RESEARCH ROUNDUP

Blood studies get $7.8 million

A team of scientists at the Medical Center has received a five-year, $7.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the interactions between blood cells and blood vessel walls over a five-year period.

The research team will study the ways in which red and white blood cells respond to signals generated by infection or injury, and how these responses affect cell properties and blood flow in the smallest blood vessels in the body. Scientists expect these studies will lead to new therapies for cardiovascular disease, cancer metastasis, and other related illnesses.

The team is composed of Richard Waugh and Ingrid Sarelius from the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Philip Knauf from the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, several other University researchers, and collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania.

HIV survivors could see heart woes

Remarkable new combination therapies are rapidly transforming HIV infection from a fatal illness into a chronic condition, and those longer survival rates may lead to an epidemic of cardiac disease among long-term HIV survivors.

So says Steven Lipshultz, chief of pediatric cardiology at Children's Hospital at Strong, in an editorial published in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Impressive new treatment regimens can now drive the virus to undetectable levels, but they are still not a cure," Lipshultz said. "Studies have shown an unmistakable linkage between HIV infection and the development of deadly heart conditions.

"The fact is that the longer you live with HIV and the more advanced the disease becomes, the greater your chance of sustaining heart damage."

Experts estimate that within two years, as many as 70 million people throughout the world will have been infected with HIV.

"If 20 percent develop heart disease, the result will be staggering," Lipshultz said.

Strides made to treat mental illness

National and local experts gathered in Rochester last week to mark the 10th anniversary of Strong Ties, a program praised by mental health professionals across the nation as a leader in the care, teaching and research of severe mental illness.

In the last few years, tremendous advances have been made in the treatment of severe mental illness, which includes manic depression, schizophrenia, and recurrent major depression. New and more effective antipsychotic medications, such as Clozaril and Zyprexa, are vastly superior and cause fewer serious side effects than previous medications on the market, said J. Steven Lamberti, director of Strong Ties.

Major advances have also been achieved in assisting families, in treating addictions, and in helping people with mental illness succeed in school and work through psychiatric rehabilitation.

"Severe mental illness is a major public health problem," said Lamberti. Only 60 percent of those with severe mental illness receive treatment, he added, and 2.2 million severely mentally ill adults in the United States are not getting help.