Lan Zhou, MD, PhD, associate professor of pathology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, has received a five-year, $2 million grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health to study human colorectal cancer. Her work focuses on the effect of the imbalance of the gut microbiome, the immune response, and genetics in the development of adenocarcinoma (cancer that forms in the lining of the glands) through the serrated pathway.

The "serrated pathway" is a molecular pathway postulated for a subset of colorectal cancers that develop from certain serrated adenomas/polyps-growths that have a saw-tooth appearance when viewed under the microscope. It is distinct from the conventional adenoma-carcinoma (cancer) pathway, which involves "flat" growths. As many as 15 percent of all colorectal cancers start from serrated adenoma polyps with dysplasia (cells that look distinctively abnormal under the microscope). Serrated lesions are also found in patients with irritable bowel disease and colitis, often contributing to colon cancer development in that population. Serrated cancer lesions are not well described, do not respond well to chemotherapy compared to other tumors, and are associated with worse prognoses. more>

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have discovered how to quickly and accurately predict which lung cancer patients will benefit from chemotherapy by analyzing how immune cells the body sends out to fight the disease are arranged.

The scientists-aided by smart-imaging computers and machine-learning methods-were able to swiftly analyze hundreds of tissue images to not only count cancer-associated immune cells-but identify patterns in how they were arranged.

That breakthrough view can now help determine which patients need chemotherapy or immunotherapy based on computational analysis of routine tissue-slide images obtained either by surgery or biopsy, said Anant Madabhushi, the F. Alex Nason Professor II of biomedical engineering and member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"We believe we've made a critical advance to the field with this work," said Madabhushi, the lead among a dozen authors  on a recent paper [ Corredor, Clin Cancer Res, 2018] about the work. "Do you need chemo or not?-that's the direct benefit to the patient and what really matters."

While this published research focused on early-stage lung cancer tissue, further analysis also predicted the success of immunotherapy in late-stage lung cancer, Madabhushi said. more>

Anthony Wynshaw-Boris, MD, PhD, the James H. Jewell MD '34 Professor of Genetics and chair of the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center and Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, and member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been elected as president of the American Society of Human Genetics, the primary professional membership organization for human genetics worldwide.

Wynshaw-Boris will serve as president-elect in 2019, president in 2020, and past president in 2021.

Sep 28, 12p | WRB 1-413

Join us Friday, September 28 at 12p in the WRB 1-413 to hear invited speaker, Elena B. Pasquale, PhD, present " Diversification of EphA2 receptor signaling in cancer by ligands and S/T kinases." Dr. Pasquale is Professor and Director, Academic Affairs, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. This seminar is p resented by the Molecular Oncology Program of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. 

Dr. Pasquale was among the first to study protein tyrosine phosphorylation in normal cells. She discovered that this phosphorylation is elevated in early embryos and devised a strategy to uncoverthe kinases responsible. This identified novel tyrosine kinases, including FGFand Eph receptors.  Dr.  Pasquale has elucidated key signaling mechanisms involved in Eph receptor-dependent regulation of neural function and cancer malignancy. Translational aspects of herresearch include development of Eph receptor-targeting peptides.

NOTE: Tomorrow's speaker, Dr. Manning, had to postpone his seminar presentation. There will be no Seminar tomorrow, September 21. 

Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine and Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute (LRI) is hosting the 9th annual meeting of the Midwest Association of Core Directors, the regional chapter of the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities.

This three-day conference will be held in the Tinkham Veale University Center on CWRU campus, and will feature both introductory ("101-level") and state of the science-level breakout meetings on genomics, mass spec, imaging, administration, drug discovery, entrepreneurship, and RNA sciences. Plus, the agenda is packed with keynote talks, problem solving sessions, satellite workshops, and core facility tours both at CWRU and LRI. 

The entire research community is invited and encouraged to attend this conference - membership in the ABRF is not required. The School of Medicine Office of Research Administration is covering 50% of the $160 registration fee for any CWRU-SOM Employee (Faculty, Staff, Students, Post Docs). Please contact Matt DeVries ( mpd35@case.edu ) for the discount code. We look forward to seeing you all there! 

Written by  Pamela B. Davis, MD, PhD,  Dean, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University,  Cleveland

We were pleased to learn that one of our very own Cleveland natives, Ellen Ziffren, helped establish Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C), one of the nation's foremost cancer research philanthropies (The Plain Dealer, August 29, 2018).  As a top Ohio cancer research institution, we shares SU2C's commitment to team science to defeat this insidious disease. In April, 2017, we were honored by having members of our faculty and the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center named to the organization's Colorectal Cancer Dream Team, receiving a prestigious award from the SU2C and the American Association for Cancer Research.  One example of our team's promising research is conducted in the laboratory of Zhenghe John Wang, PhD, who is working on a promising approach that starves colorectal cancer cells by depriving them of a critical nutrient, glutamine, with the aim of killing the harmful cells.