Institute for Immunity Transplantation and Infection–

ITI News

October 1, '09 - HUMAN AS HOST - David Relman, professor of infectious diseases and geographic medicine and of microbiology and immunology, is part of a five-year, $140 million Human Microbiome Project, with a goal to better understand how the human microbiome affects human health and disease.
The exact number of bacteria living in or on humans isn't known, though it is estimated to be around a trillion. In any case, the number of microbial cells in the human body outnumbers the human ones by a factor of 10. Those symbiotic microbes endow humans with otherwise unattainable metabolic capabilities, but also may contribute to human disease. What is certain, however, is that humans may really be classified as super-organisms — and ones that are mainly bacterial at that. [Full story, please note you need to subscribe to Genomeweb]

September 21, '09 - Short-term stress enhances anti-tumor activity in mice, Stanford study shows. Public speaking, anyone? Or maybe a big job interview? Dry your palms and take a deep, calming breath; there may be a silver lining. Researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine have shown that, at least in laboratory mice, bouts of relatively short-term stress can boost the immune system and protect against one type of cancer. Furthermore, the beneficial effects of this occasional angst seem to last for weeks after the stressful situation has ended. The finding is surprising because chronic stress has the opposite effect—taxing the immune system and increasing susceptibility to disease.
“This is the first evidence that this type of short-lived stress may enhance anti-tumor activity,” said Firdaus Dhabhar, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a member of Stanford’s Cancer Center, and Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection. “This is a promising new way of thinking that calls for more research. We hope that it will eventually lead to applications that help us to care for those who are ill, by maximally harnessing the body’s natural defenses while also using other medical treatments.”

 

August 31, '09 - Stanford Recruiting Patients for H1N1 Flu Vaccine Trial
The Stanford University School of Medicine is recruiting participants for a clinical trial to determine the safety of an experimental vaccine against the new H1N1 strain of influenza when the vaccine is combined with an immune-stimulating substance called an adjuvant. The trial will also examine whether use of the adjuvant improves the immune response to the vaccine. Most people’s immune systems have never been exposed to any influenza strain closely related to the H1N1 strain, which first began to surface last spring, said Cornelia Dekker, MD, professor of pediatrics and medical director of the Stanford-LPCH Vaccine Program. The novel virus thus has spread quickly, giving rise to a pandemic that has governments around the world scrambling to plan mass-vaccination strategies as a public-health measure. Early-phase trials, whose primary goals are to determine the safety of the vaccine given by itself and to examine the immune response after one and two doses, are already under way at several centers throughout the country. [Full Story]

 August 17, 09 - Inexpensive Hypertension Drug Could be Multiple Sclerosis Treatment, Study Shows.
Turning serendipity into science, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found a link, in mice and in human brain tissue, between high blood pressure and multiple sclerosis. Their findings suggest that a safe, inexpensive drug already in wide use for high blood pressure may have therapeutic value in multiple sclerosis, as well.
While neurology professor Lawrence Steinman, MD, senior author of the new study, cautioned that extensive clinical trial work is needed to determine if the drug, known as lisinopril, can do in humans what it does in mice, he is excited that “we were able to show that all the targets for lisinopril are there and ready for therapeutic manipulation in the multiple-sclerosis lesions of human patients. Without that, this would be just another intriguing paper about what’s possible in the mouse.” [Full Story]

August 12, '09 - Liver Transplant Team at Packard Children's Leading the Nation
Ila Chakravarthy was 6 months old last fall but weighed just 10 pounds. Then, in October 2008, she began vomiting up big clots of blood, and the condition of her failing liver grew worse. The time had come, her doctors said. Though her size and fragile health would make surgery perilous, Ila urgently needed a liver transplant.
Ila and her worried parents were referred to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, home of the busiest pediatric liver transplant team in the nation. The hospital’s team performed more liver transplants in 2008 than any other U.S. children’s hospital, and also did the largest number of surgeries in infants like Ila, who were younger than 1 year at transplant. The team’s success rate, measured by patient and graft survival, is nearly 100 percent. If anyone could save Ila, it was this team.
“We’re known for taking care of very small children, transplanting much sicker patients and treating more kids with cancer than any other institution in the country,” said surgeon Carlos Esquivel, MD, PhD, who directs the program. Caring for the 45 children (including 18 infants) who got new livers at Packard last year required not just Esquivel’s surgical acumen, but the expertise of dozens of medical professionals: hepatologists, nephrologists, gastroenterologists, physician assistants, social workers and nurses. The team prepares patients for surgery and provides years of crucial follow-up care. Their “bench-to-bedside” research gives patients innovative treatment options, such as kid-friendly immunosuppressive drugs, multi-organ transplants and a special clinic that helps teens take responsibility for their own care. [Full Story]

July 9, '09 - Chang-Zheng Chen wins Keck award.
The W.M. Keck Foundation has selected Chang-Zheng Chen, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology, as one of its five 2009 Distinguished Young Scholars in Medical Research. As an award recipient, Chen will receive a five-year grant totaling $1 million.
Keck initiated this award program in 1998 to support promising young scientists whose cutting-edge biomedical research addresses fundamental mechanisms of human disease. This program is specifically dedicated to ease the difficulty young investigators have securing traditional funding for risky or creative research during the early part of their careers, when they often make their boldest discoveries.  Chen studies microRNA, a class of small nucleic-acid transcripts that are not used as templates for proteins, as are the longer, protein-coding molecules called messenger RNA. Rather, microRNA molecules regulate the degree to which the genetic information carried on messenger RNA transcripts results in the production of proteins within cells. MicroRNA has been shown to play diverse functional roles in animals and has been implicated in human disease processes as well.
Chen has been on the faculty at the medical school since 2005. He earned his PhD at Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and did postdoctoral research at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT.rd, '09 - 'Baa baa' blood test to save lives in Third World. 
The newest revolution in microbiology testing walks on four legs and says "baa," according to Stanford University School of Medicine researchers. Hair sheep, a less-hirsute version of the familiar woolly barnyard resident, are perfect blood donors for the microbiology tests necessary to diagnose infectious disease in the developing world, according to a new study published July 3. Microbes from a patient's urine or sputum are usually identified by growing them in culture dishes filled with gelatinous agar and a small amount of blood. In the developed world, microbiologists use sheep or horse blood. But in many parts of the developing world, horses are prohibitively expensive, and regular sheep, with their constant need for shearing and tendency to get infections, are difficult to keep alive. Many labs in the developing world use human blood, often donated by lab technicians. But diagnostic tests aren't standardized for human blood, said Dr. Ellen Yeh, a resident in pathology at Stanford and first author on the paper.
"You don't get the same test results when you use human blood versus sheep blood," she said. In addition, the use of human donors increases technicians' risk of infection with blood-borne diseases, she said.  Ellen Jo Baron, professor of pathology at the medical school and senior author on the paper, first encountered hair sheep in Botswana, Africa. The sheep resist parasites, don't need to be sheared, and do well in the tropical climates prevalent in much of the developing world. The sheep can also provide milk and meat in addition to their role as blood donors, she said.  Calling in a favor from a colleague with a hobby farm near Walnut Creek, Baron and her colleagues collected blood from hair sheep -- the animals are remarkably mellow about the donations, she said -- and created test cultures and diagnostic tests. "It worked for every single thing," Baron said. [Full story]

June 17, '09 - Endowed professorship for David Relman, MD. Relman, professor of infectious diseases and of microbiology and immunology, has been appointed the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor. The professorship was established with a gift from Thomas C. Merigan, MD, the George E. and Lucy Becker Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, and his wife, Joan M. Merigan, MD. Thomas Merigan is a world-renowned researcher in the field of infectious diseases and a pioneer in HIV/AIDS research. Relman directs the infectious diseases training program at the medical school and serves as chief of infectious diseases at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. His research focuses on microbial pathogenesis and human microbial ecology.

May 27, '09 - Denise Monack, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and ITI Member, is the recipient of the 2009 Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease award presented by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.  She was chosen for her work on host-pathogen interactions during persistent Salmonella infection.  The award provides $500,000 over five years.

May 12, '09 - Hayfever, dust-mite allergy sufferers needed for Stanford/Packard study
Itchy hayfever and dust-allergy sufferers must weigh an unpleasant trade-off: Struggle with red eyes, sneezing and runny noses, or endure years of shots to quell the problem.
Now, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital are testing another allergy-control option—something friendlier than injections and longer-lasting than popping antihistamines. They are recruiting children and adults for a yearlong study of an experimental allergy therapy that swaps painful arm-sticks for ouchless squirts of fluid under the tongue.
“Having shots is not much fun,” said Kari Nadeau, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Packard Children’s who is leading the study. “We’re looking for another way to help people become tolerant to the things that trigger their allergies.”
Prospective study subjects can be children or adults ages 5 to 65 years. They must be allergic to both grass and dust mites, and must not have received allergy shots in the last three years. Subjects will receive allergy testing at the beginning of the yearlong trial, and will take the test treatment—a small amount of fluid spritzed under the tongue—daily for 12 months. They’ll pick up fresh doses of the treatment at Stanford every few months, and will be retested for allergies several times during the trial period. They will also keep regular diaries of the allergy symptoms affecting their eyes, noses, lungs and skin.[Full story]

May 6, '09 - Researchers developing new tools to address future flu pandemics
A vaccine against the H1N1 influenza strain, which has crossed over from pigs to people in recent months, probably won't be available before this autumn. But ongoing research at the School of Medicine promises to help public-health authorities come to grips with future influenza pandemics—and may prove to be useful against this one.
A common theme in this research is that it pays to look not just at the virus itself, but also to our responses, at all levels, to viral attack: how immune responses vary among individuals, what sorts of medical innovation could help to prevent pandemics entirely and how we should organize the collective public-health response to pandemics when they do occur.
While it's still too early to draw conclusions, so far the H1N1 outbreak has proved fairly mild, at least in the United States, said Mark Davis, PhD, director of the Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection. "The next one could be more devastating." Even typical seasonal influenza strains kill some 36,000 Americans each year, he noted. [Link to full story]

April 16, '09 - Malaria vaccine study seeks subjects.  Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine need additional participants to complete the first study of a new vaccine against malaria. The phase-1 clinical trial, which is under way at both Stanford and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., aims to test the safety of and immune response to different doses of the vaccine in a total of 72 healthy adults. It is funded by the National Institutes of Health. Results from this study will allow a second trial to begin in Africa this year. 
“This a chance for those who know that malaria causes millions of deaths every year to step forward and help in the search for preventive vaccine,” said Cornelia Dekker, MD, medical director of the Stanford-Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Vaccine Program. “It’s through the testing of promising vaccine candidates that we may find out how to eradicate malaria.”
The study is one of many under way testing a number of potential malaria vaccines, as part of an international effort whose goal is to have a malaria vaccine by 2025 that will protect more than 80 percent of those who receive it.

April 1, '09 - Influenza Immunity: Protective Mechanisms against Pandemic Respiratory Virus.
Dr. Mark Davis, Director of the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation, and Infection (ITI), and his colleagues Drs. Ann Arvin, Atul Butte, Corry Dekker, Harry Greenberg, David Hirschberg, Garry Nolan, and Stephen Quake from Stanford, as well as Dr. Gary Swan from SRI International, recently received a >$15 million award over 5 years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID/NIH).  The purpose of this grant is to study how our current influenza vaccines work in terms of their interactions with the human immune system.  A unique aspect of this study is the utilization of human twins, recruited by SRI through their Northern California Twins Registry.  The twins, from young children through elderly adults, will each receive standard annual flu vaccines and then contribute blood both for immediate analysis of their immune system responses and also to be banked for future studies. The investigators seek to understand at multiple levels – molecular, cellular, and organismal – how the immune systems of humans in different age groups are constituted and how they respond or fail to defend against specific influenza strains.  It is expected that these studies will aid in the development of more effective vaccines and in a better understanding of immunological “health”.

March 31, '09 - Top Canadian prize goes to Stanford scientist Lucy Shapiro for bringing cell biology into three dimensions. Lucy Shapiro may be the only artist who ever truly enjoyed organic chemistry. So much, in fact, that the newly graduated Brooklyn College fine arts major set aside her paintbrushes and devoted her life to biological research. “It was clearly as much of a challenge as Dante, but more fun,” said Shapiro, PhD, a professor of developmental biology at the Stanford University School of Medicine who also studied literature and wrote her undergraduate thesis on the Florentine poet. “Science is so beautiful, and you get real answers. I knew right then that ‘this was it.’” Obviously, wavering is not her style.
Shapiro’s dogged pursuit of real answers has since fueled a lifetime of research and garnered a wall of awards. Along the way she’s forged a new path in developmental biology research and fostered a growing interest in infectious diseases and global public health. Now Shapiro, who is also the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor at the medical school, can add a Canada Gairdner International Award to her list of accolades. The award, which carries a $100,000 cash prize, will be announced on March 31, and formally presented in Canada in October. [Full story]

March 23, '09 - Stanford cancer expert and ITI Member, Ronald Levy, will receive King Faisal Prize in Medicine March 29. The development of a drug that has revolutionized the treatment of many types of cancer has earned its inventor, Ronald Levy, MD, the 2009 King Faisal International Prize in Medicine. More than 30 years ago, Levy, now chief of the oncology division at the Stanford University School of Medicine, embarked on a research agenda that harnessed the power of the body’s own immune system to fight cancer. Levy developed the concept that a drug made from a naturally produced blood protein called an antibody could be a cancer-fighting machine.
On March 29, Levy, who holds the Robert K. and Helen K. Summy Professorship at Stanford, will be honored for this seminal discovery by Saudi Arabian royalty, who will present Levy with his most prestigious international award to date.
Rituxan, the drug that resulted from Levy’s work, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1997, making it the first commercial antibody to treat cancer. “Now it’s recommended for treating almost every lymphoma patient, and over 1 million people have been treated with it so far,” he said. [Full Story]

March 16, '09 - Immune cells play surprising role in cystic fybrosis lung damage, Stanford/Packard study shows. Immune cells once thought to be innocent bystanders in cystic fibrosis may hold the key to stopping patients’ fatal lung disease. New findings from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital show that white blood cells called neutrophils respond strongly to conflicting signals from cystic fibrosis patients’ lungs, setting up a molecular fracas that may explain the patients’ severe lung damage. “Cystic fibrosis patients have a problem with turning down the inflammatory response in the lungs,” said senior study author Rabindra Tirouvanziam, PhD, an instructor in pediatric pulmonary medicine. “We’ve found that patients’ neutrophils become kind of schizophrenic, doing a number of things that are opposite to the textbook view of neutrophils’ role.”  The research, which was published online March 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, opens up new targets for cystic fibrosis treatment, Tirouvanziam said. [Full story]

March 2, '09 - Investigators at Stanford are recruiting twins for a study to better understand pain - and the impact of medication. Martin Angst, associate professor of anesthesia and director of the Stanford University Human Experimental Pain Laboratory, was interviewed during this segment. Click here for video interviews, and here.

February 23, '09 - Immune System 'atlas' will speed detection of kidney transplant rejection, Stanford/Packard researchers say.
Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital have devised a new way to decode the immune signals that cause slow, chronic rejection of all transplanted kidneys. They’ve created an immune-system “atlas” that will improve doctors’ ability to monitor transplanted organs and shed light on the mechanisms of gradual, cumulative kidney malfunction after transplant.  “The reason chronic injury occurs in transplanted organs is really a mystery,” said senior study author Minnie Sarwal, MD, PhD, professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and a nephrologist at Packard Children’s Hospital. “Even patients who receive an organ from an identical twin develop chronic rejection.” The findings were published online Feb. 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[Full story]

February 17, '09 - ITI and the Woods Institute for the Environment have joined forces, thanks to Dr. Gary Schoolnik, ITI Associate Director in Infectious Diseases, to launch a new Speaker Series (Winter/Spring 2009). This seminar series addresses the impacts that environmental change can have on human health.  Speakers will discuss the interplay between the environment and infectious diseases, presenting data from their research and also highlighting the interdisciplinary research process.  The goal of this seminar series is to build a community of scholars interested in this topic throughout the Stanford community and beyond, and to encourage the development of future interdisciplinary initiatives on the environment and infectious diseases.  Faculty and students from all departments are invited to participate.  This speaker series will be held in conjunction with the Woods Institute's Environmental Forum.  All talks will be held from 3:30 to 5:00pm in Room 299 of the Yang and Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building (Y2E2).  List of speakers.

December 3, '08 - Hospitals synchronize series of kidney transplants - [...] In a first-of-its-kind collaboration in the Bay Area, transplant surgeons from Stanford Hospital (Marc Melcher and Stephan Busque) and California Pacific Medical Center joined specialists from Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in a set of carefully orchestrated surgeries that started on the morning of Nov. 19. "All the donors were under anesthesia at the same time," said Marc Melcher, MD, assistant professor of surgery who specializes in kidney and liver transplants. "Otherwise, with the time differences, you can imagine that a donor could back out after others in the chain had already donated their kidneys." (Full story)

November 19, '08 - Sharon Perry, PhD, senior research scientist in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, and Julie Parsonnet, MD, professor of medicine and of health research and policy, are co-recipients with Jay Solnick, MD, PhD, of UC-Davis of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's new Grand Challenges Explorations initiative.  The $100,000 award is intended to promote the exploration of bold and largely unproven ways to improve global health.  They will work with collaborators from the University of Pittsburgh, New York University, Medical Research Council in Gambia and Aga Khan University in Karachi to examine whether gastric infection with H. pylori strengthens the ability of the immune system ot control tuberculosis infection.

November 19, '08 - Lawrence Steinman, MD, Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences and of Pediatrics, and, by courtesy, of genetics, has been appointed the George A. Zimmermann Professor. His lab is dedicated to understanding the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, particularly multiple sclerosis.

November 18, '08 - Mention the phrase “diverse ecosystem,” and it conjures images of tropical rainforests and endangered coral reefs. It also describes the human colon. A new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine reveals in greater detail than ever before the full extent of the bacterial community inhabiting the human bowel - 10 times more diverse than previous research had suggested. The technology that yielded this result offers the potential for much more accurate assessments of people’s complex internal ecosystems, as well as more-sophisticated monitoring of the degree to which they are affected by, for example, antibiotics. The study, lead by David Relman, MD, professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology, and his associates, was published online Nov. 18 in the journal Public Library of Science-Biology.

October 31, '08 - The Institute for Immunity, Transplantation, and Infection is pleased to announce an open competition for Stanford graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, clinical fellows, research associates, and instructors, for a 1-year $25,000 starter grant to fund an innovative research plan in the areas of immunology, transplantation, or infection, preferably combining two or all of these areas to address an important problem.  The applications should be no more than 5 pages of text (excluding figures and references) plus a budget.  No salary or stipend support should be requested.  Proposals and a copy of the applicant?s CV should be emailed to Nancy Federspiel at nfeder@stanford.edu by November 15, 2008.  Applicants should also request 2 letters of recommendation to be emailed directly by the referees to Nancy Federspiel.  The winner will be announced by December 1, 2008.

October 22, '08 - The 104 winners of the Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Round 1 $100,000 grants were announced today. There were three Stanford recipients:

Primary Investigator: Mark Davis, Stanford University, United States
Multiplex Tetramer Analysis of Vaccine Responses
Topic: Create New Ways to Protect Against Infectious Disease
Technology Category:Research Tool
Grant Summary:  Mark Davis of Stanford University will develop a new method to assess specific T cell responses to vaccinations. Using combinations of labeled tetramers to identify many types T cell responses, Davis hopes to create better and more comprehensive assessments of immunity generated by vaccines.

 Primary Investigator: Christina Smolke, Stanford University, United States
Genetically-Encoded Technologies that Support the Design of Molecular Sensing-Regulatory Systems for Targeted Disease Treatment Strategies
Topic:  Create New Ways to Protect Against Infectious Disease
Technology Category:Diagnostics

Primary Investigator:  Andrew Fire, Stanford University, United States
Identification of Small RNA Molecules Capable of Eliciting Cellular Immunity During RNA Virus Infection
Topic: Create New Ways to Protect Against Infectious Disease
Technology Category:Vaccines
Grant Summary: With evidence that RNA interference is a component of virus infection resistance, Andrew Fire of Stanford University will seek to understand how RNAi can function as a natural antiviral mechanism, and how such analysis can enable the design of antiviral interventions.

October 14, '08 - Worms' nervous system shown to alert immune system in Stanford studies
The nervous system and the immune system have something in common. Each has evolved to react quickly to environmental cues. Because the nervous system is able to detect some of these cues - say, a characteristic odor signaling a pathogen’s presence - at a distance, it sometimes can sense trouble earlier than the immune system, which has to wait until the pathogen invades the organism. So it makes sense that the two systems might talk to one another. Stanford University School of Medicine geneticists have shown that, indeed, they do. In a study published online Oct. 14 by the journal Nature Immunology, Man-Wah Tan, PhD, assistant professor of genetics and of microbiology and immunology, and postdoctoral scholar Trupti Kawli have shown that a change in the secretion patterns of nerve cells in the minuscule soil-dwelling worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, induces a change in the worm’s susceptibility to a bacterial pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In humans, P. aeruginosa is an important pathogen among cystic fibrosis patients and can cause pneumonia. (Full story)

September '08 - Dean Pizzo approved the appointment of two new Associate Directors for ITI: Garry Fathman, MD, representing autoimmune diseases, and Gary Schoolnik, MD, in the area of infectious diseases.  Garry Fathman has been involved with ITI since its inception and this nomination formalizes all that he has done over the years to unify and strengthen clinical immunology through the Center of Clinical Immunology at Stanford, which he founded with Carol and Harry Saal.  The other Associate Director is Gary Schoolnik known as one of the world's preeminent infectious disease experts, especially with respect to underdeveloped countries.  Currently, he is partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fight tuberculosis, which kills nearly two million people each year.

September 23, 2008 - Mark Genovese, Associate Professor of Medicine (Immunology and Rheumatology) will receive the Kunkel Young Investigator Award from the American College of Rheumatology at its national meeting in late October.

August 25, 2008 - Stanford - INFECTIONS LINKED TO PREMATURE BIRTHS MORE COMMON THAN THOUGHT, STANFORD STUDY FINDS
Previously unrecognized and unidentified infections of amniotic fluid may be a significant cause of premature birth, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.  An analysis of amniotic fluid from women in preterm labor indicated that 15 percent of the fluid samples harbored bacteria or fungi - an increase of 50 percent over previous estimates. The heavier the burden of infection, the more likely the women were to deliver younger, sicker infants.   "If we could prevent these infections in the first place, or detect them sooner, we might one day be able to prevent some of these premature births," said research associate Dan DiGiulio, MD, who conducted the study in the laboratory of senior author David Relman, MD. About 12 percent of all births in this country are premature and the frequency of premature birth is increasing.[Full story]

August 18, 2008 - Stanford - Embryonic stem cells trigger an immune response in mice, researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine report. The finding suggests that the effectiveness of human therapies derived from the cells could be limited unless ways are found to dampen the rejection response.[...]
“It’s getting harder and harder to believe that these cells are immunoprivileged,” said Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine and of radiology. “In fact, the rejection of these cells confirms our suspicions that they do cause an immune response.”
Embryonic stem cells form all cells in an embryo. Many researchers have suggested that these cells may receive a kind of “free pass” from the normally vigilant immune system in order to allow the growth of a fetus that contains both maternal and paternal genetic material. Such an immunological exemption could alleviate many concerns about using cells for therapy that don’t exactly match the recipient’s immune system—such as existing embryonic stem cell lines that are not directly derived from the recipient.
“We all want to know what’s going to happen if you transplant these stem cells into a person,” said Mark Davis, MD, PhD, the Burt and Marion Avery Family Professor and professor of microbiology and immunology. But because unmodified embryonic stem cells can cause cancer, the researchers transplanted the cells into mice rather than people. [Full Story]

August 12, 2008 - The Australian --Transplant patients may soon go steroid-free
A steroid-free drug regimen for kidney transplant recipients appears to be effective. Minnie Sarwal, associate professor of pediatrics with Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, led the research and is presenting her findings at a transplantation conference in Australia. [Full story]

July 9, 2008 - "High school students learn to be summertime scientists in top research labs"
Under the direction of  PJ Utz, MD, the summer research program is designed to bring bright students to Stanford for eight weeks, pair them with Stanford graduate students and postdoctoral scholars and make them part of real biomedical research. Full story

July 18, 2008 - Doctors Research Treatments fro Lupus.
For decades, doctors have been struggling to treat a debilitating disease that affects more than a million Americans, most of them women. The disease is lupus. But now Bay Area researchers may be closing in on the first new treatment for the disease in nearly half a century. [...] Researchers at Stanford University believe they may be close to new and effective treatments for the disease. In fact, it is the first truly new treatment for lupus in decades. "My personal goal, what I would like to see is to pick up these patients before they're patients, when we know there might be a high risk of developing the disease and try to cure them up front," said Dr. Paul Utz from Stanford University. Full Story

"My personal goal, what I would like to see is to pick up these patients before they're patients, when we know there might be a high risk of developing the disease and try to cure them up front," said Dr. Paul Utz from Stanford University.

June 18, 2008 - Researchers use math to predict how fast cells move.
Tiny motions of molecules can shape whole cells and determine whether they race around or crawl, according to School of Medicine researchers who have used mathematics to model cell movement for the first time. The researchers mathematically modeled the inner forces that morph and move cells by studying fish cells that trek through skin to heal wounds. Linking a whole cell's shape and movement to its molecular engines provides a foundation for researching important moving cells in humans, such as creeping cancer cells or rearranging cells in growing embryos, said Julie Theriot, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry and art of microbiology and immunology. (Full story)

June 3, 2008 - Young organ transplant patients can thrive without toxic anti-rejection drugs, Stanford/Packard study shows.  The novel approach abandons the long-held practice of using steroid drugs to tamp down the transplant recipient’s immune system. Omitting steroids avoids the problems of growth suppression, high blood pressure and rapid weight gain that go hand-in-hand with long-term use of the drugs. Instead, the treatment relies on the extended use of a different type of immune-suppressing medication, called daclizumab. The effect of the change on children in the study, some of whom were followed as long as eight years, is evident on many fronts.  We are seeing children grow as they were meant to grow,” said pediatric nephrologist Minnie Sarwal, MD, PhD, who devised the treatment in 1998. “Not only that, their organs are performing better and are less likely to be rejected.” [Full Story]

June 2, 2008 - Lucy Shapiro has been elected to the board of directors of Gen-Probe Inc. Shapiro is the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig professor of cancer research, associate chair of the Department of Developmental Biology, and director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine at Stanford University’s School of Medicine.

May 6, 2008, New York Times, Redefining Disease, Genes and All
Duchenne muscular dystrophy may not seem to have much in common with heart attacks. One is a rare inherited disease that primarily strikes boys.  The other is a common cause of death in both men and women.  To Atul J. Butte, they are suprisingly similar. Dr. Butte, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford, is among a growing band of researchers trying to redefine how diseases are classified — by looking not at their symptoms or physiological measurements, but at their genetic underpinnings. It turns out that a similar set of genes is active in boys with Duchenne and adults who have heart attacks. The research is already starting to change nosology, as the field of disease classification is known. Seemingly dissimilar diseases are being lumped together. What were thought to be single diseases are being split into separate ailments. Just as they once mapped the human genome, scientists are trying to map the “diseasome,” the collection of all diseases and the genes associated with them. This article discusses Butte's research and includes a photo.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/health/research/06dise.html? (registration required)

On April 29, 2008 the National Academy of Sciences elected five Stanford professors to its ranks, among them was Dr. Ronald Levy, the Robert K. and Helen K. Summy Professor in the School of Medicine, Chief of the Oncology Division.

On April 24 and 25, 2008 more than 200 people converged to the Clark Auditorium to attend the ITI Symposium on Basic Mechanisms in Immunity and Infection organized by Professor Hugh McDevitt. Speakers from Stanford, Harvard, MIT, the University of Washington, the University of Paris and Genentech highlighted several major advances in the understanding of the  genes and gene products which comprise the immune system and its normal response to foreign invaders and its aberrant response  in auto immune diseases.  The symposium was part of the Stanford School of Medicine Centennial week. See schedule here.

April 21, 2008 - Dr. Lucy Shapiro, the Virginia and DK Ludwig Professor of Developmental Biology and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies has been awarded the Charles and Martha Hitchcock Professorship for 2008-09 by the University of California (UC). Since it was established nearly a century ago, the Hitchcock Professorship has become one of the most distinguished endowments at UC and has featured a number of distinguished past winners such as Neils Bohr, Robert Oppenheimer, Noam Chomsky and Steven Chu.

April 20, 2008, Stanford — Chronic inflammation triggers bone marrow-derived blood cells to travel to the brain and fuse with a certain type of neuron up to 100 times more frequently than previously believed, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine. [...]
“This finding was totally unprecedented and unexpected,” said senior author Helen Blau, PhD, the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Professor and director of the Baxter Laboratory in Genetic Pharmacology. Please click HERE for the full story.

On March 1, 2008 the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection (ITI) awarded for the first time eight seed grants to faculty members in the School of Medicine. Each will receive $50K per year, for two years. The proposals selected for funding were interdisciplinary, disease focused and will make use of the newly established Human Immune Monitoring Center. The funding was gratefully provided by Dean Pizzo, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, and Dr. Galli from the Mary Hewitt Loveless Foundation for a proposal on a fatal allergic disease.  The winners are:

March 16, 2008 - Doctors may one day be able to detect early stages of colon cancer without a biopsy, using a new technique developed by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. This imaging technology is one of many new ways of detecting cancers in the body in real time, said Christopher Contag, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and of immunology, who led the study. Contag said he hoped it might be one of the first to be used routinely for early detection of cancer. “Detecting colon cancers is just the first step,” said Contag. He predicted similar techniques will eventually be able to find a wide range of cancers, monitor cancer treatment, and deliver chemotherapies directly to cancerous cells in the colon, stomach, mouth and skin. The study is published online in Nature Medicine.  [full story]

February 26, 2008 - A dozen guests, including community leaders and bio-tech professionals, visited the new Human Immune Monitoring Center (HIMC) for a tour led by Mark Davis, PhD, Director of the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, and David Hirschberg, PhD, Director of the Center.  After Dr. Davis shared his broad vision for the Center with the guests, Dr. Hirschberg described how the technologies assembled there should enable immunologists to understand the human immune system, to predict when autoimmune diseases may flare up, and to treat those diseases with much greater effectiveness. 

The HIMC was launched last year with a generous gift from the Hedco Foundation.

February 17, 2008 - Stanford researchers find protein targets for potential treatment of multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis is not a single condition, but an ebbing and flowing of stages affecting the body's central nervous system. Recognizing that pattern, researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified therapy targets that could lead to personalized treatments for patients at each phase of the illness. Essentially, the team cataloged all of the brain-tissue proteins that they found were distinct to three discrete stages of multiple sclerosis  "This is a gold mine," said Lawrence Steinman, MD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences. "Knowing what proteins are most important at a discrete stage of the multiple sclerosis process is the first step toward being able to 'personalize' treatment."        Steinman, whose team worked with researchers at the University of Connecticut Health Center, is one of two senior authors of the article that will be published in the Feb. 17 issue of the journal Nature. (click here for full article)

January 24, 2008 - New England Journal of Medicine, Larry Kowalski has been able to live two years free of immunosuppressive drugs thanks to researchesr at the Stanford School of Medicine.  The technique they developed is based on 25 years of research by Samuel Strober, MD, professor of immunology and rheumatology. The therapy was first developed in mice by Strober, the senior author of the study. In the last few years, Strober worked with Robert Lowsky, MD, associate professor of blood and marrow transplantation, to adapt this strategy from mice for human lymphoma and leukemia patients. The procedure combines localized blasts of irradiation and antibody treatments to tweak the recipient's immune cells. Then the recipient gets an infusion of blood cells from the donor. The procedure boosts levels of a type of immune cell called regulatory T cells. These cells function as the immune system's "peacekeepers" and can avert the attack that causes rejection. The journal issue also includes two reports from other research groups, describing their efforts to achieve organ transplantation without long-term immunosuppressive drugs.

January 16, 2008 - John Boothroyd, Professor, Microbioloty & Immunology, is the recipient of the Leuckart Medal from the German Society for Parasitology.  The medal is to be presented to Dr. Boothroyd during the annual meeting of the Society, this year held at the Bernhard-Nocht-Institute in Hamburg on March 5 -7, 2008.

January 2008, Edgar Engleman, Medical Director of the Stanford Blood Center, discusses his research involving the use of a special type of white blood cell as a treatment for cancer. Engleman, who is also a professor of pathology at the Stanford School of Medicine, and his team of researchers have been interested in dendritic cells, or DCs, which can provoke an immune response in the body. (click here for MEDCAST)

Immune System Cascade may prune brain synapses, for better or worse (Stanford Report, 1/9/2008)
In this article, Mitzi Baker talks about how School of Medicine researchers have now discovered how a growing child's brain begins to pare down neurons and connections until it develops into the streamlined brain of an adult.  Ben Barres, MD, Phd, professor of neurobiology, and his lab have found the sculptor behind that process: the immune system. (click here for article)

On December 13 and 14, 2007, ITI held its very first Symposium on Immune Monitoring at the Clark Auditorium.  It was a very interesting symposium with an excellent group of speakers.  See the agenda here.  Some presentations will be available here soon.

On November 12, 2007 doctors at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital successfully separated 2-year-old twin girls from Costa Rica who were conjoined at the chest and abdomen. ITI Associate Director, Carlos Esquivel, the Arnold and Barbara Silverman Professor in Pediatric Transplantation worked to separate the girls' livers. (click here for article)

On November 2, 2007 the division of blood and marrow transplantation (BMT) will be celebrating their 20th anniversary. They have transplanted more than 3400 patients since the program's inception and will likely reach 3500 on or around the anniversary date.

October 14, 2007: Blood test takes step toward predicting Alzheimer's. A team lead by Tony Wyss-Coray, PhD, associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences and senior author of the study, has developed a blood test that ia a step toward giving people an answer two to six years before the onset of the disease. (for the full article go to this URL)

On September 26 the Human Immune Monitoring Center (HIMC) celebrated its grand opening at its new location in CCSR in the School of Medicine.  It was also an opportunity to thank the generous donors to the HIMC:  the HEDCO Foundation, the Sidney Frank Foundation and the Becton Dickinson Corp.  The new lab is now open for business, providing a "one-stop-shopping" for a comprehensive assortment of the most advanced immunological tests available.

September '07 - Yueh-hsiu Chien, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, has been named the Burt and Marion Avery Professor in Immunology.  Chien is an internationally recognized leader in T lymphocyte biology. She is a foremost authority on a type of T cells known as the gamma delta T cell, which is one of the least understood components of the immune system.  Her work has systematically unraveled key attributes of gamma delta T cells, which has significantly broadened the knowledge of how adaptive immune receptors function.

August '07 - Mark Davis, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, has been named the Burt and Marion Avery Family Professor.   Davis, who is director of the Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, is known for his work on how T lymphocytes recognize foreign entities. He is a past chair of the Department of Microbiology & Immunology.  The professorship was established with assets from the Burt and Marion Avery Professorship in Immunology. The Avery chair was established in 1988 with a gift from the late Burt Avery and his wife, Marion. The Averys have ties to Stanford spanning three generations.

July '07 - The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) has just announced its 2008 award winner, including these Stanford recipients:  Dr. Garrison Fathman, Professor in Medicine, Immunology and Rheumatology, has been named as an ACR Master.


July '07 - Dr. Ann M. Arvin, Lucile Salter Packard Professor of Pediatrics, Vice Provost and Dean of Research and Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, has been elected to serve a four-year term on the NIAID Council.      

July '07 - Postdoctoral fellows Cara Pager, PhD, and Yu Wong, MD, PhD, were awarded three-year Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation fellowships.  Pager's sponsor is Peter Sarnow, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, and she will be studying the role of newly discovered small RNAs in the regulation of the hepatitis C virus.  Wong's sponsor is Mark Davis, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, and he will be developing a novel method to monitor the immune system in breast cancer patients with the goal of designing a targeted immuno-therapy.  The awards provide financial support to outstanding young scientists who are conducting theoretical and experimental research relevant to the study of cancer and the search for its causes, mechanisms, therapies and prevention.

July '07 - HHMI funds youth science programs
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has awarded the School of Medicine $750,000 over five years to increase youth interest in science.  The grant will create the school's first coordinated precollege science education program by tying together three existing outreach programs: the Stanford Medical Youth Science Program, the Center for Clinical Immunology's Summer Research Internship Program and the genetics department's "Stanford at the Tech" Program [...]
Twenty -four first -year participants will spend five weeks shadowing physicians, attending career development lectures and interning at hospitals through the youth science program directed by professor of medicine Marilyn Winkleby, PhD.  Returning students will conduct eight weeks of hypothesis-driven research with immunology graduate students under associate professor of medicine PJ Utz, MD, director of the immunology center's internship program [...].

June '07 - Baby poop give Stanford researchers inside scoop on development of gut microbes
Stanford, Calif. - Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine are as interested in a baby's poop as doting parents are, and for good reason. [...] The Stanford team, led by David Relman, has made the most extensive survey yet of how the microbes establish flourishing communities in what began as a sterile environment.  Their findings will be published in the July issue of Public Library of Science-Biology. (for the full article go to this URL)

June '07 - Stanford researchers clarify protein's role in multiple sclerosis
Stanford, Calif. - A protein found primarily in the lens of the eye could be the critical "tipping point" in the spiral of inflammation and damage that occurs in multiple sclerosis, researchers at the Stanford Schooll of Medicine report. (for the full article go to this URL)

June '07 - The Stanford University School of Medicine Award for Outstanding Service to Graduate Students was given to Karla Kirkegaard, PhD, professor and chair of microbiology and immunology.  This award, voted on by all graduating MS and PhD students and by the medical faculty, recognizes remarkable and extraordinary service on behalf of medical school graduate students.

May '07 - John C. Boothroyd, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, has been elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology. Boothroyd's research focuses on protozoan parasites and their interaction with human hosts. His laboratory's work has led to the development of several new methods for the diagnosis and treatment of parasitic disease. For the past several years, Boothroyd has focused on Toxoplasma gondii, a serious pathogen in the newborn and a major opportunistic infection of AIDS patients.

April '07 - ITI is happy to announce that Professor PJ Utz, MD, Associate Professor, Immunology & Rheumatology, has been nominated as the ITI Associate Director of Education. Dr. Utz has pioneered the CCIS/ITI Summer Student Intern Program. The Program was founded in 1998 for Bay Area High School Students interested in Biology.  This year the program will run from June 18 until August 10.  On August 9, 2007 there will be a poster session showing the excellent work of the interns.

April '07 - Dr. Harry Greenberg, Senior Associate Dean for Research and   Grant Professor of Medicine has just been voted the President-elect  of the American Society of Virology ? a great honor bestowed by a community of distinguished scientists. http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Harry_Greenberg/

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