New FORCE in Neuromedicine

A team headed by neuroscientist Akira Chiba, professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, was awarded funds from the first EUREKA grant, a multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health initiative supporting projects that show potential to make major strides in bio-medicine. Chiba’s promising approach for spinal cord repair is FORCE (force orchestrated retrograde synaptic enhancement), which involves applying tension to individual neurons. Chiba’s team, including University of Illinois scientists, found evidence that mechanical force applied to individual nerve terminals can initiate, enhance, and repair their connectivity.

Factors Affecting Cancer Survival

Miller School oncological surgeon and research director Leonidas G. Koniaris and colleagues reviewed all head and neck cancer cases in Florida from 1998 to 2002. Their study, published this past November in the journal Cancer, reveals outcome dis-parities related to race, poverty, age, gender, tumor site and stage, treatment type, and smoking and alcohol consumption. The average survival rate was found to be 47 months for Hispanics, 40 months among whites, and 21 months for African-Americans. The authors say earlier diagnosis is needed to improve outcomes.

Reversal of Arthritis Misfortune

Herman Cheung, James L. Knight Professor of Biomedical Engineering, senior Veterans Affairs Research Career Scientist, and professor of medicine and orthopedic surgery, is making strides toward reversing cartilage breakdown caused by osteoarthritis. Cheung, a member of UM’s new Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute, embedded mesenchymal stem cells in a growth medium and mimicked conditions joints undergo when a 150-pound person walks four miles per hour. The cells successfully produced growth factors needed to become chondrocytes (cells found in cartilage). Cheung will edit the Rheumatology Review Journal’s “Stem Cells, Osteoarthritis and Cartilage Repair” issue and serve as editor in chief of Bentham Science Publishers’ e-book Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine.