News From U-M
Three U-M researchers named 2011 MacArthur Fellows
Three University of Michigan researchers— historian Tiya Miles, chemist Melanie Sanford and stem cell biologist Yukiko Yamashita—are among the 22 new MacArthur Fellows announced today by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Each will receive $500,000 in "no strings attached" support over the next five years from the MacArthur Foundation. Read More
U-M researchers find potential new way to fight sepsis
By digging a little deeper, researchers may have found a potential target for reversing the deadly blood infection sepsis. Scientists at the U-M Health System looked at microRNA, a type of RNA that does not code for a protein itself but that can regulate the expression of other genes and proteins. They found that by attacking the right microRNA they could influence a key trigger of inflammatory diseases such as sepsis. Read More
U-M International Center for Automotive Medicine enters new era
The University of Michigan International Center for Automotive medicine this week marked the beginning of new capabilities and new collaborative research combining trauma medicine, state-of-the-art computer analysis and automotive engineering.
“Our mission is to better understand, treat and prevent crash injuries. And to really understand injuries requires doctors and engineers working together in equal partnership,” says the center’s founder and director Stewart Wang, M.D., Ph.D. Read More
Cell phones can help under-developed countries manage diabetes and other diseases
A new study by the Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Healthcare System and University of Michigan suggests that mobile phones could help low-income patients across the globe manage diabetes and other chronic diseases. Read More
Protein therapies promising for disease prevention
A computer analysis by U-M researchers shows promise for helping develop therapies for some major diseases by rescuing proteins that have stopped performing normally. The U-M findings appear as a cover story in the April 20, 2011 issue of Biophysical Journal.
“There are many diseases, including cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease and diabetes, that are products of improperly folded—but potentially functional—proteins,” says lead author Santiago Schnell, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the U-M Medical School, and Brehm investigator at the Brehm Center for Diabetes Research. “These diseases are known as protein folding or conformational diseases.
“Our model proposes a couple of remedies for recovering a patient’s own misfolded proteins so they become correctly folded and functional proteins again,” adds Schnell. Read More
How do you get a fruit fly to exercise?
Robert Wessells, Ph.D., puts his fruit flies through a grueling daily workout in a quest to understand how their genes respond to exercise and to uncover clues that may one day help people stay healthier and more active into their advanced years. A day in the life of a fly is roughly equivalent to a year for a human, so researchers like Wessells use them to study the long-term effects of exercise on the body without having to follow human subjects for decades or worry about outside influences contaminating their results. The experiments show, for example, that after “years” of regular exercise, elderly flies demonstrate the vigor of middle-aged flies, says Wessells, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the UM Medical School. Read More | Watch Video
New drug shrinks cancer in animals, U-M study shows
New drug compounds, developed by U-M researchers, shrank tumors in animal studies, with few side effects. The study, done in two mouse models of human cancer, looked at two compounds designed to activate a protein that kills cancer cells. The protein, p53, is often inactivated in human cancers. In some cases, it is because another protein, MDM2, binds to p53 and blocks its tumor suppressor function. This allows the tumor to grow unchecked. The new compounds block MDM2 from binding to p53, consequently activating p53. “For the first time, we showed that activation of p53 by our highly potent and optimized MDM2 inhibitors can achieve complete tumor regression in a mouse model of human cancer,” says lead study author Shaomeng Wang, Ph.D., Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor in Medicine and director of the Cancer Drug Discovery Program at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center. Wang presented the study at the American Association for Cancer Research 102nd annual meeting. Read More
U-M creates state’s first disease-specific human embryonic stem cell lines
University of Michigan researchers have created the state's first human embryonic stem cell lines that carry the genes responsible for inherited disease. The achievement will enable scientists here to study the onset and progression of genetic disorders and to search for new treatments. With this accomplishment, the U-M joins a small handful of U.S. universities that are creating disease-specific human embryonic stem cell lines. "All our efforts are finally starting to bear fruit," said Gary Smith, co-director of the U-M Consortium for Stem Cell Therapies and leader of the cell-line derivation project. "Creating disease-specific human embryonic stem cell lines has been a central goal of the consortium since it was formed two years ago, and now we've passed that milestone." Read More
Sad dads spank more, read less
Compared to their non-depressed counterparts, depressed fathers are nearly four times more likely to report spanking their child. Depressed dads are also less likely to read to their children.Those are the results of a new study to be published in the April print issue of Pediatrics, by U-M researchers. The study was led by R. Neal Davis, a former fellow at the University of Michigan Health System’s Child Health and Evaluation Research (CHEAR) Unit in the Division of General Pediatrics. Read More