The Lerner Research Institute Notations - Cleveland Clinic Lerner ...

State of LRIContinued from page 1• The Institute has made more than adozen key appointments for research.• NIH program project grants supportwork in areas of atherosclerosis,interferon and cancer, multiple sclerosis,thrombosis, inflammation,bone marrow failure, ischemic heartdisease, and orthopaedic research.• The LRI now focuses on cardiovascular,cancer, neurologic, musculoskeletal,allergic/immunologic,eye, metabolic, and infectious areasof disease study.• New spin-off companies continue todevelop the research undertaken atthe LRI; for example, PrognostiX,for diagnostics; and ClevelandBioLabs, for anti-cancer and radioprotectiondrugs.Also, the LRI is opening the newGenetics and Stem Cell ResearchBuilding this winter (see story on page 7),and is currently searching for chairs tolead the two new departments of humangenetics and stem cell biology. This willplace the LRI among the elite in the newerfields of genetics and stem cell research.“The words of George Crile at theopening of the first Clinic building in1921 are as important today as they werethen,” said Dr. DiCorleto. “Dr. Crile said,'It is through the Cleveland ClinicFoundation ... that a continual policy ofactive investigation of disease will beassured. That is to say, we are consideringnot only our duty to the patient of today,but no less our duty to the patient oftomorrow.'”Li and QianContinued from page 5to study how Act1 may affect otherimmune cells, especially dendritic cells(these cells detect the invadingpathogens), since CD40- and BAFFRmediatedsignaling pathways also play acritical role for dendritic cell maturationand activation. Another avenue of investigationis to see if Act1 modulates or influencesother CD40- and BAFFR-relatedreceptors in the tumor necrosis factor(TNF) superfamily. They will investigatewhether or not Act1 influences immuneresponses and development autoimmunediseases through its function in multiplepathways and multiple immune cells.“The molecular mechanisms ofautoimmunity are not well understood,”said Dr. Li. “This is important to the basicunderstanding of the autoimmune diseaseprocess as well.”Five years in length, the researchproject received its initial seed fundingfrom The Cleveland Clinic, and Drs. Liand Qian hope to attract funds from theNational Institutes of Health. Also, theremay be interest by some biotech companiesin their Act1 knockout mice.Nanomedicine SummitContinued from page 11fabrication strategies. Dr. Roy explainedthese concepts of making nanodevices orsystems this way: “top-down” methodstake an existing technology, like lithography,and refine it down to the 1-100 nmscale; “bottom-up” techniques, such asmolecular self-assembly, operate at the fundamentalchemical level and rely on the stabilityfrom molecular thermodynamics toachieve creations at the 1-100 nm scale.Technology on the nanoscale is rapidlydeveloping and encompasses microsensorsfor rapid and sensitive diagnosis,nanoparticles for highly targeted drugdelivery to tumors, and patterned chips(substrates of glass or specialty plastics)for investigation of biological phenomena.Leading off the summit were DerekRaghavan, M.D., chairman of TheCleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center,and Harold Craighead, co-director of theNanotechnology Center at CornellUniversity, the event's plenary speakers,addressing cancer diagnosis and therapyand nanotechnology appraisal, respectively.Other experts described how theoreticalsolutions to medical problems and testingsystems are reduced to practice in devicemanufacturing and in relation to the pharmaceuticalindustry.Support for the summit came from anarray of government, industry and privatesources and totaled more than $100,000.Reflecting on the success of the summit,Dr. Roy said he found the intense levelof interest in general and the high level ofenthusiasm of Clinic participants especiallygratifying. “The key to making nanotechnologytechniques relevant to clinicalneeds -- and this is what we want -- is todiscern what is scientifically plausiblefrom what is actually impossible,” he said.The 12th International Workshop on HIV Dynamics andEvolution will be held April 23-26 at theInterContinental Hotel and Conference CenterThe workshop provides a regular forum for specialists inHIV variation and pathogenesis to discuss the latest developmentsand information. Attendance is kept to 140 peopleto encourage discussion.This year's event is planned by Miguel E. Quiñones-Mateu,Ph.D., Section of Virology, and Eric Arts, Ph.D., Department ofInfectious Disease, Case Western Reserve University.For more information, visithttp://hivdynamics.ucsd.edu/index.html14 Notations · Winter 2005 The Lerner Research Institute