An image highlighting the formation of new myelin

Some exciting news came out of OHSU and UCSF this week that will hopefully help us combat MS and several other diseases.

The researchers have been working on a stem cell therapy to replace myelin in the brain. The loss of myelin – which acts as insulation for brain cells – can cause serious illness when it degrades.

As part of this line of research, kids with a rare disease where their brains can’t make myelin were treated…and the results were promising.

From news coverage by Bloomberg.

The children have a genetic disorder called Pelizaeus- Merzbacher, in which the brain can’t make myelin, the fatty insulation for nerve cells that helps conduct brain signals. The children all had evidence of myelin growth a year later. The increased abilities shown by three of the boys in the University of California San Francisco study may bode well for other diseases caused by a lack of myelin insulation, including multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy, the authors wrote.

“Those were severely impaired children,” said Stephen Back, a professor of pediatrics and neurology at Portland’s Oregon Health & Science University, in a telephone interview. “The fact that they showed any neurological improvement is very encouraging.”

You can read the full Bloomberg story here.

We spoke with Dr.Back on camera this week, here’s what else he had to say:

OHSU is celebrating a big birthday this year…125 years to be exact.

What better way to celebrate than by offering free health screenings to the public?

That’s exactly what OHSU employees did on Tuesday down in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square.

In all, we saw over 170 people during the 4-hour health screening/health fair.

Hopefully you saw some news coverage on KOIN or KGW.

For information on future 125th anniversary events, click here.

Recently, OHSU research revealed an interesting statistic which is being echoed in news headlines:

Here’s an excerpt from some of the coverage:

While past studies have documented PTSD symptoms in trauma, cancer and organ transplant patients, the new study from the Oregon Health & Science University is among the first to monitor for PTSD symptoms in patients undergoing an elective medical procedure, according to Robert Hart, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon, professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation, and senior author of the study.

“It is maybe not surprising that significant surgical interventions have psychological as well as physical impacts,” he said. “I think it means that we in the medical community need to monitor for these effects in our patients and to manage them when they occur.”

Dr. Hart and his colleagues say this finding shows we need to closely monitor patients and proactively look for individuals who are at risk prior to surgery.

Also from news coverage:

“At the end of the day, I hope this will make changes in the way we prepare people for surgery, to reduce these psychological impacts,” he said. “This is analogous to how we currently optimize patients’ physical condition before major surgery.

More info:

OHSU Orthopedics

Today, we gave local reporters a close-up view of the OHSU/OUS Collaborative Life Sciences Building.

The building is still under construction, but it’s really beginning to take shape.

Here’s a time lapse video to show you how far we have come:

The building one of the most unique construction projects OHSU has ever been involved in. Once completed, the building will place portions of Oregon Health & Science University, Oregon State University, and Portland State University under one roof. In doing so, the facility will extend partnerships between the universities, create new employment opportunities, and expand the schools’ teaching facilities, class sizes and research activities.

It will contain lecture halls, classrooms, labs, specialty research centers, offices and a state-of-the-art facility for the OHSU School of Dentistry.

More info:

Building Web Site

There was a really interesting editorial in The Oregonian yesterday about the Knight cardiovascular gift announced on Monday.

A couple key sections:

This week Phil and Penny Knight put down $125 million to accelerate the quest of unlocking the codes driving cardiovascular health and disease. Phil Knight, Nike’s co-founder, modestly said he hoped the action would “upgrade” the heart health of Oregonians and folks around the world. But his donation, which creates the Oregon Health & Science University Cardiovascular Institute, could do far more than that.

It will build upon the work of Albert Starr, the Portland-based cardiologist-surgeon who decades ago co-invented the artificial heart valve; and Sanjiv Kaul, who arrived at OHSU in 2005 from Virginia and is widely credited with leading the development of a heart-imaging technique that differentiates between real cardiac events and false alarms. Joining the two more than their medical celebrity is the conviction that the gap between medical research and care delivered to patients must be closed, and can be done only if specialists from all fields implicated in cardiovascular health work together and trade notes. It wouldn’t hurt, either, to have device- and drug-making companies in the room to know what’s going on and invent the next best aid or formula.

and

The race to tame one of Oregon’s biggest killers — so coy, so collusive, so very expensive — is on. Not only is OHSU grateful for Knight’s commitment, all Oregonians should be, too.

We couldn’t agree more.

You can read the full editorial here.

More info

OHSU information page on the gift

OHSU , along with several other partners, recently released a startling report about the seriousness of alcoholism in the U.S. military.

A summary of the report by CBS News

A new report says substance use and misuse among troops and their families has become a “public health crisis” and says Pentagon methods for dealing with it are out of date.

In a study requested by the Defense Department, the Institute of Medicine report Monday said:

— About 20 percent of active-duty service members reported they engaged in heavy drinking in 2008, the latest year for which data was available. (Heavy drinking was defined as five or more drinks a day as a regular practice.)

— Binge drinking increased from 35 percent in 1998 to 47 percent in 2008. (That’s five or more drinks at a sitting for men, four or more for women, but done perhaps just once or twice a month as opposed to each week.)

— While rates of both illicit and prescription drug abuse are low, the rate of medication misuse is rising. Just 2 percent of active-duty personnel reported misusing prescription drugs in 2002 compared with 11 percent in 2008.

— The armed forces’ programs and policies have not evolved to effectively address medication misuse and abuse.

The report also looked at training materials for the troops, and how these materials address the issue.

Again from CBS:

“We reviewed the training materials the U.S. Navy uses for counselor training. Those materials are based on guidelines originally written in 1984. They haven’t updated them,” said Dr. Dennis McCarty, a professor of public health and preventive medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University. “We think there’s a substantial opportunity to enhance the training for the counselors” who work with active-duty military personnel.

 

Additional info

Avel Gordly Center for Healing

Some amazing news was just announced at OHSU.

The headline: Historic Gift from Phil and Penny Knight Establishes Institute for Cardiovascular Research and Care at OHSU

Full details at this web page.

Update – Tuesday

Here’s a short highlight video of the announcement event on Monday:

Americans are living longer than ever before. Currently, life expectancy here in the U.S. is 78.5 years.

But would you want to live longer if you could?

Longevity was the topic on Tuesday’s edition of Think Out Loud on OPB. OHSU health promotion and sports medicine researcher Diane Stadler joined the show to talk about diet and its impacts on aging.

You can listen to the show segment here.

Dr. Stadler can be heard at 11:40.

More info:

Info on OHSU Health Promotion and Sports Medicine

Info on life expectancy

A maturing malaria parasite (purple) being studied in humanized mouse derived liver cells (green)

The phrase “Humanized Mice,” may sound strange. However, this OHSU-based discovery is in the process of saving lives.

The latest use of this technology is to aid in combatting malaria.

Here are a few of the details from an OHSU press release.

A novel human liver-chimeric mouse model developed at Oregon Health & Science University and Yecuris Corporation has made possible a research breakthrough at Seattle Biomedical Research Institute that will greatly accelerate studies of the most lethal forms of human malaria.

Plasmodium falciparum, one of two human-specific malaria parasites, is a global health crisis, causing more than 216 million new infections annually and resulting in an estimated 655,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

Sporozoites, the infectious form of the parasite, are spread to people through the bites of infected mosquitos and multiply in the human liver during the initial stages of infection. There, they undergo liver stage development, culminating in the formation and release of tens of thousands of merozoites, the parasitic phase of development that infects red blood cells.

Until now, there have been few data on human malaria liver stage biology due to the lack of a viable small animal model and because liver stage P. falciparum does not grow well in a dish. Consequently, most research and therapeutics to date have targeted the human blood stage of P. falciparum’s development because it replicates well in culture.

The liver-to-blood stage of P. falciparum is the focus of this research because the parasite is virtually harmless, causing no disease symptoms, prior to its transition to the blood stage.

In this study, researchers at Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Yecuris Corporation, Oregon Health & Science University and The Rockefeller University have demonstrated that a complete liver-to-blood stage infection of P. falciparum is possible using a unique immunocompromised mouse model engrafted with human liver-chimeric cells.

With this new data, physicians and scientists can better fight the disease.

It’s not the first time humanized mice have come to the rescue. In 2007, we announced the use of these unique mice to create human liver cells so that new drugs can be tested in the fight against liver disease. More info in this story.

If you have kids, then you know how getting babies to sleep can be somewhat of a frustrating puzzle.

Thanks to a new study out this week, we have some guidance for tired parents.

The study is summarized in a story in the Huffington Post.

The study looked at two methods: Letting babies “cry it out” with occasionally check-ins to comfort the child. The second method was to “camp out” next to the crib and then cutback the parent’s presence over time.

Here’s what one OHSU expert said in the article:

“The key to both of these methods is that you put the child down when he or she is drowsy, but awake,” said Dr. Kyle Johnson, a pediatric sleep specialist with Doernbecher Children’s Hospital at Oregon Health & Science University. “You have them fall asleep on their own at bedtime. It’s a learned behavior.”

More info:

Doernbecher Pediatric Sleep Medicine Program

OHSU Sleep Disorders Program