WOW! That’s about all I can say about the past few days in beautiful San Diego. No I wasn’t there on vacation - it was even better - I was there for the Annual American Society of Hematology Meeting (ASH). I was very lucky to present the research I have been doing in Dr. Terry Landowski’s lab, Medicine, in a poster, but the best part of the conference was the numerous talks of various professionals in hematology.

My parents and I flew out early Saturday morning to reach San Diego in time to hear the famed Ham Wasserman lecture given by Zhen-Yi Wang, M.D, a distinguished researcher in acute myeloid leukemia. After the lecture I attended a scientific committee session entitled, “Intracellular Signals: Targets for Future Therapies and Diagnosis,” and listened to researchers discuss thrombin receptors, cell microenvironment linked to drug resistance of Gleevec, and cytokine signaling in thrombopoesis. The appeal for attending such a broad conference was to learn about other research opportunities other than pharmacology or myeloma, which is what I have been studying. So taking advantage of this, I attended a session about thrombosis occurring in cancer patients and how varying treatments can drastically affect their quality of life. There was also an interesting discussion on what to do if a thrombotic patient had to undergo surgery, and when to treat the patient so as to minimize bleeding during and after the operation (i.e. when to remove the current therapies treating the patient’s thrombosis) and how to concurrently prevent thrombosis from giving the patient a stroke or a heart attack. But the most interesting of all was a discussion about what to do with women who are pregnant and the little understood connection between hormones and blood clotting.

The session ended and all 20,000 attendees crowded into the huge auditorium where the poster sessions were held. Each poster had an author near-by to answer questions. After reviewing many posters related to my research and actually being able to ask questions, I was mentally exhausted. What a day! But it wasn’t over yet. My parents and I went to see Beehive! in old town San Diego to finish out the evening. The next day I got up at 6:00 a.m. to ride the shuttle to the conference center downtown. While waiting for the shuttle and after grumbling about the rainy weather, I was lucky to meet the coordinator of the MD/PhD program at the University of Illinois in Chicago and a leukemia researcher.

When I arrived I went to the first committee session of the day. I had picked an area of particular interest to me -- HIV/AIDS and hematology. The first discussion was an overview of the current therapeutics and targets for vaccines underway. The advancement of science in this area is unbelievable! Pfizer is just about ready to begin phase I trials of a cream to prevent transmission during intercourse. The highlight of this session was a talk by Dr. Alexandria Levine who discussed lymphoma in AIDS patients. In the age of HAART (Highly Active Retroviral Therapy), lymphoma has become the main diagnosis of the fall from HIV to AIDS, and treating lymphoma with standard chemotherapy has larger implications when the patients are already on many different medications and have a compromised immune system. This talk allowed me to see a big change in doctors treating HIV positive patients; they readily communicate about their current research and special patient cases. During this session there were many doctors claiming that their patient was diagnosed with A and then developed B and treated it with C then D occurred. Then they would ask what the other professionals would suggest for treatment.

I then prepared for my poster presentation by reviewing the data that I had collected over the past few months. I had been investigating the mechanism of PS-341/Velcade cell death in multiple myeloma cells in vitro. PS-341 has been recently approved for treatment of multiple myeloma, but its mechanism is not well understood. My principal investigator, Dr. Terry Landowski, had discovered through microarray and western blots that PS-341 induces apoptosis by initiating stress in the endoplasmic reticulum. She investigated the role of adhesion and the initiation of apoptosis in the microenviroment, which comprised a good portion of my poster. My research complemented Dr. Landowski's work when I began my project by noticing that we had a compound called Ruthenium Red in the lab. When the ER undergoes stress, it releases large amounts of calcium. Calcium can be sequestered by the mitochondria in a mechanism that is not well understood, but has a direct relationship to apoptosis. Ruthenium Red blocks the entry of calcium into the mitochondria. In cell culture I co-incubated myeloma cells with PS-341 and Ruthenium Red to find that Ruthenium Red completely blocked cell death by PS-341. This finding is important because the pathway is not well defined nor is targeted by any other chemotherapeutic therapy. To prove that this pathway is unique I investigated the effects of Ruthenium Red in combination with other drugs and found that Ruthenium Red only blocked death with PS-341. My poster generated a good amount of interest and I was able to answer most of the questions. Later that night Genentech treated us to dinner at De Medici -- yum!

Over the next few days my plan changed a little bit, and I decided to focus on committee sessions and talks that were closer to my research. So I spent the majority of my time learning about myeloma treatments, the bone marrow microenvironment and the drug Velcade, which I have been investigating. The most interesting part about these two days was that each session had 4 to 5 presenters that were presenting more current work, as opposed to a general overview. By noon on Tuesday my brain was humming with this new information, some of which was useful to my project, much was irrelevant, but since I was familiar with the topics, all were interesting
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I had a wonderful trip. I would like to thank Carol Bender and UBRP for allowing me this opportunity, as well as my faculty sponsor Dr. Terry Landowski for allowing me to take such an active part in her research and the HHMI (grant 52003749) for funding my trip.

Christina Megli, UBRPer in Dr. Terry Landowski’s lab, Medicine

A Glimpse Into the Future

I had the privilege of participating in the UBRP Program, which led to my internship at the Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, during the summer of 2003. My project involved treating breast cancer cells with different concentrations of a drug known to block an enzyme that is involved in cancer growth. My role in the research involved a wide variety of experiments and techniques used in order to assess the growth inhibitory effects of the drug on breast cancer.

The fruits of my research allowed for my recent trip to the American Association for Cancer Research Second Annual International Conference in Cancer Prevention Research. My summer research culminated in the formation of the poster entitled “The Cyclo-Oxygenase 2-Selective Inhibitor, Celecoxib, Mediates Growth Inhibition in Breast Cancer Cell Lines via Diverse Pathways.” The poster was the product of data collaboration between myself and one of my mentors, Gargi Basu PhD. She performed similar experiments on human breast cancer cells in order for us to compare and contrast the effects of Celecoxib on the different species. Together the data laid the foundation for further studies that have lead to clinical trials in cancer patients. With the introduction of Celecoxib into the treatment regime, the doses of chemotherapy/and or radiation can be lowered which therefore enhances the quality of life for cancer patients.

Attending the conference was intimidating, inspiring, perplexing, exciting, overwhelming, and stimulating all at the same time. Having previously been a music major, my background in the field of science was limited and hence my experiences far exceed my knowledge. However, these events have given me a glimpse of the future in more ways than one. The research experience in itself was incredibly rewarding and for a summer I had a taste of what my life may be like in a few years. Second, being surrounded by doctors and highly educated people from all over the world, as I sat in the forums where the latest news in cancer prevention was being discussed, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by the level of knowledge around me. However, I found it to be completely awe-inspiring to think that someday I could possess such a wealth of knowledge and use it to help people.

Since I was allowed to enter the world of science at such a level, I am hopeful that as I continue my education, the possibilities for the future will be very promising. My experiences with UBRP and Mayo Clinic have provided more opportunities for me that I could have possibly imagined and I am eternally grateful for those who have played a role in making my experiences possible. I would also like to thank the HHMI (grant 52003749) for the funds to attend.

Michelle LaGioia, UBRPer in Dr. Pinku Mukherjee’s lab, Mayo Clinic Scottsdale