SAFETY FIRST

The Injury Prevention Program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles hosted a free car seat check for families at the USC Child Care Center on June 21, as part of an effort to reduce the potential for accidental injuries. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, three of four car seats are installed incorrectly, so CHLA certified safety technicians checked car seats and reinstalled them to assure best placement — and also provided new ones when needed. … Read More »

July 12th, 2013|Announcements|

USC study sheds light on stem cell reprogramming

By Josh Grossberg

Researchers are learning how to turn regular cells into stem cells, a process called reprogramming. However, some of the mechanisms of the process remain unknown, such as why only a small proportion of the cells can be reprogrammed. Researchers have at least part of the answer: the structure of genes.

“Nobody knows anything about how the 3-D genome structure is reorganized during reprogramming,” said Wange Lu, associate professor at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “But we found out that it is a very important process. If the structure is not established correctly, the cells may cause diseases when they are used later in clinical applications.”

Lu and his team have made a series of discoveries that shed light on the process. Their findings have been published in the July issue of Cell Stem Cell. … Read More »

July 12th, 2013|Announcements|

NEWSMAKERS

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July 12th, 2013|Announcements|

PhD student’s research featured on journal cover

djs_blood_121_22_cover-sample1.inddZhengfei Lu, a PhD candidate in the lab of Michael Lieber, the Rita and Edward Polusky Professor in Basic Research at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, is the first author of a research study featured on the cover of the May 30 issue of Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology.  The paper is titled “BCL6 breaks occur at different AID sequence motifs in Ig–BCL6 and non-Ig–BCL6 rearrangements.”

According to Lu, “chromosomal rearrangements are common in human cancer.  By analyzing chromosomal break sequences collected from patients, we have discovered the fingerprints left by the process that caused the lymphoma. … Read More »

July 12th, 2013|Announcements|

USC research IDs potential treatment for deadly, HIV-related blood cancer

By Alison Trinidad

Researchers at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered a promising new way to treat a rare and aggressive blood cancer most commonly found in people infected with HIV.

The USC team shows that a class of drugs called BET bromodomain inhibitors effectively targets primary effusion lymphoma (PEL), a type of cancer for which those drugs were not expected to be effective. … Read More »

July 12th, 2013|Announcements|