Creative Thinking Nets Stanford Researchers Two NIH Pioneer Awards, Three New Innovator Awards

Business Wire, Sept 22, 2008

One of Kesler's current studies involves the exploration of cognitive and emotional outcomes in women with breast cancer. Kesler, lab manager at the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research, plans to use her award money to further this research: She'll compare cognitive function, emotional status, brain function and genetic markers in breast cancer patients who received chemotherapy and patients who did not. She'll also test two novel cognitive rehabilitation programs. Her ultimate goal, she said, is to minimize or prevent cognitive impairment in cancer patients.

Wu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine and of radiology, received his New Innovator award to explore a new method of creating pluripotent stem cells--cells that can grow into a variety of different cell types. In some labs, scientists have developed ways of turning a skin cell into an embryonic-like stem cell. These are known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells.

"We're proposing a novel technique of creating these cells," Wu said. "This award will allow us to do the science and test our hypothesis."

Wu's new method of creating iPS cells proposes using microRNAs, single-stranded RNA molecules that regulate gene expression and are involved in stem cell fate determination.

"We hypothesize the primary advantage of miRNA is that they may lead to increased efficiency and decreased time for inducing pluripotency," Wu said. "If our hypothesis holds up, this creative approach will present a new way of reprogramming cells and, in the process, help us understand the mechanisms behind these molecular processes."

Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical education and patient care at its three institutions -- Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. For more information, please visit the Web site of the medical center's Office of Communication & Public Affairs at http://mednews.stanford.edu.