Tumors and cancer cells are not the only villains in cancer. Two new studies illustrate how Wilmot Cancer Institute teams are working on ways to thwart the non-cancerous cells associated with tumors and the structures of the cancer or tumor microenvironment that help the cancer grow.

In a recent publication in the journal Gut, for example, a team showed that tumors of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (iCCA), a particularly lethal form of liver cancer, are comprised of a dense network of cells called TAMs (tumor-associated macrophages) that are non-cancerous and yet help create a surrounding inflammatory barrier that blocks the body’s natural disease fighters (such as T cells) from destroying the cancer. First author is Luis Ruffolo, a surgical resident at URMC.

The latest paper lays out how TAMs, which also play a role in pancreatic cancer, are recruited to the tumor site; it also demonstrates in mice that blocking those recruitment pathways depletes TAMs and allows T cells to activate against iCCA. Read more here.

Another team of Wilmot researchers hopes to lay the foundation for a novel cancer therapy that would uncouple the cancer from its microenvironment support system with funding from a UR CTSI Incubator Award.

The team, led by Michael W. Becker, dean’s professor of hematology/oncology at WCI, previously identified a set of immune signaling proteins, called IRAK1 and IRAK4, that enhance the collaboration between cancer cells and their microenvironment. These proteins are also key players in a signaling pathway that appears to promote cancer growth and contribute to therapeutic resistance in some cancers.

Rakesh K. Singh, research associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, created a new proprietary inhibitor, called UR241-2 that appears to be highly effective at inhibiting IRAK1/4 in solution.

For their UR CTSI-funded incubator project, the team is testing whether UR241-2 can also inhibit IRAK1/4 in cells and animals. Read more.

“For an economist whose research focuses primarily on labor economics, the past year and a half has been nothing short of astonishing,” writes Lisa Kahn, professor of economics, in Dean’s Corner blog from the Simon School.

She identifies three surprising ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has “reshaped the labor market landscape.”

• The labor market collapse was truly universal. The first wave of COVID, for example, “Truly capsized all boats,” Kahn writes. Mass layoffs were present across geography; broad job loss occurred across occupations.
• Employer-employee relationships remained intact even with temporary layoffs. “The phenomenon of temporary layoffs during the crisis is more widespread than any economist could have predicted,” Kahn writes. Because employers and employees voluntarily maintained ties, most employees returned to the positions they held prior to the pandemic.
• Labor demand is surging as labor supply lags behind. “During a typical recession, the number of people searching for work outstrips the number of jobs available,” Kahn writes. But that’s not happening now,  for reasons that are complex and evolving. Read more here.

Kathy Rideout, who sparked a period of growth and renewed prominence at the School of Nursing in more than a decade as dean, will step down as the school’s top leader effective June 30.

A member of the School of Nursing faculty for more than 35 years, Rideout was officially installed as the school’s fifth dean in 2012 after serving in an interim capacity the previous year.

She was named a vice president at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) in 2013 and was appointed to a second five-year term as dean in 2017. She will return to her role on the faculty as a professor of clinical nursing and pediatrics at the conclusion of the academic year.

A committee led by Eli Eliav, director of the Eastman Institute for Oral Health, will soon launch a national search for a new dean. Read more here.

Michael Giacomelli, at left, and Ranga Dias.

Michael Giacomelli, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, has been chosen as one of this year’s “Brilliant 10” by Popular Science magazine. The list recognizes early-career scientists and engineers who are developing ingenious approaches to problems across a range of disciplines. Giacomelli is developing novel technology that would enable surgeons to detect within minutes whether a potential nonmelanoma skin cancer is malignant and, if so, whether a surgery to remove it is successful. “We’re excited to see how Michael’s work to make microscopy more compact and accessible can help healthcare professionals address cancers more quickly,” says the magazine’s editor in chief, Corinne Iozzio. Learn more.

Ranga Dias, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has received a $1.6 million grant from the Gordan and Betty Moore Foundation to support his lab’s groundbreaking efforts to create viable superconducting materials. “There is very limited academic research being conducted in the US in superconducting materials at high pressures,” Dias says. To encourage more young scientists to focus on doing active research in this field, Dias will also use the award to conduct workshops to train students, postdocs, and other researchers how to use high-pressure techniques in their labs. Learn more.

Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was considerable discussion around the value of using preprint servers as a means to accelerate research, writes Daniel Castillo, Head of Scholarly Communication and Research Initiatives at the Medical Center’s Miner Libraries.

Michael Johansson and his colleagues explain the role preprints played in disseminating research during the Ebola and Zika outbreaks in their article Preprints: An underutilized mechanism to accelerate outbreak science.

This proved prescient, with researchers turning to preprint servers to share and discuss findings during the pandemic. medRxiv, a health sciences server run jointly by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Yale University, and The BMJ, has been a favorite platform for research dissemination during the pandemic, with over 2,000 studies being shared over the preprint server as of May 2021. Here is a collection of Covid-19 manuscripts on medRxiv and bioRxiv.

It is important to remember that preprints are unpublished works that have not yet undergone peer review.  According to medRxiv, all manuscripts are prescreened for “plagiarism, non-scientific content, inappropriate article types, and material that could potentially endanger the health of individual patients or the public” and additional screenings safeguard against content that might contribute to conspiracy theories.  Diana Kwon explains the screening procedures in this article from Nature, How swamped preprint servers are blocking bad coronavirus research.

There are some potential benefits to researchers considering submitting a paper to medRxiv:

• medRxiv offers direct transfer to several journals including some BMJ and PLOS titles (full list here).
• Direct transfer allows researchers to share their manuscript files and metadata from medRxiv with the journal.
• If the paper is accepted to a journal, medRxiv will link the published version to the preprint record allowing other researchers to find the peer reviewed version.
• medRxiv also allows for relevant comments giving researchers a chance to get early feedback on their manuscripts. medRxiv requires manuscripts to be submitted prior to journal acceptance and will not remove a manuscript that has been posted to their server.

You can check Sherpa Romeo to see if a journal allows for preprints before submitting.  Please contact your librarian at the Medical Center’s Miner Libraries or at the River Campus Libraries if you would like help submitting a manuscript.

Here are a few recent preprints by authors from the University of Rochester:

• Using Novel, Agent-Based Periodic Mobility Model with Super Spreaders to Analyze Vaccination Strategies for COVID-19
• Prevalence and Time of Diagnosis of Endometriosis across Racial and Ethnic Groups in the US
• Development and Validation of a Multivariable Risk Prediction Model for Sudden Cardiac Death after Myocardial Infarction (PROFID Risk Model): Study Rationale, Design and Protocol
• Special Issue: Demographic and Mental Health Assessments in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study: Updates and Longitudinal Trajectories

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PREPRINTS?

Save the date for an upcoming faculty panel, “Preprints in the Sciences: Friend or Foe,” at 4 p.m. on October 27. Registration opening soon, stay tuned!

The Empire Discovery Institute (EDI) is accepting applications for the 2021 Medicines Discovery Award Program through October 22.

EDI helps researchers design and conduct pre-clinical testing of promising compounds discovered in their laboratories. This creates a bridge between academia and the pharmaceutical industry at a critical interface that has traditionally hindered innovative academic research from maturing into viable drug candidates and life-saving medicines.

This award is open to investigators holding a full-time faculty position at Rochester.

EDI is interested in programs that:

Learn how Gary Morrow (Cancer Control, Radiation Oncology) and Karl Kieburtz (Neurology) became experienced multi-site clinical trialists and how Jill Cholette (Pediatrics) and Chris Palma (Allergy/Immunology and Rheumatology) started their careers as site investigators at a webinar hosted by the University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (UR CTSI) from 10 to 11 a.m., October 14.

Also, you can learn about all the University and UR CTSI resources for multi-site clinical trials.

After you register, you will get a confirmation email with the meeting zoom link with a link to add to your Outlook, Google or Apple calendar. If you have any questions for the panelists, please feel free to add your questions during registration.

Learn more and register here.