Prostate Cancer News Generally, tumor-suppressor genes stop working when mutations affect both gene copies. But a Temple research team studying a suspected tumor-suppressor gene called PPP2R2A found that most prostate tumors have only one functional copy. The team reconstituted the gene in defective prostate cancer (PCa) cells — and it blocked its growth in culture and in an animal model, indicating that these PCa cells have become hypersensitive to normal levels of the gene. “This is a very common genetic defect in PCa. If we could develop a drug to leverage this hypersensitivity, many patients could benefit,” says Xavier Graña, PhD, Professor at the Fels Institute for Cancer Research. The research, supported in part by the NIH, was published in Oncogenesis. Fox Chase Cancer Center and Uppsala University (Sweden) researchers contributed.
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TEMPLE PERFORMED MORE LUNG TRANSPLANTS THAN ANY OTHER HOSPITAL IN THE U.S.
New Affiliation for Lung Transplant
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emple University Hospital and St. Luke’s University Health Network (in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley), have developed a strategic affiliation for lung transplantation and advanced lung disease services that gives patients in the Lehigh Valley streamlined access to Temple’s lung transplant team and pulmonologists close to home, reducing much of the travel typically required of patients seeking highly specialized care. The program builds on a previously established affiliation between Temple and St. Luke’s for heart, liver, kidney, pancreas, and bone marrow transplantation. “This program offers many benefits to patients, including an experienced transplant team and a robust research program pioneering
methods to make donor organs more available and to reduce post-transplant complications,” says Michael Young, MHA, FACHE, Temple University Health System CEO. Temple’s lung transplant team includes internationally renowned pulmonologist Gerard Criner, MD, FACP, FACCP, and transplant surgeons Yoshiya Toyoda, MD, PhD, and Norihisa Shigemura, MD, PhD. Toyoda developed the antero-axillary approach in lung transplantation, a minimally invasive surgery that can help avoid many complications of the standard procedure. St. Luke’s University Health Network, which houses a regional campus of the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, includes ten hospitals and 300 outpatient sites across ten counties. SPRING 2020 | TEMPLE HEALTH MAGAZINE |
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