Projects range from a potential way to stop colon cancer spread to how gene mutations affect skin structure in a rare blistering disease

		News Archive Featured in the Media JeffNEWS

Some of the most sophisticated and advanced student research in science and medicine will be on display at Thomas Jefferson University on Tuesday, March 21, 2006. The Jefferson chapter of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, is holding its annual Student Research Day from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. in Bluemle Life Sciences Building, 233 S. 10 th Street.

Nearly 75 graduate student-scientists from Jefferson Medical College, Jefferson College of Graduate Studies and Jefferson College of Health Professions in addition to undergraduates from eight area colleges will proudly display their latest research findings exploring a wide range of compelling topics, such as cancer, HIV and diabetes. Among the colleges and universities with undergraduate students represented are University of Delaware, Drexel University, Ursinus College, Haverford College and Rider University.

“It’s an opportunity for our graduate and medical students, as well as undergraduates at local institutions, to show off all of their hard work and results,” says Karen Dohm, Ph.D., Coordinator of the Master’s Programs in the Basic Sciences in Jefferson’s College of Graduate Studies.”

David Zuzga, for example, has found a cell protein that may be a key to stopping the spread of colorectal cancer. Jefferson scientists had previously shown that when the same bacterial toxin that causes traveler’s diarrhea hooks up with a receptor, GCC, on the surface of metastatic colorectal cancer cells, the cancer cell growth slows considerably. Zuzga, a Ph.D. candidate, has taken the work another step. Zuzga, along with GianMario Pitari, Ph.D., in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Jefferson Medical College, found that GCC signaling can halt the ability of colorectal cancer cells to release a particular enzyme called MMP-9, in turn blocking the spread of the cancer.

Fourth-year medical student Morgana Colombo, is working with Andrzej Fertala, Ph.D., in the Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Biology at Jefferson Medical College, to understand how genetic mutations affect collage-anchoring fibril assembly in the skin of patients with a rare, skin blistering disease called epidermolysis bullosa. Colombo is the recipient of Jefferson Medical College’s Bodine award, which is given to the student who is judged to have shown the “greatest tenacity and dedication in research.”

Ph.D. student Michelle Leonard, 27, working in A. Sue Menko, Ph.D.’s laboratory in the Department of Pathology, Anatomy and Cell Biology at Jefferson Medical College, is exploring how cells in the eye’s lens differentiate during development.

After the research presentations, Phillip Zamore, Ph.D., professor, biochemistry and molecular pharmacology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, will discuss the potential of RNAi, or RNA interference. Called the “Breakthrough of the Year” for 2002 by the journal Science, RNAi is a natural process that cells use to turn off gene expression.

Dr. Zamore’s talk is titled “RNAi and Other Ancient Pathways Programmed by Small RNA.” The lecture is at 4 p.m. in Bluemle Life Sciences Building.

Related Links:

• Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
• Dermatology and Cutaneous Biology
• Pathology, Anatomy and Cell Biology
• College of Graduate Studies
• College of Health Professions