Targeted treatment for stomach cancers; protest era re-created; smells like dirt
Improving treatments for stomach cancer
Alpert Medical School researchers have identified two molecular markers that may predict outcomes for patients with stomach
cancer, one of the most common and hard-to-cure cancers in the world. The discovery could eventually help physicians better determine and
individualize therapy for stomach cancer, including which patients
should be offered chemotherapy and other treatments in addition to
surgery. The lead author of the recent paper in Clinical Cancer Research is Steven Moss, associate professor of medicine and a gastroenterologist with Rhode Island Hospital.
Protest redux
Mark Tribe, assistant professor of modern culture and media studies, has organized reenactments of Vietnam-era speeches in different cities across the nation. Most recently, Tribe restaged a famous Cesar Chavez speech in Los Angeles, at the park where the speech was originally delivered. Is he making a statement about activism today? “As an art project,” Tribe says, “it does tread the line in an interesting and ambiguous way between performance art and political protest.”
Eau de mud
Brown researchers have unlocked the mystery of why soil smells the way it does by identifying two chemicals – geosmin and methylisoborneol – which, when combined, produce the aroma of earth. Professor of Chemistry David Kane and graduate student Chieh-Mei Wang scanned a database containing all 8,000 genes from a soil bacterium called Streptomyces in the search for the catalyst that forms the compound.
More research news items
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