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New medical staff Web site provides useful information

School of Medicine retreat strengthens support, collaboration on strategic planning effort

Principal-investigator status approved for MCL faculty members

Lane Library hosts event celebrating National Doctors Day

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New patient satisfaction survey will help improve service

Surgeon and community health-care pioneer dies at 82

Below are selected highlights of recent medical research
conducted at Stanford Medical Center.
Detailed news releases are available on the Internet at
http://mednews.stanford.edu

PRION DISEASE. Mutant mice whose brains gradually become peppered with small holes that resemble those found in prion disease lack a certain protein involved in disposing of cellular trash, according to researchers Lin He and Teresa Gunn working in the lab of Gregory Barsh, professor of pediatrics and of genetics. The finding by Gunn, He, Barsh and colleagues, published in the Jan. 31 issue of Science, may shed light on how diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob, bovine spongiform encephalopathy and scrapie wreak havoc in humans and animals. The research finding also lends support to the increasingly accepted idea that glitches in protein turnover may be the unifying factor in many human neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson's, Huntington's and Lou Gehrig's disease.

BONE MARROW CELLS. In the Feb. 7 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers in the Baxter Laboratory at the medical center reported finding chromosomes from a bone marrow transplant in the brain cells of transplant recipients. In the study, Helen Blau, professor of microbiology and immunology, and James Weiman, senior research scientist, looked at brain samples taken from women who underwent chemotherapy to treat leukemia and then later received bone marrow transplants from male donors. As expected, blood cells within the brain contained Y chromosomes because they were made by bone marrow cells from the transplant. The researchers also found five nerve cells called Purkinje cells - involved in controlling balance and movement - that contained Y chromosomes. These findings provide new evidence that cells from the bone marrow travel the bloodstream and may help repair or maintain cells in other tissues.

"GOOD CHOLESTROL" GENE. Researchers at the medical center found that a recently discovered gene regulates HDL (high-density lipoproteins) or "good cholesterol." The finding, published in the Feb. 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, could lead to new heart-disease therapies, according to lead author Thomas Quertermous, professor of cardiovascular medicine. His research team sought to examine the gene's exact role in regulating HDL cholesterol levels by studying genetic models with altered levels of endothelial lipase (EL) expression. Working with mouse models, the researchers increased EL expression in one group by inserting copies of the endothelial lipase gene, and they decreased EL expression in another group by knocking out the gene in the members of that group. Altering the genes showed a clear and significant inverse relationship between HDL cholesterol level and EL expression; levels of HDL cholesterol decreased by 19 percent in the first group and increased by 57 percent in the second group, the researchers found..