, a critical step in finding cures,” said Dr. David Poplack, director of Texas Children’s Cancer Center, professor of pediatrics at Baylor, and deputy director of Baylor’s Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The program will include data collection through a risk-factor questionnaire of patients and their parents focusing on sociodemographics, lifestyle, clinical risk factors, family history of cancer and other diseases, environmental and occupational exposures and maternal and infant diet. In addition, blood and saliva samples will be collected along with key clinical and follow-up data, including tumor pathology and staging and molecular characterization of the tumor, treatment summaries and treatment toxicities and late-effects. All of these data and the biospecimens will be banked in a central repository accessible to researchers conducting family-based studies of genetic risk factors for childhood cancer and gene-environmental interaction studies.

Recent research has identified genetic risk factors for common childhood cancers such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and neuroblastoma, but many other cancers have yet to be evaluated using a genome-wide approach. In addition, few gene-environment links that may lead to cancer susceptibility have been fully evaluated. A centralized facility that gives researchers access to the data to conduct large-scale research projects is a much needed resource in the state to advance current research, Scheurer said.

“The resources gathered through ACCESS-Texas would place Texas researchers in a better position to develop and lead international collaborations to explore novel risk factors for childhood cancers,” he said. “Once we more fully understand the causes of childhood cancers, we can then start to develop prevention strategies.”

“A major goal of our program is to understand the causes of childhood cancer, so we can detect the cancers earlier to make treatments more effective,” said Dr. James Amatruda, professor of pediatrics, internal medicine and molecular biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “We’re excited to be collaborating with colleagues across the state through ACCESS-Texas.”

Enrollment of Hispanic patients and families also is an important aspect of the program. “This is a highly vulnerable population,” Scheurer said. “Hispanics generally have higher rates of cancer and worse outcomes, and the opportunity to collect data and conduct research that may help us understand the reasons for this is very important.”

The Children’s Hospital of San Antonio is one site involved in the new program that cares for many Hispanic patients. “The Children’s Hospital of San Antonio is proud and excited to participate in this important statewide resource, the outcomes of which will greatly impact our understanding of children’s cancer,” said Dr. Vivienne Marshall, professor of pediatrics and director of clinical research at the Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Clinical Research Center at the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio. “We serve a unique population that is often under-represented in national studies, so this is a significant opportunity to further advance knowledge that will benefit our children.”

ACCESS-Texas is built on a similar but smaller-scale program already in place at Texas Children’s Cancer Center that has resulted in significant research findings, including the first genome-wide assessment of maternal genetic effects among pediatric ALL patients and a study evaluating the role of gene-nutrient interactions on ALL risk.

11216getfitwithtoroinside250“Tomatoes! Bananas! Carrots!” yelled out the students at Galatas Elementary in Conroe, sharing their favorite fruit and vegetables.

Earlier this month, Texas Children’s Hospital leaders, TORO and Charles James II traveled to The Woodlands to teach the importance of getting fit and staying healthy with our ‘Get Fit with TORO’ event.

At the beginning of the program, each student received an activity book as well as a Texas Children’s beach ball, and five lucky students got the opportunity to answer trivia questions regarding health and fitness for a chance to win an official TORO T-shirt.

The event included a special talk by Senior Vice President Dan DiPrisco, a video conference hosted by Texans Voice Marc Vandermeer and featuring J.J. Watt, Kareem Jackson and two Houston Texans cheerleaders about the important of nutrition, exercise and playing 60 and two Houston Texans cheerleaders.

“I had an awesome time at Galatas Elementary,” James said. “Staying fit and healthy is very important to me, so I’m glad I was able to explain that importance to some great students.”

Kids also danced with TORO, answered nutrition/health related trivia questions for TORO prizes, etc.

Click here to see photos from the event below.

Want to nominate a school for this program? Click here to sign up!