The UC Davis Cancer Center recently announced the launch of the new Cancer Care Network geared to provide quality treatment to patients in community-based areas in Northern and Central California.

Planning for the network began in 2000 when UC Davis joined with two local California health care organizations in Merced and Marysville to develop cancer programs, said Scott Christensen, UC Davis associate professor of hematology and oncology and the future medical director of the new network.

“Both of those cities were felt to be underserved in terms of cutting-edge therapies … so we got together and put together two cancer centers,” Christensen said.

Since then, UC Davis partnered with other medical centers in Northern California to provide medical oncology-related services; the Cancer Care Network now includes Mercy Cancer Center in Merced, Regional Cancer Center at ValleyCare in Pleasanton, Fremont-Rideout Cancer Center in Marysville, and Tahoe Forest Cancer Center in Truckee.

Under the partnership, the local health care organization provides the onsite staffing for to day-to-day management, nursing, and other health professions, while UC Davis provides physician services and medical management and direction.

“The advantage of this network of cancer centers is that patients can receive treatment in a relatively close location,” said Karen Finney, spokesperson for the UC Davis Cancer Center.

At the moment, some cancer patients have to travel an extensive distance for their treatment. The UC Davis Cancer Center Network aims to be the answer to this problem.

“It’s really hard when you’re diagnosed with a malignancy to travel 40 minutes in traffic [for treatment],” Christensen said. “So, to be able to receive everything that you need, and receive access to clinical trial-based therapy in a much more convenient location [is] what we are all about.”

Besides the increasing accessibility to cancer centers, the network is unique because instead of entering a community and enforcing its own regulations, UC Davis has been invited and partners with the health care institutions already in the area to help best meet the local needs, Christensen said.

In addition, the network uses state-of-the-art telemedicine technology with its “virtual tumor boards.” This technology links each cancer center to one another, not only to make communication easy, but also allow other oncologists and physicians a chance to view specific cases and give their diagnoses. These regional cancer center physicians can contact UC Davis specialists on patient-care issues in order to conduct consultations with patients via real-time video conferencing.

“Capitalizing on our noted expertise in telemedicine, our ‘virtual tumor boards‘ allow patients to get what we are loosely calling a virtual second opinion, which we hope will increase clinical trial enrollment, patient satisfaction, and other measures,” Christensen said.

The UC Davis Medical Center also has satellite clinics in the greater Sacramento area that are not affiliated with other health care organizations, such as the new cancer center in Rocklin. Plans to expand these satellite sites to other Sacramento areas are still in the making.

As the nation’s 61st National Cancer Institute center, the UC Davis Cancer Center treats more than 9,000 adults and children with cancer each year, according to the UC Davis Cancer Center’s website. Located on X Street in Sacramento, it coordinates with the UC Davis Medical Center and the UC Davis Children’s hospital to offer patients today’s newest drugs and breakthrough treatments before they become widely available.

NICK MARWITH can be reached at features@californiaaggie.com

Scientists erase bad memories from brains of mice

Scientists have discovered a treatment that erases traumatic memories from the brains of mice.

According to the study, scientists manipulated the brains to overproduce an enzyme that could erase certain memories while keeping others intact.

The enzyme, called calcium/calmodulin protein kinase II (CaMKII), is also present in humans. The new discovery creates potential treatment for people facing post-traumatic stress disorder.

Researchers from the Medical College of Georgia and East China Normal University in Shanghai tested the mice by training them to associate environmental cues with an electric shock.

Ordinary mice would freeze in fear when confronted with cues such as a specific tone or cage. Mice whose brains were manipulated did not show fear when given the same cues.

To test whether engineered mice had their traumatic memory permanently erased, researchers gave the mice a drug that reduced the enzymes to normal levels. The mice still did not react in fear when hearing a tone or seeing a cage.

In later experiments, researchers also found that they could choose to erase fearful memories from the mice brains while leaving other recollections.

The author of the study believes the treatment is probably inapplicable to humans as there is currently no practical way of administering additional enzymes into human brains. (latimes.com)

Vaccine decreases children’s hospitalization rates

Doctors recently reported that a vaccine against rotavirus, the leading cause of diarrhea in children, has led to large decreases in hospitalization and emergency room visits.

Before Merck & Co.‘s Rotateq, over 200,000 children visited emergency rooms and over 55,000 were hospitalized due to rotavirus. The virus causes diarrhea and vomiting and kills 1,600 children in the world each day.

Since Rotateq became available in 2006, hospital stays due to rotavirus decreased by 80 to 100 percent. The vaccine is administered three times: at two, four and six months of age.

A newer vaccine – GlaxoSmithKline’s Rotarix – was released in June and requires only two doses to be completed by age four. Other new and improved vaccines are being created to protect against pneumonia, meningitis and ear infections (in addition to rotavirus). They are not yet available, however, and can still hold potential for dangerous strains.

Doctors advise parents to stick to current vaccines and to avoid using antibiotics whenever possible to prevent bacterial resistance. (The Associated Press)

Higher temperatures create higher risk of illnesses

Scientists are now saying that global warming can lead to increases in water-borne illnesses around the world.

Scientists predict this can occur in a variety of ways. As rainfall becomes heavier and temperatures rise, sewage systems will overflow into oceans and lakes. Also, the increased temperatures will cause bacteria, parasites and algae to thrive, resulting in contamination of drinking water, fresh produce and shellfish. Mosquitoes will continue to increase in numbers and create potential for the spread of West Nile Virus, malaria and dengue fever.

There are approximately 950 U.S. cities that will be most affected as their combined sewage systems carry storm water and sewage in the same pipes. During heavy rains, the sewage spills into lakes and waterways.

The EPA is looking into upgrading combined sewage systems, but the process will be very expensive. (washingtonpost.com)

THUY TRAN compiles Science Scene. She can be reached at features@californiaaggie.com

Today

“Poverty and Obesity — The Challenge in Accessing Healthy Foods Among The Poorest“

Diana Cassady

Mee Room, Memorial Union, noon to 1 p.m.

Sponsored by Campus Community Relations, Public Health Sciences

“Pest Management of Invasive Insect Pests in California“

Kris Godfrey

122 Briggs, 12:10 to 1 p.m.

Sponsored by entomology department

“High Frequency Oscillations Track Behavior in the Human Cortex“

Robert Knight

Center for Neuroscience, 1544 Newton Court, Research Park, 4 to 5 p.m.

Sponsored by the Center for Neuroscience

“Factors Influencing Transcription Activation by Response Regulators NarP and NarL of Escherichia coli:

Alice Lin

1022 Life Sciences, 4:10 to 5 p.m.

Sponsored by microbiology

California’s Fading Wildflowers: Lost legacy and Biological Invasions

Richard Minnich

1150 Hart, 5:10 to 6:30 p.m.

Sponsored by Geography Graduate Group, College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences Department of Human and Community Development Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology

Thursday

“Novel Microfluidic Tools to Manipulate and Analyze Single Cells“

Michelle Khine

Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facility, Auditorium 1005, 4 to 5 p.m.

Sponsored by biomedical engineering

“The Biophysics of Gene Regulation, Studied One Molecule at a Time“

Steven Block

1022 Life Sciences, 4:10 to 5 p.m.

Sponsored by College of Biological Sciences, Graduate Groups in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Cell & Developmental Biology, Section of Molecular & Cellular Biology, Departments of Biological Chemistry and Cell Biology & Human Anatomy, the Molecular & Cellular Biology Training Grant (NIH), and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Friday

“Terpenoid Chemical Diversity in Conifer Defense“

Joreg Bohlmann

1022 Life Sciences, 12:10 to 1 p.m.

Sponsored by Plant Biology Graduate Group

Monday

“Exceptional Resistance to Noise-Induced Hearing Loss in Inbred Mice“

Ana Vazquez

1022 Life Sciences, noon to 1 p.m.

Sponsored by Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior

“Comparative Functional Genomics of Plant-Pathogen Specificity“

Richard Michelmore

115 Hutchison, 1:10 to 2 p.m.

Sponsored by Plant Pathology

“Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind“

Robert Seyfarth, Dorothy Cheney

184 Young, 4 to 6 p.m.

Sponsored by the anthropology department

“Costs of Occupational Injuries and Illness – Combining all Industries“

Paul Leigh

3201 Hart, 4 to 5 p.m.

Sponsored by Public Health Sciences, Ag Center at UC Davis

“Replication Fork Stability in a Chromatin Context in S. pombe“

Susan Forsburg

1022 Life Sciences, 4:10 to 5 p.m.

Sponsored by Genetics Graduate Group Graduate Group Complex

More seminars can be found at calendar.ucdavis.edu. If you want to have a seminar published here, e-mail us at campus@californiaaggie.com.

Dr. Bob Rice, a professor in the environmental toxicology department, has a knack for growing things. He specializes in culturing and studying epidermal cells, bringing us closer to an understanding of skin cancer and other diseases.

When did you start working at UC Davis?

Gosh, [almost] 20 years ago … 1989, around Labor Day.

What courses did you teach?

My major assignment was a core course, “Biological Effects of Toxic Agents,” and I’ve been teaching that ever since and then gradually adding other courses.

Tell me a little about your academic and professional interests.

In my lab we work primarily with cultured cells and we grow human epidermal cells. We study how they respond to various toxic agents, such as arsenic and Dioxin. My background is kind of varied – people come into toxicology from all different areas and I took a rather circuitous route. I was first interested in physics in college because at that time it seemed like the easiest of the subjects I had considered, but I later realized I was more interested in biological things.

I then went to graduate school in molecular biology and became very interested in protein chemistry, so I worked on that for a while as a post doc. It then became clear that to do interesting protein chemistry it was important to have a cell system to work in – some kind of tissue that you can study diseases and things like that. I had an opportunity to work in a lab where they studied how to grow epidermal cells. I then saw an advertisement for a position in toxicology, and they wanted cell biologists. I thought, “Well, I can do that!“

What do you think the broader scope of your research is, or what are you working towards?

Well, for many years people have wondered how cells know when to take the next step in their differentiation program.… The epidermis happens to be an interesting case of that because it’s something we can see.

There have been many interesting skin diseases and many of them have been quite mysterious over the past, but they seem to involve the cells bonding inappropriately to signals from the outside, for example, UV light which causes skin cancer. If we can understand more about the basic decision-making process within the cells: how they send signals back and forth and within the cell, and how chemicals can interfere with that, then that will tell us a lot about how these diseases and processes occur.

You mentioned that you’re interested in the effects of cigarette smoke, is this part of your research?

No, it’s something that I’ve been interested in for many years, though. I’ve been in a number of advocacy groups like GASP (Group Against Smoking Pollution) and Americans for Non-Smoker’s rights. I remember back in the old days when students smoked in class – I was here at UCD at one point as a post doc and the problem of smoking in buildings and offices was actually quite controversial on campus. When Larry Vanderhoef first came to UC Davis, that was one of the issues that he addressed.

I remember going into a lecture and a student sat down beside me, took out his cigarettes and asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?” And I said, “Yes, actually, it makes me really sick.” He said, “Oh, really, is that true?” just listening, nodding and mechanically lighting his cigarette. It didn’t occur to him that his smoking would have an effect on me, but all you could do in those days was get up and move somewhere else.

What do you like to do when you’re not working in your lab?

Well, it seems like when I’m not here, I’m thinking about being here. But, I like plants and so we’ve managed to plant a bunch of different trees around the yard. We have about a dozen citrus trees and about half as many other fruit trees and so I enjoy those a lot. I like growing various kinds of plants, especially tomatoes since it’s such a great place to grow them. That’s one thing that I missed out on living in the east – it just wasn’t the same.

DARCEY LEWIS can be reached at features@californiaaggie.com.

Researchers have developed a new technique to study blood cell behavior in small blood vessels, highlighting its efficacy for determining how blood cells regulate blood pressure, and ways in which the process may be altered by diet and disease. The study was conducted by researchers at Harvard University, including William Ristenpart, who is now a professor in the departments of food science and technology and chemical engineering and material science at UC Davis.

Red blood cells release the chemical ATP in response to shear stress, or pressure, that they encounter passing through narrow blood vessels. The ATP signals the blood vessels to expand and relieve the shear stress. It is believed that this process helps regulate blood pressure and that mechanical stretching of the red blood cell’s shape triggers ATP release.

Previous studies only provided before and after snapshots of ATP release in response to shear stress, said study co-author Ristenpart, who was a former postdoctoral fellow at Harvard.

“It was completely unknown before how long or how quickly blood cells respond to changes in shear stress,” he said.

To address this limitation, Ristenpart and colleagues designed a microscopic fluid transport system in which human blood cells flow through a transparent rubber channel that narrows and then widens again to mimic a constricted blood vessel.

“These high-resolution microfluidic tools are helpful for studies that explore and model how cells in the body experience stress to regulate blood flow to the surrounding tissue,” said Scott Simon, a professor of biomedical engineering who was not involved in the study.

By changing the width or length of the constricted channel in their unique system, the researchers could precisely control the strength or duration of the applied shear stress.

To follow the timing and amount of ATP released by blood cells under shear stress, researchers used a high-speed detector to measure light produced by the reaction between ATP and the enzyme luciferase.

From this data, the researchers determined that there is a considerable delay between when the cells first encounter increased shear stress and when they release ATP. Higher shear stress shortens the delay and increases the amount of ATP release.

Contrary to expectations, cell stretching itself does not trigger ATP release if the experienced shear stress lasts less than three milliseconds.

The researchers speculate that this minimum threshold represents the time for the cell’s outer membrane support network to respond to stretching and deformation. The longer delay that follows is required for specific proteins in the network to combine and form pumps in the membrane that transport ATP out of the cell.

These results suggest that there are two distinct processes involved in ATP release from blood cells, but more work needs to be done to corroborate the model and identify which proteins are responsible for ATP transport, Ristenpart said.

Although the system is artificial, there are ways to improve it and it is useful for isolating the effects of various factors that can trigger or modify ATP release, he said.

As part of the Foods for Health Initiative at UC Davis, Ristenpart will use the technique to examine how red blood cells respond to chemical byproducts called metabolites that are formed by the breakdown of food.

“We are very excited by [Ristenpart’s] work and its potential for interesting breakthroughs in the future,” said Bruce German, a professor of food science and technology who was not involved in the study.

Ristenpart has applied the approach to show that a metabolite of alcohol called FAEE, which binds to red blood cells, impeding their ability to deform under shear stress.

Instead of modifying shear stress as a stimulus, we can determine how the presence of different metabolites affects blood cell response by measuring the changes in ATP release, Ristenpart said.

Diseases such as atherosclerosis, pulmonary hypertension, cystic fibrosis and cancer are all believed to involve some defect in the ability of red blood cells to control ATP release. Other factors besides shear stress such as blood pH, oxygen and nitric oxide levels also affect ATP release and, by extension, the ability of red blood cells to regulate blood pressure.

“We can now determine the time scales associated with these processes, and that starts to give us a deeper insight into what’s going on fundamentally at the biochemical level,” Ristenpart said.

ELAINE HSIA can be reached at features@californiaaggie.com