Naked mole rats—with their long life span of up to 30 years and remarkable resistance to age-related diseases—offer scientists key clues to the mysteries of aging and cancer.

That’s why biology professors Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov and postdoctoral associate Yang Zhao studied naked mole rats to see if the rodents exhibit an anticancer mechanism called cellular senescence—and, if so, “how the mechanism might work differently than in short-lived animals, like mice,” says Zhao, the lead author of the study, which as been published in PNAS.

Cellular senescence is an evolutionary adaptation that prevents damaged cells from dividing out of control and developing into full-blown cancer. However, senescence has a negative side too: by stopping cell division in order to prevent potential tumors, it also accelerates aging.

Previous studies indicated that when cells that had undergone senescence were removed from mice, the mice were less frail in advanced age as compared to mice that aged naturally with senescent cells intact.

Researchers therefore believed senescence held the key to the proverbial fountain of youth; removing senescent cells rejuvenated mice, so perhaps it could work with human beings. Companies began investigating drugs—known as senolytic agents—that would kill senescent cells and translate the anti-aging effects to humans.

But is eliminating senescence actually the key to preventing or reversing age-related diseases, namely cancer?

“In humans, as in mice, aging and cancer have competing interests,” Gorbunova says. “In order to prevent cancer, you need to stop cells from dividing. However, to prevent aging, you want to keep cells dividing in order to replenish tissues.”

In their recent study, Zhao, Seluanov, Gorbunova, and their collaborators compared the senescence response of naked mole rats to that of mice, which live a tenth as long—only about two to three years. “We wanted to look at these animals that pretty much don’t age and see if they also had senescent cells or if they evolved to get rid of cell senescence,” Seluanov says.

Their unexpected discovery? Naked mole rats do experience cellular senescence, yet they continue to live long, healthy lives; eliminating the senescence mechanism is not the key to their long life span. However, the researchers found that although naked mole rats exhibited cellular senescence similar to mice, their senescent cells also displayed unique features that may contribute to their cancer resistance and longevity.

The cellular senescence mechanism permanently arrests a cell to prevent it from dividing, but the cell still continues to metabolize. The researchers found that naked mole rats are able to more strongly inhibit the metabolic process of the senescent cells, resulting in higher resistance to the damaging effects of senescence.

Read more here.

The University is making plagiarism detection software available to its faculty and researchers to use on a voluntary basis.

iThenticate, used by federal funding agencies and major publishers, allows researchers to easily upload and scan documents, manuscripts, research, and other professional works, which are then compared against more than 72 billion active and historical archived web sites, 165 million offline publication articles, and several major library networks.

“It is very robust,” says Gunta Liders, the associate vice president for research administration.

The decision was made after a review of University policies in light of “some pretty high-profile instances of research misconduct” at other prestigious schools the last couple of years, she says.

“Our policies are solid, and we’ve got great responsible-conduct-of-research classes for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs,” she says. However, iThenticate offers an added layer of protection against deliberate or inadvertent instances of plagiarism, which can result in time-consuming investigations, possible loss of federal funding, and “reputational harm to both the individual and institution,” she says.

iThenticate is also used by:

• The federal agencies that fund most of the University’s research, including the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation.
• Most of the University’s peer institutions. “They are very happy in terms of how it works and ease of use,” Liders says.
• All of the major publishers of research journals.

“We are really encouraging our faculty to use this for grant applications, and for papers submitted to journals,” Liders says.

For now, the software will be available only to faculty members and researchers. Postdocs and graduate students who wish to use iThenticate should do so through their faculty advisor.

Click here to register. Documentation and training materials are available on the iThenticate website. Questions about creating an account can be addressed to iThenticate@rochester.edu.

Wilmot Cancer Institute patients with advanced melanoma (stage III) now have more options for treatment, thanks to research co-authored by a Medical Center surgical oncologist and published in Lancet Oncology.

The study involved comparing two treatment approaches for high-risk melanoma patients with a BRAF gene mutation in their cancer: standard care, which calls for upfront surgery, or giving a two-drug, targeted therapy regimen before surgery and again afterward.  Patients in the latter group had longer disease-free survival in the Phase 2 trial, and after seven months researchers halted the study earlier than expected due to the positive results.

“What’s so exciting is that neo-adjuvant therapy (giving a cancer drug before surgery) had never been done before in melanoma,” said Peter Prieto, assistant professor of surgery and oncology, who helped to lead the study when he was completing a fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He joined the faculty in Rochester last year.

“And in this trial we not only saw that patients receiving the neoadjuvant therapy were doing much better, but 58 percent of them had a complete pathologic response. That means that when their tumor was removed it had no viable cancer cells in it,” Prieto said.

Read more here.

Researchers at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) have created a two phase assessment process to help academic health centers map, track, and bolster their community engagement efforts. Teams at several institutions piloted the process and reported that it was easy to adapt to their individual needs and helped them identify gaps in their resources for community engagement.

As health care shifts from traditional disease treatment models to broader population health approaches, is imperative that research teams engage with communities to understand their needs and develop projects that will address issues affecting their well-being. While community engagement is increasingly important, academic health centers struggle to demonstrate the effectiveness of their community-engaged activities.

The CTSI pilot study was led by Karen Vitale, network coordinator in the Center for Community Health and Prevention, and Gail Newton, former director of Community Health Partnerships at the Medical Center. The pair recruited seven other academic health centers to assemble community engagement-savvy teams and test out the tool, which includes two self-assessment surveys.

The Institutional Community Engagement (ICE) Self-Assessment, which was developed at Rochester, helps institutions map their community engagement activities by structure, process, and outcome measures. This assessment helps put each institution’s community engagement activities into context and creates a baseline for tracking their progress over time.

The Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) Self-Assessment identifies existing resources for community engagement. Institutions evaluate the level of commitment to community engagement of their leadership, faculty, students, and community. It also assesses the institution’s capacity for community engagement scholarship and identifies opportunities for action.

Read more here.

The Furth Fund, established in 1986 by Valerie and Frank Furth, provides early career scientists with $10,000 in research funds to help foster the development of promising scientists.

Nominees should be junior, tenure track faculty appointed in natural or biological science departments within Arts, Sciences, and Engineering or the School of Medicine and Dentistry who have been hired within the past three academic years.  Preference will be given to nominees who wish to use the award to support the active engagement of graduate students or postdocs in their research.

Additional information about the Furth Fund may be found here.

The Center for Urban Education Success (CUES) at the Warner School will present a spring 2018 symposium, All In: When Theory Meets Practice in Education Reform.

The symposium will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, April 28 at East High School.

Focused on the task of improving educational experiences for all members of school communities—students, teachers, families, and staff—the symposium will feature a series of sessions where teachers and practitioners discuss common problems of practice with the intent of deepening understanding of those problems, identifying solutions, and sharing effective practices. The event is free and open to the public. Read more.

Daniel Brooks, Optics, “Design of Intra-Tissue Refractive Index Shaping Systems and Their Implementation in Creating Refractive Structures in Live Cats.” 9 a.m. February 23, 2018. Goergen 109. Advisors: Jonathan Ellis and Wayne Knox.

Ethan Burnham-Fay, Mechanical Engineering, “Vibration of Stabilization of NIF Scale Cryogenic Direct Drive Targets.” 1:30 p.m., February 23, 2018. Hopeman 224. Advisor: Jonathan Ellis.

Michelle Warren Millar, Genetics, “The Adhesion GPCR, GPR56/ADGRG1, Inhibits Cell-ECM Signaling to Prevent Metastatic Melanoma Growth.” 1 p.m. February 27, 2018. Medical Center 1-7619 Lower Adolph. Advisor: Lei Xu.

Min Tian, Pathology, “An Nrf1 and Nrf2- related transcription factor, Cnc-C, mediates multiple stress responses in Drosophila melanogaster.” 2: 30 p.m., March 1, 2018.  Medical Center 1-7619 Lower Adolph. Advisor: Dirk Bohmann.

Rafael Gil de Rubio, Pharmacology, “The Role of PLC-Dependent Hydrolysis of Phosphatidylinositol 4-Phosphate in Signaling and Disease.” 2 p.m., March 5, 2018. Medical Center Ryan Case Method Room (1-9576). Advisor: Alan Smrcka.

Charles Owen Smith, Biochemistry, “KNa1.2 as a Cardiac Mitochondrial Potassium Channel with Metabolic Impact on Energy Usage.” 9:30 a.m., March 6, 2018. Medical Center Neuman Room (1-6823). Advisor: Paul Brookes.

Today: PONS Luncheon Roundtable Series: Modeling Sensory Processes and Dysfunctions. Current neural circuitry research at the University, with expert panelists Tania Pasternak,  Ed Lalor, and Krishnan Padmanabhan (Department of Neuroscience). Noon, Medical Center Natapow Conference Room (1-9545). Refreshments provided. For more information on upcoming neuro-related events, go to http://blogs.rochester.edu/pons/.

Today: Center for Integrated Research Computing (CIRC) symposium. Zhengwu Zhang from the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology will discuss a state-of-the-art structural connectome processing pipeline and a novel dimensionality reduction technique for showing relationships between connectome structure and various human traits. Andrew Owens from the Department of Economics will demonstrate results from asking the question whether consumers pay higher prices at the grocery store after moving to a new location. 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wegmans Hall 1400. Lunch will be provided.

Feb. 19: Documentary Attunements: From Voice to Audibility. Lecture by Pooja Rangan, assistant professor of English and film and media studies at Amherst College, followed by light dinner and a screening of Goodbye CP/Sayonara CP by director Kazuo Hara. 5 p.m. Humanities Center, Room D. Free and open to the public. RSVP via Facebook

Feb 23: Deadline to apply for University Research Awards. The Request for Proposals and application are available here. Completed applications should be directed to adele.coelho@rochester.edu.

Feb. 23: Deadline to apply for AS&E PumpPrimer II Awards, which provide seed money to stimulate extramural funding for innovative and high-risk projects otherwise difficult to launch. Faculty in Arts & Science should refer questions to Debra Haring, and those in Engineering to Cindy Gary.

March 1: “Doing Better Next Time: Policy Lessons from the Great Recession and Not-So-Great Recovery.” Presented by Narayana Kocherlakota, Lionel W. McKenzie Professor of Economics. Phelps Colloquium Series. 4-5:30 p.m., location TBD. Click here to register.

March 2: Deadline to apply for Bridging Fellowships from the Provost’s Office. Direct questions on the fellowship and application process to Marisa Wilson.

March 5: Applications due for pilot and feasibility awards of up to $50,000 for basic science and translational projects that advance our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, through the Rochester Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, in conjunction with the Ernest J. Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience. Click here for additional information and RFA.

March 19: Deadline to submit nominations for the Furth Award, given to junior, tenure track faculty appointed in natural or biological science departments within Arts, Sciences, and Engineering or the School of Medicine and Dentistry.  Read more here.

April 12: “The American Health Paradox: What’s Missing?” Presented by Nancy Bennett, professor of medicine and public health sciences, director of the Center for Community Health, and co-director of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Phelps Colloquium Series. 4-5:30 p.m., Helen Wood Hall. Click here to register.

April 20-21: UpStat 2018: Better Living Through Statistics conference. A friendly and empowering annual gathering of statisticians, applied mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers, and data scientists from upstate New York and its neighboring regions. We are interested in contributions to statistical methodology as well as to statistical practice, consulting, and education. Read more.

April 28: All In: When Theory Meets Practice in Education Reform. Symposium sponsored by the Warner School Center for Urban Education Success (CUES). 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., East High School. Free and open to the public. Read more.