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Frances Jensen, MD, Preventing brain damage in newborns
Complications in late pregnancy or a difficult birth can choke off the brain’s blood and oxygen supplies, causing chemical changes that over-excite cells in the baby’s developing, immature brain. This excitotoxicity, as it is called, causes brain cells to die and puts newborns at risk for long-term brain damage. Frances Jensen, MD, and colleagues in the Department of Neurology and Program in Neuroscience, have found that topiramate, an existing anticonvulsant drug approved for use in older children and adults, may prevent future neurologic problems by blocking excitotoxicity. In the May 5 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, they reported that topiramate prevented further damage in oxygen-deprived immature rats that had a pattern of brain injury resembling periventricular leukomalacia, a condition in premature babies that underlies cerebral palsy. A second study, in the June Epilepsia, found that newborn rats with seizures caused by oxygen deprivation (also a common cause of seizures in term newborns) were less seizure-prone later in life if treated with topiramate after the injury occurred. Jensen thinks her group's results may warrant clinical trials in newborns.
(l-r) Bekir Cinar, PhD, Michael Fannon, PhD, and George Naumov, PhD Children’s awarded half a million for prostate cancer research
The Department of Defense has awarded Children’s three grants for prostate cancer research. Totaling more than $500,000, the awards target innovative proposals from emerging scientists. A portion of each researcher’s work will take place in mice. George Naumov, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Vascular Biology Program, will study why some prostate tumors and tumor metastases remain small and dormant, while others grow aggressively. Michael Fannon, PhD, also in Vascular Biology, will test a two-drug treatment for prostate cancer that targets both the tumor cell and the blood vessels that support it. Bekir Cinar, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Urological Diseases Research Center, will explore the interplay between the male hormone androgen and cellular growth factors in promoting or suppressing prostate tumor growth.
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Beaker bytes will be a monthly column in Children’s News,
and we’d love to hear about your research! If you have received a
grant, launched a new study or have a paper accepted for
publication, contact Nancy Fliesler at ext. 5-2426 or via
email at nancy.fliesler@childrens.harvard.edu.
