The Stuart D. Cook, MD, Master Educators’ Guild will hold the annual Academic Grand Rounds on Tuesday, September 16, in the Oral Health Pavilion of UMDNJ-New Jersey Dental School. Dr. M. Brownell Anderson, from the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, will speak on “Challenge and Change in Medical Education: What Does the 21st Century Hold?”
The program begins at 10:15 a.m. and will be followed by the induction of new members of the Guild and a reception. All are invited.
Dr. Deborah Toppmeyer, associate professor of medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and director of the LIFE (Ladies Professional Golf Association in the Fight to Eradicate breast cancer) Center at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ), is the lead researcher on a clinical study to investigate a new combination of chemotherapy drugs targeted to patients who have been diagnosed with previously untreated triple-negative metastatic breast cancer.
Women with triple-negative breast cancer have a shorter survival rate, and identifying better combinations of chemotherapy and novel biologic agents that are effective in this disease is critical. The researchers will examine how patients respond to treatment with a novel combination of three agents: doxil, carboplatin, and the anti blood vessel (anti angiogenic) biologic, bevacizumab.
An article by Dr. Sylvia Christakos, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, reports that vitamin D, the principal regulator of calcium in the body, may prevent the production of malignant cells and protect against specific autoimmune disorders, including multiple sclerosis (MS). The study is available online in the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry.
Christakos’ research shows the incidence of MS decreases as the amount of vitamin D available to the body increases, either through sunlight exposure or diet – noting the prevalence of the disease is lower in areas where fish consumption is high. Despite the evidence of the benefits relative to MS and other autoimmune diseases, Christakos cautions that further studies are needed to determine whether vitamin D alone or combined with other treatments is effective in individuals with active MS.
