Inside this issueCover storiesYALE PROJECTS FOR GLOBAL HEALTH RECEIVE MAJOR FUNDINGMouse breakthrough will speed vaccinesFinding new perfumes to foil a femme fataleA new front in the war on antibiotic-resistant bacteriaNew look at how resistant bugs dodge drugsFrom the pages of Cell to The Tonight Show’s stageUsing laser light, team guides flies by remote controlApplera Corp. boosts educationFund will honor mentor, aid studentsPartnershipsA quest to detect earliest signs of autismYale visit brings hope to paralyzed veteransGrants and contractsPeopleLifelines: Arthur Horwich, seeking what’s never been seen.New president of alumni body sees a bright future aheadOut & aboutAwards & honorsScienceConnecticut’s $100 million stem cell program good news for YaleAdvances: Taking a toll on parasitic infections | New kidney discovery may help heart | A chink in malignant melanoma’s armor?HealthOvarian cancer test exposes quiet killerFrom humble start at Yale, REMEDY thrivesAdvances: Patient to surgeon: I hear a symphonyEducationStudent explorations in the world of researchNotable teachers receive high honors at Commencement
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AdvancesHealth and science news from YaleTaking a toll on parasitic infectionsIn 1997, a blockbuster article by two Yale scientists, the late Charles A. Janeway Jr., M.D., and Ruslan M. Medzhitov, Ph.D., professor of immunobiology, kicked off one of the hottest research areas in immunology. Janeway and Medzhitov reported that innate immune system molecules called toll-like receptors, or TLRs, give early warning of microbial or viral invaders to the acquired immune system, which marshals the body’s array of defenses against infection.
Scientists have since identified over a dozen types of TLRs, which work by detecting distinctive genetic signatures or proteins found in bacteria and viruses but not in the eukaryotic cells that make up our bodies. But some pathogens—such as Toxoplasma gondii (right), the parasite that causes toxoplasmosis—are also eukaryotes, and a team at Yale and the National Institutes of Health wondered whether TLRs could recognize them. In the June 10 issue of the journal Science, the group reported that TLR11, discovered at Yale in mice just last year, detects a protein in T. gondii and triggers a robust immune response. The global impact of parasitic infections such as toxoplasmosis is tremendous. Sankar Ghosh, Ph.D., professor of immunobiology and a member of the research team, says that while it is not yet clear whether humans have a functional version of TLR11, “insight obtained from these studies should lead to development of novel strategies to combat these infections.” New kidney discovery may help heartThe kidneys filter waste and excess water from the body and keep sodium and other electrolytes in balance, but they also secrete crucial protein hormones that regulate heart function and the production of red blood cells. Eight million Americans suffer from kidney impairment, some 500,000 of whom have end-stage renal disease (ESRD), for which dialysis is a lifesaving treatment. Dialysis paired with dietary restrictions can substitute for the kidney’s filtering and electrolyte-balancing roles, but even with medications that replace important hormones ESRD patients are prone to serious, sometimes fatal, heart problems. Gary V. Desir, M.D., professor of medicine, and research scientist Jianchao Xu, M.D., Ph.D., suspected that there might be additional kidney hormones that promote cardiac health. In May, the scientists announced in The Journal of Clinical Investigation that they had discovered a new kidney protein, renalase, that lowers blood pressure and improves heart function. Xu says the discovery “has immediate implications for therapy.” Desir agrees: “We are hopeful that renalase will impact the treatment of chronic kidney disease and change the way in which we treat patients with chest pain and heart attacks.” A chink in malignant melanoma’s armor?Pathologists have an eagle eye for subtle abnormalities in tissue that may signal disease, but even the best of them cannot discern aberrant protein patterns within individual cells.
Such patterns are the hallmark of many diseases, especially cancer, so David L. Rimm, M.D., Ph.D., and Robert L. Camp, M.D., Ph.D., of the Department of Pathology, devised AQUA (Automated Quantitative Analysis), a technique that combines sophisticated mathematics and microscopy to reveal and precisely measure the expression of up to five proteins in tissue at once—automatically (see photo). In the July 7 issue of Nature, Rimm and collaborators reported that with the help of AQUA they discovered that MITF, a protein involved in cell survival, is “amplified”—abnormally copied many times over—in malignant melanoma cells. In a commentary on the paper, Glenn Merlino, Ph.D., a researcher at the National Cancer Institute, writes that malignant melanoma cells appear to depend utterly on MITF amplification for their survival. The protein “could be a weak link in an otherwise unbreakable chain,” he notes, leading to new, targeted therapies for a deadly cancer that is notoriously difficult to treat. Patient to surgeon: I hear a symphonyOperating rooms can be noisy, stressful places. For decades, doctors and nurses have turned to recorded music to mask the din and soothe nerves, and anxious patients being prepared for surgery have found solace in favorite melodies.
And there appear to be measurable medical benefits to music in the OR. Several studies have found that patients need less anesthesia when music is playing during surgery. But Zeev N. Kain, M.D., professor of anesthesiology, pediatrics and child psychiatry at the School of Medicine, wondered whether this phenomenon was due to music’s aesthetic qualities or merely its ability to drown out the racket in the operating room. Kain and colleagues at Yale and the American University of Beirut designed a study in which patients undergoing minor urological surgery who could control the dosage of a sedative—they had received spinal anesthesia but were awake—listened through headphones to either music or white noise generated by a relaxation device. As reported this May in the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia, the white noise blocked out the sounds of the operating room as effectively as music, but the patients who listened to music used significantly less sedative. 
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Medicine@Yale Magazine
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August/September 2005 Volume 1 Issue 2
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