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Genetic technology moving from lab to medical practices

Now it's doctors' turn to learn how to use genetic testing

By Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: May 22, 2010

In January, practicing doctors and doctors-to-be entered a new class at the Medical College of Wisconsin with a futuristic name, "Translational Genetics." The idea was simpler than it sounded: We are fast approaching the time when doctors will use our genetic profiles to treat us.

One of the students was Kevin Regner, a practicing kidney doctor at Froedtert Hospital, who had been hearing for years, "Personalized medicine is just around the corner." Doctors will tailor treatments to each patient's genes and the risks they reveal. It will all be routine.

Regner had doubts. Sequencing of the first human genome in 2003 took more than a decade and cost about $600 million - an effort too herculean to assume doctors would repeat it with patients and insurance companies would foot the bill anytime soon.

But Regner was in for a surprise. As he and his classmates listened, Howard Jacob, head of the college's Human and Molecular Genetics Center, described what has happened since completion of the genome project. He showed two photos: a machine that helped sequence the first human genome in 2003, and then a machine the Medical College has today. The new model does the work of 200 of the old ones; it can sequence a human genome in a few months for several hundred thousand dollars.

And the Medical College has already ordered next-generation sequencers. Within less than a decade, a complete genetic blueprint could be attainable in 15 minutes for as little as $100.

Moreover, in a case that suggests the technology is beginning the journey from research to medical practice, Jacob described how he and his colleagues used a targeted version of gene-sequencing to diagnose and treat an apparently new disease in a young boy at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

In the audience, Regner had a moment of recognition. "It's likely we'll see this kind of personalized medicine in my lifetime," he said, "and in the course of my medical practice."

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Air Force Treating Wounds With Lasers and Nanotech

•By Katie Drummond •May 5, 2010

Forget stitches and old-school sutures. The Air Force is funding scientists who are using nano-technology and lasers to seal up wounds at a molecular level.

It might sound like Star Trek tech, but it’s actually the latest in a series of ambitious Pentagon efforts to create faster, more effective methods of treating war-zone injuries.

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Ultrasensitive imaging method uses gold-silver 'nanocages'

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - New research findings suggest that an experimental ultrasensitive medical imaging technique that uses a pulsed laser and tiny metallic "nanocages" might enable both the early detection and treatment of disease.

The system works by shining near-infrared laser pulses through the skin to detect hollow nanocages and solid nanoparticles - made of an alloy of gold and silver - that are injected into the bloodstream.

Unlike previous approaches using tiny metallic nanorods and nanospheres, the new technique does not cause heat damage to tissue being imaged. Another advantage is that it does not produce a background "auto fluorescent" glow of surrounding tissues, which interferes with the imaging and reduces contrast and brightness, said Ji-Xin Cheng (pronounced Gee-Shin), an associate professor of biomedical engineering and chemistry at Purdue University.

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As universities tighten ethics policies, drug firms turn to private physicians to promote products

By John Fauber of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: March 14, 2010

This article is part of an ongoing series about how money and conflicts of interest affect medicine and patient care.

When looking for a doctor to travel the country and tout its costly prescription fish oil pill, GlaxoSmithKline didn't select a heavyweight university researcher.

Instead, it wrote checks to Tara Dall, a Delafield primary-care doctor who entered private practice in 2001.

For just three months of speaking engagements last year, GlaxoSmithKline paid Dall $45,000, ranking her among the most highly paid of more than 3,600 doctors nationwide who spoke for the company, which released records for only one quarter of the year.

The practice of doing promotional speaking for drug companies has come under fire in recent years.

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GE Healthcare to Evaluate and Develop Novel Imaging Technology Invented by Medical College of Wisconsin Researcher

A novel molecular imaging technology aimed at rapid diagnosis of cell death in organs such as the brain and heart has been licensed by The Medical College of Wisconsin to GE Healthcare.  Under the license GE will further evaluate and develop the technology and will have an option to commercialize the technology. The technology, using imaging probes with a radiopharmaceutical compound, was invented by Ming Zhao, Ph.D., assistant professor of biophysics.

The probes bind to dead and dying cells making them useful for detecting acute cell injury and cell death.  When the active component of this molecule is attached to a radioactive tracer, it can be used in nuclear medicine imaging techniques, such as PET (positron emission tomography) or SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography), to produce three-dimensional images of where this cell death is occurring. 

“We are pleased to be working with GE on this technology,” said Dennis Devitt, the director of marketing and licensing for the Office of Technology Development (OTD), the technology transfer arm of the Medical College. “Working with the market leader in medical imaging allows this technology to be quickly moved from the research laboratory into patient care,” Devitt said. 

According to Dr. Zhao, “Imaging agent discovery and development is an important aspect in molecular and medical imaging research. The process is critical for the improvement of existing imaging technologies and for early detection of acute cell death, cancerous tissue growth and major vessel diseases.”

The ability to image dead and dying cells can have major clinical benefits, pointed out Dr. Zhao. For example, it could allow oncologists to rapidly monitor tumor response to a specific therapy.  Another potential application is for rapid diagnosis of myocardial infarction. Often patients come into ER complaining of chest pain and need to have an expensive overnight hospital stay so they can be monitored while their lab results are being processed. This compound could allow clinicians to non-invasively image the heart and determine within a few hours if the patient actually had a heart attack or something else.

Joseph Hill, vice president for technology development, added that Dr. Zhao’s research was supported by a “Proof-of-Concept” grant administered by the College’s OTD.  They have filed several patent applications on the technology. 

The OTD patents intellectual property generated by faculty and staff at the Medical College and licenses it in line with its mission to commercialize as many inventions as possible to help patients.  Its “Patents to PatientsSM” brand best describes its mission. 

Coaxing injured nerve fibers to regenerate by disabling 'brakes' in the system

Brain and spinal-cord injuries typically leave people with permanent impairment because the injured nerve fibers (axons) cannot regrow. A study from Children's Hospital Boston, published in the December 10 issue of the journal Neuron, shows that axons can regenerate vigorously in a mouse model when a gene that suppresses natural growth factors is deleted.

Adding to a previous study published in Science last year (http://www.childrenshospital.org/newsroom/Site1339/mainpageS1339P1sublevel477.html), research led by Zhigang He, PhD, of the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Children's Hospital Boston provides further evidence that axon regeneration is limited by a reduced or lost responsiveness to injury-induced growth factors -- and also suggests some ways of overcoming the problem to help people recover from brain or spinal cord injury.

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UCLA researchers create 'fly paper' to capture circulating cancer cells

New method may help improve diagnosis, prognosis and treatment monitoring

By Rachel Champeau November 18, 2009

Just as fly paper captures insects, an innovative new device with nano-sized features developed by researchers at UCLA is able to grab cancer cells in the blood that have broken off from a tumor. 

 

These cells, known as circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, can provide critical information for examining and diagnosing cancer metastasis, determining patient prognosis, and monitoring the effectiveness of therapies. 

 

Metastasis — the most common cause of cancer-related death in patients with solid tumors — is caused by marauding tumor cells that leave the primary tumor site and ride in the bloodstream to set up colonies in other parts of the body. 

 

The current gold standard for examining the disease status of tumors is an analysis of metastatic solid biopsy samples, but in the early stages of metastasis, it is often difficult to identify a biopsy site. By capturing CTCs, doctors can essentially perform a "liquid" biopsy, allowing for early detection and diagnosis, as well as improved treatment monitoring.

 

To date, several methods have been developed to track these cells, but the UCLA team's novel "fly paper" approach may be faster and cheaper than others — and it appears to capture far more CTCs.

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Small Nanoparticles Bring Big Improvement to Medical Imaging

If you’re watching the complex processes in a living cell, it is easy to miss something important—especially if you are watching changes that take a long time to unfold and require high-spatial-resolution imaging. But new research* makes it possible to scrutinize activities that occur over hours or even days inside cells, potentially solving many of the mysteries associated with molecular-scale events occurring in these tiny living things.

A joint research team, working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has discovered a method of using nanoparticles to illuminate the cellular interior to reveal these slow processes. Nanoparticles, thousands of times smaller than a cell, have a variety of applications. One type of nanoparticle called a quantum dot glows when exposed to light. These semiconductor particles can be coated with organic materials, which are tailored to be attracted to specific proteins within the part of a cell a scientist wishes to examine.

“Quantum dots last longer than many organic dyes and fluorescent proteins that we previously used to illuminate the interiors of cells,” says biophysicist Jeeseong Hwang, who led the team on the NIST side. “They also have the advantage of monitoring changes in cellular processes while most high-resolution techniques like electron microscopy only provide images of cellular processes frozen at one moment. Using quantum dots, we can now elucidate cellular processes involving the dynamic motions of proteins.”

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Local Stem Cell Break Through Could Help Fight Liver Disease

Discovery At The Medical College Of Wisconsin Gives Liver Disease Patients Hope

POSTED: 9:43 pm CDT October 26, 2009
UPDATED: 11:12 pm CDT October 26, 2009

A stem cell breakthrough at the Medical College of Wisconsin offers new hope in the fight against liver disease.

Scientists figured out how to turn skin cells into healthy liver cells. On good days, Emily Moynihan motors through a busy afternoon routine. She makes snacks, helps her three boys with homework and watches her two nieces.

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Inquisitiveness of Milwaukee native leads to a Nobel prize

By Mark Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Posted: Oct. 8, 2009

Many miles and years removed from the competitive dinner-table debates of his childhood in Milwaukee and Wauwatosa, Yale chemist Thomas A. Steitz awoke at 5:20 Wednesday morning to the sound of a ringing phone, long distance from Sweden.

Steitz, the caller said, had won the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry. One by one, members of the Nobel Committee then got on the phone to offer personal congratulations.

"They wanted to be sure I knew this was not a hoax," Steitz said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel. "Since I knew some of the members of the committee, I could recognize their voices."

Sharing the prize and the $1.4 million with Steitz, 69, were Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in England and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The three scientists were honored for fundamental work that revealed the structure and function of ribosomes, which transform our DNA into the proteins necessary for virtually every human action from breathing to thinking.

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