For music teacher Dan Fabbio, the good news was that the tumor in his brain appeared to be benign. The bad news: it was located in a region that is known to be important for music function.

Fortunately, he was referred to the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience. There, a team reflecting the University’s strengths in medicine, brain and cognitive sciences, and music devised a treatment plan tailored to Fabbio’s individual needs – culminating with him awake and playing a saxophone as surgeons successfully operated on his brain.

The team included neurosurgeon Web Pilcher and Brad Mahon, an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences, who have developed a Translational Brain Mapping program for patients who have to undergo surgery to remove tumors and control seizures.

“Everybody’s brain is organized in more or less the same way,” says Mahon. “But the particular location at a fine grain level of a given function can vary sometimes up to a couple centimeters from one person to another.  And so it’s really important to carry out this kind of detailed investigation for each individual patient.”

Mahon and his team subject each individual to a battery of tests, including brain scans that identify important functions – such as motor control and language processing – that may be located in proximity to the tumor and potentially impacted by the surgery.

Doing this for musical ability, especially in a trained musician, was a different undertaking altogether, however. So Mahon reached out to Elizabeth Marvin, a professor of music theory at the Eastman School of Music who also studies music cognition – the ability of our brains to remember and process music.

The two developed a series of cognitive musical tests that Fabbio could perform while the researchers were scanning his brain.  Using this information the research team produced a highly detailed three-dimensional map of Fabbio’s brain with both the location of the tumor and music function.

Pilcher and the surgical team used the map to guide them during the surgery.  They also reconfirmed what the brain scans showed them by delivering – during the procedure – a mild electrical stimulus that temporarily disrupts a small area of the brain.  While this was occurring, Fabbio was awake and repeating the humming and language tasks he performed prior to the surgery.   Marvin was present in the OR and scored his performance to let the surgeons know whether or not they had targeted an area that disrupted music processing and, therefore, should be avoided during the procedure.

Once the tumor had been removed the surgeons gave the go ahead to bring over the saxophone and let Fabbio play.  “It made you want to cry,” said Marvin.  “He played it flawlessly and when he finished the entire operating room erupted in applause.”

Fabbio has completely recovered, and returned to teaching music within a few months of his surgery.

While the brain mapping program’s primary purpose is to help improve surgical outcomes, the information that the researchers gather before, during, and after the surgery is also helping advance understanding of the complexities of the brain’s structures and function.

Read more here.

(Over the last 20 years, researchers have been uncovering the complexity of lymphoma and the challenges it presents for treatment. The lymphoma program at Wilmot Cancer Institute is helping lead the search for answers. This is the second installment based on a story at the institute’s Dialogue Blog.)

At Wilmot, specialized pathologists are looking at ways to discern why some lymphomas that seem similar can behave so differently. They are studying lymphoma’s genetic fingerprints and other molecular features to understand their influence on treatment and prognosis.

“It’s like looking at spots on a dog,” says hematopathologist Andrew Evans. “On the outside, a Dalmatian looks different than a cocker spaniel, but you need to understand inside what makes them different biologically.”

Evans, hematopathologist Richard Burack, and their colleagues are approaching this from a number of angles. They are looking to identify molecular changes that could signal when a low-grade lymphoma will become more aggressive. They are examining lymphomas at different points in time and from different locations in the body to understand how the disease changes and interacts with their environment.

“We need to understand lymphoma at a finer level,” Evans says.

That understanding is driving a shift away from one-size-fits-all treatment, as investigators find new ways to undermine the cancer’s survival mechanisms.

“The better we understand all of the different lymphomas, the more we recognize that the treatment approaches need to be personalized,” says Louis “Sandy” Constine, a Wilmot radiation oncologist who helps lead national and international committees dedicated to developing criteria and guidelines for using radiation therapy to treat lymphoma. “This is a dynamic field with new discoveries that open doors for new approaches to treatment.”

One example is chronic lymphocytic leukemia, also called small lymphocytic lymphoma in some patients. CLL is the most prevalent form of blood cancer in the United States. Until a few years ago, it was a devastating disease for patients who didn’t respond to standard chemotherapy.

Through participation in national clinical trials, Wilmot contributed to the development of three drugs that have revolutionized the treatment of CLL. These drugs — ibrutinib, idelalisib and venetoclax — work by interfering with the lymphoma cells’ ability to grow unchecked. They were given accelerated approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the last two years after nationwide clinical trials.

University biochemist Lynne E. Maquat, winner of the 2018 FASEB Excellence in Science Award, is known around the world for her pioneering work on nonsense-mediated mRNA decay, which is critically important in both normal and disease states.

And yet, “when I was in fourth grade my teacher told my mother she didn’t think I was college material,” Maquat recalls in an interview with Emily Boynton.  “Actually, I would clam up in class when that teacher called on me because I was afraid of her. I’m the first person in my family to go to college.”

Click here to read more about how Maquat overcame her own shyness and made her mark in a field where “there were very few female scientists and many male scientists who believed women didn’t belong.”

Hyekyun Rhee, a professor and Endowed Chair of Nursing Science at the School of Nursing, who has been selected to receive the 2017 Distinguished Nurse Researcher Award from the Foundation of New York State Nurses. The award honors nurse researchers who conduct studies that contribute to the advancement of nursing and patient care. Rhee’s line of research has focused on using technology and peer dynamics to improve asthma outcomes in adolescents. She has helped to develop an award-winning wearable device that records and analyzes symptom patterns and triggers, leading to better self-management of the condition. She is conducting a clinical trial evaluating a peer-led asthma self-management program for inner-city teens in Buffalo, Baltimore, and Memphis. She has also been developing a clinical study of an interactive text messaging system to help teens and their parents with daily asthma management and facilitate parent-teen partnerships through information sharing in a timely manner. Read more here.

William Bridges has joined the Department of Modern Languages and Culture as an assistant professor of Japanese. Bridges, who received his PhD in East Asian studies from Princeton University in 2012, studies the ebb and flow of black people, thought, and culture throughout the Pacific. His previous research has investigated the place of fiction in the construction of racial and ethnic identities. Bridges served on the faculty at St. Olaf College from 2012 to 2015 and at the University of California-Irvine from 2015 to 2017.

The School of Medicine and Dentistry’s Scientific Advisory Committee announces the 2017 request for applications for the Incubator Program.

The program fosters the establishment of extra-murally funded interdisciplinary collaborations in biomedical research. The award has a maximum funding level of $125,000 per year for each of two years beginning July 1, 2018.

Initial abstracts are due on November 13. Find more details and application instructions online.

Woon Ju Park, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, “A Mechanistic Understanding of Atypical Visual Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder.” 1 p.m., September 6, 2017. 269 Meliora Hall. Advisor: Duje Tadin.

Today: Deadline to apply for pilot funding from The Rochester Aging Research Center for projects in basic or geriatric aging research. Contact Dirk Bohmann or Anne Reed for more information.

Today: Deadline to submit initial applications for Environmental Health Sciences Center pilot project awards. For more information, contact Michael O’Reilly  or Pat Noonan-Sullivan, or go to the EHSC website.

Sept. 4: Series of talks by leading computer science theoreticians honoring Joel Seiferas, professor emeritus of computer science. Click here for more details.

Sept. 12-14: Light and Sound Interactive conference, trade show, career fair, and presentations focusing on eight emerging technologies: virtual and augmented reality, games and interactive media, cinema, music and audio engineering, imaging, displays and lighting, health care, and optics and photonics. Riverside Convention Center. Click here for updates as new keynote speakers and events are added.

September 13:  Humanities Center Welcome Back reception.  Enjoy refreshments, greet colleagues, and learn about programming for the coming year.  5 p.m. Humanities Center Lounge.

Sept. 17: Celebrating a Community of Diverse Students and Trainees at URMC. 1 to 4 p.m., Canalside Shelter, Genesee Valley Park. The event, for students, trainees and their families, is sponsored by the Medical Center, and includes food, fun, and games. Click here to RSVP by September 8.

Sept. 25: Conference: The Road from Nanomedicine to Precision Medicine. Networking opportunities for physicians, scientists, engineers, lawyers, business professionals, technology transfer specialists, policy makers and venture capitalists from government, academia, and industry. Albany College of Pharmacy. Free. No registration. The University’s UNYTE Translational Research Network is partnering with Albany to produce the event. Click here for more information

Sept. 25: 5 p.m. deadline to submit initial abstracts for Novel Biostatistical and Epidemiologic Methods awards from the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Click here to view the RFA.

Sept. 25 to 29: Early Stage Faculty Boot Camp to help senior instructors and assistant professors identify the skills they need for successful career advancement. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visit the CTSI website for more details. Registration deadline is today.

Oct. 1: Deadline for applications for AS&E PumpPrimer II awards to stimulate extramural funding for projects otherwise difficult to launch. Click here for more information.

Nov. 13: Initial abstracts due for Incubator Awards from the School of Medicine and Dentistry’s Scientific Advisory Committee. Find more details and application instructions online.