Winter 1999 issue of Synapse

Research group seeks creative therapies for prostate cancer
Investigators in UNMC’s prostate cancer research program are using creative means to reach one collective goal of developing new therapies to fight this silent killer.

The program is led by Ming-Fong Lin, Ph.D., associate professor, biochemistry and molecular biology, urologic surgery and Eppley Cancer Institute, and a 20-year veteran in the war against prostate cancer.

Researchers are fighting prostate cancer on cellular and genetic levels
Certain proteins that identify aggressive breast cancers and oligonucleotides are the new tools researchers at UNMC are using to stop and reverse prostate cancer.

Molecular chaperones stop incorrect interactions at the cellular level
There’s a multitude of interactions going on inside each of our cells, much like a complex square dance. And, as at some early teen dances, there are chaperones ready to stop inappropriate interactions.

Summary of grants awarded to researchers at UNMC
Editor’s note: UNMC researchers who received awards in the first quarter of the 1999-99 fiscal year are listed below. The list includes title of the research project, awarding agency, principal investigator and date of the grant. Grants are listed by the quarter in which they were awarded and are separated into categories of those above and below $50,000.

Research grants and contracts totaled $8,586,927 for the first quarter. More than 81 percent of this money came from federal or industrial sources.

Birth defects that affect the nervous system is focus of UNMC researcher
The nose.

It’s important for smelling and keeping eyeglasses on the face.

But, unless a person has a cold, allergies or trouble with pimples, the nose goes through life relatively unnoticed.

UNMC researcher unlocking secrets of human development from analysis of fruit fly genes
Those darn fruit flies.

They swarm around your food, especially that extra ripe banana in the bottom of the fruit bowl.

Yet, these tiny insects pack an extraordinary amount of genetic information that continues to provide scientists with enormous insight into the genetic makeup of humans.

New transplant material helps patients with incontinence worry
Imagine a transplant operation using donor tissue where there is no need to worry about tissue typing, rejection or immune suppression.