Summertime, and the Science is Youthful

For the 47th year, HMRI researchers provided laboratory space, equipment and instruction to college science students from the Pasadena area during the summer.  Eight outstanding students were selected in 2002.

Michael G. Harrington, M.D., director of the Molecular Neurology Laboratory, heads the program, which is supported in part by the Mitchell B. Howe and Lucile H. Howe Foundation, the Altadena Guild, the Lluella Morey Murphy Foundation, Adelaide Hixon and an anonymous donor.  "This funding is crucial,"  Dr. Harrington said, "so students can continue to pursue their interest in science and we can benefit from their contributions to our research projects."

In the Molecular Neurology Laboratory , Blake Caldwell, a sophomore at John Hopkins University, used literature review and some technology to study iron and copper metabolism in the brain and how migraine is related to compounds of these metals.  He aimed to learn about various factors and processes that cause different types of migraines. Blake states that he is interested in physiological psychology, both clinically and in research.

This was the second summer in the Molecular Neurology Lab lab for Angela Giron, who studied correlations between migraines and sex hormones.  She did background research on the roles of estrogen and progesterone as causes of migraine, and where in a woman's menstrual cycle the headaches attacked.  This research is a prelude to future analysis of sex hormones in migraines.  A senior molecular biology major at Princeton, Angela hopes to go to medical school and to develop an affiliation with a medical research group.  She says that working at HMRI has given her new perspectives on clinical medicine and research.

James Mac Laughlin, a senior psychobiology major at Occidental College, helped Dr. Harrington as a volunteer during the 2001-2002 school year collecting CSF, blood and urine samples from volunteers in the migraine study program.  During the summer, he also spent time at Caltech under the supervision of Nathan Dallaska, Ph.D., learning to use a mass spectrometer to analyze the contents of these fluids.  "It's a very time-consuming process," James, who is considering pursuing a  Ph.D.  "I really enjoyed working with everyone at HMRI and attending the weekly seminars."

Dominique Yang is an economics and pre-med major in her senior year at Columbia University. She worked with Brian D. Ross, M.D., D.Phil., director of the MR Spectroscopy Laboratory, where she had two projects.  The first was to determine the precision of single - vs. multi-voxel MRS techniques in examining the brains of normal persons.  A single voxel represents about 8 cubic centimeters of tissue, while multi-voxels cover a much larger area and produce multiple spectra.  She examined the brain spectra of normal patients, looking at shifts in the amount of brain metabolites for each different MR spectrum in the same patient.  Then she calculated how much the numbers differ from each other, computed the accuracy of the single-voxel method, and compared the patient's numbers with those obtained in the multi-voxel exam.  Her work was published as a Proceedings of the Los Angeles Radiological Society in February 2003 and is part of a larger study which is in preparation for publication.

She also worked with Kamini Patel, a computer specialist at the MRS clinic, comparing MRS diagnoses of Alzheimer's patients who have since passed away with their final autopsy diagnosis, and noting whether or not Alzheimer's was detected.  This work was presented as a poster at the International Alzheimer's Association Congress in Stockholm in August.  Dominique plans to go to medical school, then combine a clinical practice with research.

Neil Desai and Christiane Abouzeid worked in the Gene Therapy Laboratory, directed by Ashraf Imam, Ph.D.  Together, they studied four tumor suppressor genes which have an effect on different types of cancer.  They studied breast cancer, preparing slides from cancerous and non-cancerous tissue, using immunohistochemical techniques, staining cells with protein-specific dyes and examining these tissues under a light microscope.  They found that proteins produced by these tumor suppressor genes developed color in normal cells, but in cancer cells the color disappeared.  Dr. Imam's lab is working on the epigenetic mechanism of what causes these genes to shut down in cancer cells.

Neil is a sophomore at Dartmouth College and has always been interested in science - in school, in the laboratory and in what is reported in the news - and is considering a career in medical research.  Christiane, a UC Berkeley sophomore, is majoring in general biology, with the hope of earning an MD-PhD degree.  "This program has opened up new ideas for me," she said.

Christine Ghatan worked in the Cell Culture Laboratory, headed by Marylou Ingram, M.D.  Using the HMRI bioreactor, she cultured three-dimensional cells that grew into three-dimensional structures called "histoids," a name coined by Dr. Ingram's group.  Histoids look like regular tissue and are expected to prove useful as tissue standards for surgical pathology diagnosis.  These particular histoids are made from human prostate and breast cell lines, some cancerous and some not.  By selecting appropriate cell lines, "designer histoids" that express specific proteins can be produced.  "Histoids are a new chapter in tissue culture - it's still a young technology," Christine said.  She is a Stanford sophomore in pre-med and says, "I had no idea I'd learn so much.  It's beyond my expectations!"

At the Magnetoencephalography (MEG) lab, Alex Ossadtchi, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering at USC, wrote a program that can quickly and easily detect spikes seen in the MEG and EEG (electroencephalogram) data of epilepsy patients.  Spike localization is necessary to find the focus of epilepsy in patients who will undergo brain surgery.  MEG measures magnetic fields of the brain and needs no direct contact with the patient's head.  EEG measures electric currents in the brain with electrodes affixed to the scalp.  Until the introduction of Alex's program, technicians and physicians in the MEG lab, directed by William Sutherling, M.D., had to laboriously look at each page of MEG and EEG data, which took about a day per patient.  Dr. Sutherling says there are other such programs on the market, but none as good as the one devised by Alex, which will be published soon.

Alex is a Russian citizen with an M.S. in electrical engineering from Bauman Moscow State Technical University. At USC he works with Richard Leahy, Ph.D., director of its Signal and Imaging Processing Institute, and he continues to devote time to the MEG lab.  He hopes to return to Russia to teach in a university.

Reporter: Ann Riordan

HMRI Summer Students 2002

STUDENT, SCHOOL, LABORATORY

Christiane Abouzeid, UC Berkeley, Gene Therapy

Blake Caldwell, Johns Hopkins, Molecular Neurology

Neil Desai, Dartmouth, Gene Therapy

Christine Ghatan, Stanford, Cell Culture

Angela Giron, Princeton, Molecular Neurology

James Mac Laughlin, Occidental, Molecular Neurology

Alex Ossadtchi, USC, Epilepsy and Brain Mapping

Dominique Yang, Columbia, Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy