Here’s to your health

Major grants help researchers take on serious diseases and urban-health crises

William Hancock wants to catch breast cancer sooner Northeastern is one of seven institutions sharing a new $15.5 million five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute to increase the understanding of cancer risk and detection. The university’s team is headed by William Hancock, chemistry and chemical biology professor and Bradstreet Chair at the Barnett Institute. Focusing on breast cancer, they hope to discover, develop, and clinically validate cancer biomarkers by targeting the carbo­hydrate part of a molecule. Biomarkers—body substances that measure biological processes—are sometimes complex carbohydrates. Studies comparing normal and tumor cells have shown that changes in the carbo­­hydrate structures of cells correlate with cancer development. The biological and chemical complexities of working with these structures had put a brake on investigations. But new technologies are spurring renewed interest. “We are excited to be working in this new and promising area of cancer research,” says Hancock, who’s eager to get the research to a point where it can benefit women. “Though the work is complex, we are focused on producing results quickly, taking our work from the lab to the clinic, where it can help to improve early detection and ultimately save lives.”

Hortensia Amaro works to make city dwellers healthier Northeastern’s Institute on Urban Health Research (IUHR), led by health sciences and counseling psychology professor Hortensia Amaro, is stepping up its efforts to address such urban health issues as HIV, AIDS, substance abuse, and mental illness, thanks to nearly $3 million in new grants. The grants will fund three new projects. Under the largest grant—$2.5 million from the Substance Abuse and Men­tal Health Services Adminis­tration—IUHR will work with the Boston Public Health Commission to develop an intensive outpatient treatment program to reduce HIV infection among African Amer­i­­­can and Latina women who also suffer from addiction, mental illness, and trauma. A smaller grant—implemented with Entre Familia, a residential treatment program—is aimed at decreasing substance abuse among pregnant and postpartum Latina women, as well as improving pregnancy and birth outcomes and parenting skills. Under the third grant, IUHR will work with Brig­ham and Women’s Hospital to develop a program to enhance HIV health promotion and intervention services. Overall, IUHR seeks to understand the social and environmental conditions of urban living in order to improve public health.

Barbara Waszczak seeks better Parkinson’s treatment Pharmacology professor Barbara Waszczak hopes to develop a quicker, easier treatment for Parkinson’s disease, with the help of a $75,000 grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Waszczak is attempting to create a nasal treatment for Parkin­son’s in place of the current treatment that requires a risky brain injection. The nasal treatment uses a therapeutic protein called GDNF (glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor), which can rescue and protect the dopa­mine neurons that become damaged in Parkin­son’s patients. (See Figuring It Out for a look at an undergraduate who’s helping in this work.) Though nasal delivery has been effective with other medications, this is the first time the treatment has been considered for Parkinson’s disease, says Waszczak.

Mansoor Amiji studies new ways to fight bowel disease Professor and associate chair of pharmaceutical sciences Mansoor Amiji is designing an oral medication to treat inflammatory bowel dis­ease, in the hope of replacing injections that often have toxic side effects. Thanks to a $1.34 million grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Dis­eases (part of the National Institutes of Health), Amiji, who codirects the university’s Nano­medi­cine Education and Research Consor­tium, is trying to encapsulate therapeutic DNA inside nanoparticles. These nanoparticles would be designed to interact only with particular intestinal enzymes, thus providing a finely targeted drug delivery system. “Oral gene delivery is the Holy Grail,” says Amiji, “with the potential to treat many different diseases.”