eNewsletter - Education and Research

Consortium of Melanoma Centers of Pennsylvania advances prevention, treatment

Penn State Hershey Melanoma Center is leading a statewide collaboration designed to advance melanoma prevention and treatment. The Consortium of Melanoma Centers of Pennsylvania was established in February and includes melanoma centers and programs from Penn State, University of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson, The Wistar Institute, St Luke's Hospital, Temple University/Fox Chase and the University of Pittsburgh. The consortium is the first of its kind in the melanoma arena and will significantly advance efforts to prevent and treat melanoma.

The consortium serves as a resource for researchers, clinicians and melanoma patients. It provides its members with opportunities to collaborate, calling upon complementary expertise and resources to address many of the obstacles associated with this disease.

Clinicians from the consortium have access to melanoma patients from all sites for accrual to personalized therapeutic trials. Patients can also easily access up-to-date information regarding the latest clinical trials at each institution. The consortium also addresses legislative issues related to the disease and interacts with grassroots organizations and foundations.

For more information about the consortium, pennstatehershey.org/melanoma.

A faith-based study in rural Appalachia

The Northern Appalachia Cancer Network (NACN) and the Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute are partnering with churches in Pennsylvania to implement the Faith-based Initiative to Promote Health in Appalachia study.  This study utilizes the strengths of the faith-based community to promote health and raise awareness about cancer prevention and early detection.  The study is being done in collaboration with the Appalachia Community Cancer Network (ACCN) (U54 CA153604) and church in Kentucky, Virginia, Ohio and West Virginia. Throughout past projects, ACCN found collaborations with the faith community to be an effective way to reach a variety of community members, including men and women of all ages, individuals and families.

The primary endpoints of the study are body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, and blood pressure, with secondary endpoints related to physical activity, nutritional intake and cancer screenings. This project will enroll at least 20 churches in the five participating states. The churches are randomized into one of two arms of the study.  One arm (Walk By Faith) receives a multi-component program on healthy eating and physical activity.  The other arm (Ribbons of Faith) receives a cancer screening program.  The first 12 months of the study are an active intervention phase, followed by a 24-month sustainability phase.  When the sustainability phase is concluded, each arm will receive the effective components of both arms.  In Pennsylvania, the study began in February 2012 and is now entering the sustainability phase.  If the data support our original study hypothesis, the faith-based community will be an effective channel to address the obesity epidemic in rural Appalachia.

Provided by Eugene Lengerich, VMD, MS, Professor and Director, Community Sciences and Health Outcomes Core

Recruitment and retention of participants to Cancer Institute prevention studies

At Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute, researchers are dedicated to looking at precautionary measures in our fight against cancer.  We have developed cancer prevention studies that look at genetic, environmental, diet and lifestyle factors of our population. We need a high-level recruitment and retention of diverse populations to successfully complete these studies and avoid incorrect conclusions. High-levels of recruitment and retention of diverse populations also help studies be more efficient and less costly.1 However, in a review of randomized cancer studies, Gan et al (2012) found that cancer studies across the country frequently failed to reach their goal of recruitment and retention.2  The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported that this problem of low rates of recruitment and retention of participants to clinical trials is multi-faceted and recommended a comprehensive approach to recruitment and retention. Interestingly, the comprehensive approach starts with the public and community practitioners,3,4  which we have been developing at the Cancer Institute.

The Community Sciences and Health Outcomes (CSHO) Core has been working with Karam El-Bayoumy, Ph.D., and his team of investigators and the PSHCI Clinical Trials Office on recruitment and retention of participants to an NIH-funded randomized study of selenium supplementation for the prevention of prostate cancer.  The study looks at the impact of supplementation on markers of increased risk of prostate cancer.  Our community-based strategies have included: 1) monthly prostate cancer education sessions; 2) study materials tailored to specific populations; 3) engaging the Advisory Board of the Harrisburg Community Cancer Network to recruit participants; 4) holding information tables in the Penn State Hershey Medical Center cafeteria, hospital and Cancer Institute; 5) recruiting at local gyms, health fairs, primary care clinics, community events, annual cancer forums, and cancer survivors day celebrations; 6) conducting interviews on local African-American and gospel radio stations; 7) appealing to Harrisburg ministers to promote the study among member churches.

We were hopeful that these efforts would help satisfy our recruitment and retention goals.  However, these efforts still did not allow us to reach the goals. Potential participants expressed concern about the inconvenient location for sample collection, competing time demands, apprehension about research, and inadequate incentives. We are evaluating our methods to address these issues in future prevention studies. We have summarized these efforts in a white paper, which can be requested from Eugene Lengerich, V.M.D., M.S.  We are hopeful that these community-based efforts will help the Cancer Institute successfully conduct prevention studies in central Pennsylvania in the future.

Provided by Eugene J. Lengerich, V.M.D., M.S. and Karam El-Bayoumy, Ph.D.

  1. Demark-Wahnefried W, Bowen DJ, Jabson JM, Paskett ED. Scientific bias arising from sampling, selective recruitment, and attrition: the case for improved reporting. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. Mar 2011;20(3):415-418.
  2. Gan HK, You B, Pond GR, Chen EX. Assumptions of Expected Benefits in Randomized Phase III Trials Evaluating Systemic Treatments for Cancer. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. April 18, 2012 2012;104(8):590-598.
  3. Institute of Medicine. Envisioning a Transformed Clinical Trials Enterprise in the United States: Establishing an Agenda for 2020: Workshop Summary: The National Academies Press;2012. 9780309253154.
  4. Institute of Medicine. Public Engagement and Clinical Trials: New Models and Disruptive Technologies - Workshop Summary: Forum on Drug Discovery Development, Translation Board on Health Sciences Policy, 2011.

Faculty Grants (February – March 2013)

Primary Investigator Research Sponsor
Keith Cheng, M.D., Ph.D. Genetic Analysis of Skin Cancer Susceptibility Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Foundation
Karam El-Bayoumy, Ph.D. Chemoprevention by black raspberry in oral cancer induced by DB[a,l]P in mice National Cancer Institute
Harriet Isom, Ph.D. Cancer Control Program PA Department of Health
Christine Keating, Ph.D. Experimental Model Systems for Intracellular Compartmentalization National Science Foundation
Mark Kester, Ph.D. Novel Nanoparticle Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer National Cancer Institute
Leslie Parent, M.D. The Center for HIV RNA Studies (CRNA) NIH subcontract University of Michigan
Jeff Sample, Ph.D. Post-transcripted Mechanisms Regulating Epstein-Barr Virus Latent Infection Tobacco Settlement Funds
Jim Song, Ph.D. Impact of HER-2 Specific CTLs from Pluripotent Stem Cells on Breast Cancer Breast Cancer Alliance


 

Faculty Publications (February – March 2013)

  1. Allen, J. E., Krigsfeld, G., Mayes, P. A., Patel, L., Dicker, D. T., Patel, A. S., Dolloff, N. G., Messaris, E., Scata, K. A., Wang, W., Zhou, J.Y., Wu, G.S. and El-Deiry,W.S.  (2013). Dual Inactivation of Akt and ERK by TIC10 Signals Foxo3a Nuclear Translocation, TRAIL Gene Induction, and Potent Antitumor Effects. Sci Transl Med 5, 171ra117. 
  2. Cladel, N. M., Budgeon, L. R., Hu, J., Balogh, K. K., and Christensen, N. D. (2013). Synonymous codon changes in the oncogenes of the cottontail rabbit papillomavirus lead to increased oncogenicity and immunogenicity of the virus. Virology 438, 70-83.
  3. Feith, D. J., Pegg, A. E., and Fong, L. Y. (2013). Targeted expression of ornithine decarboxylase antizyme prevents upper aerodigestive tract carcinogenesis in p53-deficient mice. Carcinogenesis 34, 570-576.
  4. Hamed, O., Kimchi, E. T., Sehmbey, M., Gusani, N. J., Kaifi, J. T., and Staveley-O'Carroll, K. (2013). Impact of genetic targets on cancer therapy: hepatocellular cancer. Adv Exp Med Biol 779, 67-90
  5. Jones, S. A., and Hu, J. (2013). Protein-primed terminal transferase activity of hepatitis B virus polymerase. J Virol 87, 2563-2576.
  6. Li, F., Pang, X., Krausz, K. W., Jiang, C., Chen, C., Cook, J. A., Krishna, M. C., Mitchell, J. B., Gonzalez, F. J., and Patterson, A. D. (2013). Stable Isotope- and Mass Spectrometry-based Metabolomics as Tools in Drug Metabolism: A Study Expanding Tempol Pharmacology. J Proteome Res 12, 1369-1376.
  7. Nadaraia-Hoke, S., Bann, D. V., Lochmann, T. L., Gudleski-O'Regan, N., and Parent, L. J. (2013). Alterations in the MA and NC Domains Modulate Phosphoinositide-Dependent Plasma Membrane Localization of the Rous Sarcoma Virus Gag Protein. J Virol 87, 3609-3615. 
  8. Sharma, A., Madhunapantula, S. V., Gowda, R., Berg, A., Neves, R. I., and Robertson, G. P. (2013). Identification of Aurora Kinase B and WEE1 as Downstream Targets of (V600E)B-RAF in Melanoma. Am J Pathol 182, 1151-1162. 
  9. Sui, Y., Wu, W., Wang, Z., Wang, J., and Wu, R. (2013). A case-control design for testing and estimating epigenetic effects on complex diseases. Brief Bioinform. 
  10. Takahashi, Y., Young, M. M., and Wang, H. G. (2013). SNAPping off Golgi membranes for autophagosome formation. Cell Cycle 12, 15-16.
  11. Takeda, S., Noguchi, M., Matsuo, K., Yamaguchi, Y., Kudo, T., Nishimura, H., Okamoto, Y., Amamoto, T., Shindo, M., Omiecinski, C. J., and Aramaki, H. (2013). (-)-Xanthatin up-regulation of the GADD45gamma tumor suppressor gene in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells: Role of topoisomerase IIalpha inhibition and reactive oxygen species. Toxicology 305, 1-9.
  12. Tanos, R., Murray, I. A., Smith, P. B., Patterson, A., and Perdew, G. H. (2012). Role of the Ah receptor in homeostatic control of fatty acid synthesis in the liver. Toxicol Sci 129, 372-379.