Welcome to Our Blog
Thank you for visiting our website. We are a relatively small lab with big ideas. We are part of a much larger group of investigators known collectively as the LLUMC Molecular Radiation Biology Laboratories. It is our hope that this website will educate, communicate, and incite scientific debate. As the PI of our little group, I hope to post our data and discuss potential mechanisms, consequences, and countermeasures. With a bit of luck we'll all learn something. The links to the left include our merry band as well as collaborating investigators and laboratories. The links to the right include our archive and blogroll. The banner above will always bring you back to the main page page. Take a look around and please feel free to leave a comment on our blog (try to keep it civil and constructive) or shoot us an e-mail. - Michael " Ubertramp " Pecaut
Radiation Research Society Meeting
Posted by: Ubertramp on 2010.05.03
Categories & Tags: Gamma Radiation,Low Dose Radiation,Macrophage,Oxidative Burst,Radiation,Society Meeting
Comments: None
We recently submitted an abstract for the annual Radiation Research Society meeting. This year it is in Maui. I’m not sure if I’ll have the money to go or not but several of us at the lab are planning to attend. Worst case, I may send my poster with one of them. The work for this abstract was done almost exclusively by my tech, Erben Bayeta, and our summer student Cory Pan. Cory is planning on returning to our lab this summer to do some follow up studies. I’m sure we have more than enough to keep him busy. 
Celso Perez has joined us to start doing some work in his spare time (he’s actually our lab manager). He should have some data on a third cell line by the time the symposium comes around. I’ve attached some of the data we are presenting to this post. Read More..
Summer Student Research
Posted by: Ubertramp on 2009.08.14
Categories & Tags: Gamma Radiation,Macrophage,New Results,Oxidative Burst,Radiation
Comments: None
Cory Pan is a student from Chaparral High School who spent the summer working in our lab as part of the Apprentice Bridge to College (ABC) minority research program. We only had about seven weeks to train him and get through a series of experiments. Due to the limitations in time, we decided that he should do some in vitro work characterizing one of our macrophage cell lines after exposure to radiation. Although he wasn’t allowed to irradiate the cells themselves, he did all of the other cell culture work on his own (with Erben looking over his shoulder). By working his butt off, he managed to run the experiment at least eight separate times. In the end, five of the experiments were good enough to include in the final analysis. He ended up with some pretty interesting results. During his last week, he had to present a poster describing his work to the public. Read More..
Lab Update
Posted by: Ubertramp on 2009.04.12
Categories & Tags: Gamma Radiation,Grant,Low Dose Radiation,Microgravity,NASA,New Publication,Protons,Radiation,Space Shuttle,T cell
Comments: None
It’s been a couple of months since the last update, so it’s about time. We have some good news and some bad news. The bad news first. My NASA grant was turned down for funding. I haven’t seen the review yet, so I’m not sure why. Nor do I know who or what actually DID get funded. Guess we’ll have to see.
Ironically (or coincidentally, I haven’t decided which), we received the acceptance letter from JAP for our third immune publication from the last shuttle flight on the same day. The reviewers were pretty rough on us, though. It bounced back and forth three times before they finally accepted it. Farnaz was pretty excited as this was her first publication. Woot! Now all she has to do is finish her dissertation and graduate. Hahaha. It’s still an Epub ahead of print, so I don’t have a reprint. Give it a few weeks. Read More..
Lab Update
Posted by: Ubertramp on 2009.02.10
Categories & Tags: Department of Energy,Grant Proposal,High-Energy Iron Radiation,Immunity,Microgravity,Mouse,NASA,NIH,New Publication,Radiation,Space Shuttle
Comments: None
Well, I’ve been on and off vacation for the last month or so. But a lot has been going on since my last update.
First, the bad news. Both NIH and DOE have turned down my grant proposals. I will probably try to resubmit the NIH grant this summer once I figure out how to address some of the reviewer concerns. I gotta keep remembering that being a scientist requires a thick skin and a short memory when it comes to rejection. Good thing I’m showing signs of early onset Alzheimer’s. Hah!
I still haven’t heard back from NASA regarding my Mice In Space proposal. I’m not sure what is holding it up. My guess is the recent economic issues have made spaceflight an even more difficult prospect than usual. Plus, they may be trying to work out a way to blend two or more proposals together. Given the lack of funds for science in general, this is probably harder than it sounds.
We also haven’t heard from LLU regarding our NMTB grant proposal. Seems LLU got a lot more proposals than they expected and they are having a harder time deciding who gets what. They may also be debating cutting the funding cap in order to fund more individual projects. I have no idea.
On to the good news. Read More..
Update on NIH and NASA grant proposals
Posted by: Ubertramp on 2008.10.27
Categories & Tags: Grant Proposal,Low Dose Radiation,Mouse,NASA,NIH,Radiation,Russian Space Agency,Space Shuttle
Comments: None
You may recall that we submitted a grant proposal to NASA a few months ago to fly an immune experiment on board the Russian Bion M1 rocket. We proposed to fly mice for about a month and then challenge the mice with live E. coli about three days after landing. We also had a second aim that included using a transgenic mouse model (NOX2 or gp91phox knockout). Unfortunately, NASA and the Russian Space Agency could not come to an aggreement on the flight and the project was changed. Now, the flight will likely occur on the space shuttle in February 2010. We were fortunate enough to be one of five proposals invited into the scientific defnition phase. Basically, we were asked to rewrite our proposals to meet the new requirements (e.g. smaller sample size, shorter flight time, different launch/landing site, etc.) and we’re thrilled to get this far. The new due date is Nov 19th.
The news for our NIH proposal is less good. In this proposal we were focusing on the low dose radiation patients receive for bone marrow transplants and the long term immune and behavioral consequences. Unfortunately, the proposal was returned without a score. We’re still waiting on the review.
Space in the news
Posted by: Ubertramp on
Categories & Tags: Current Events,NASA,Radiation
Comments: None
It looks like spaceflight has been in the news a lot over the last week or two. First, the son of an astronaut became an astronaut. Must be nice to have a spare $30M sitting around to give to the Russians for this…
“Richard Garriott, a 47-year-old computer games designer who created the Ultima game series, paid US$30 million for trip to the International Space Station. When he lifted off Oct. 12, he became the first American to follow his father into space.”
Next, one of the guys who walked around on the moon (OK, it was THE Buzz Aldrin) a few decades ago had this to say about a future Mars mission,
“The first astronauts sent to Mars should be prepared to spend the rest of their lives there, in the same way that European pioneers headed to America knowing they would not return home, says moonwalker Buzz Aldrin.”
Sign me up!!! Seriously. I’d go in a heartbeat. And no one can never claim I didn’t know what I was getting into, now could they? Heh.
NASA announced a new NSBRI for more space radiation research. Dr. Ann Kennedy is out there and she knows her stuff. This should be good.
“The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has been awarded $10 million over a five-year period from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). The grant establishes an NSBRI Center of Acute Radiation Research (CARR) studying the acute effects of space radiation.”
And finally, there’s another player in the space race. I hope congress and the next president of the United States is paying attention…
“Chandrayaan-1 – which means “Moon Craft” in ancient Sanskrit – is scheduled to launch from the Sriharikota space center in southern India at 8:20 p.m. EDT Tuesday in a two-year mission aimed at laying the groundwork for further Indian space expeditions.”
ASTRO: Proton Radiation Linked to Lower Risk of Second Malignancy
Posted by: Ubertramp on 2008.09.27
Categories & Tags: Cancer Risk,Protons,Radiation,Radiotherapy,Secondary Malignancies,Society Meeting
Comments: None
This just in: .
BOSTON, Sept. 22 — Proton therapy may cut the risk of a second malignancy by half compared with conventional radiation treatment, results of a retrospective comparison suggested.
Almost 13% of patients treated with photon energy developed second malignancies compared with 6.4% of those treated with proton-based radiation, Nancy Tarbell, M.D., of Harvard, reported at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology meeting here.
The rest of the article can be found here. I still can’t get a link to the actual paper or abstract, though.
Protons, Secondary Neutrons, and Cancer
Posted by: Ubertramp on
Categories & Tags: Cancer Risk,Neutrons,New Publication,Protons,Radiation,Radiotherapy,Secondary Radiation
Comments: None
There has been some controversy about secondary neutrons during proton therapy and the risk of cancer. Here’s a recent paper which suggests the risk is very small, but not negligible, and dependent on age.
Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2008 Sep 1;72(1):228-35. Epub 2008 Jun 18.
Risk of developing second cancer from neutron dose in proton therapy as function of field characteristics, organ, and patient age.
Zacharatou Jarlskog C, Paganetti H.
Department of Radiation Oncology, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark.
PURPOSE: To estimate the risk of a second malignancy after treatment of a primary brain cancer using passive scattered proton beam therapy. The focus was on the cancer risk caused by neutrons outside the treatment volume and the dependency on the patient’s age. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Organ-specific neutron-equivalent doses previously calculated for eight different proton therapy brain fields were considered. Organ-specific models were applied to assess the risk of developing solid cancers and leukemia. RESULTS: The main contributors (>80%) to the neutron-induced risk are neutrons generated in the treatment head. Treatment volume can influence the risk by up to a factor of approximately 2. Young patients are subject to significantly greater risks than are adult patients because of the geometric differences and age dependency of the risk models. Breast cancer should be the main concern for females. For males, the risks of lung cancer, leukemia, and thyroid cancer were significant for pediatric patients. In contrast, leukemia was the leading risk for an adult. Most lifetime risks were <1% (70-Gy treatment). The only exceptions were breast, thyroid, and lung cancer for females. For female thyroid cancer, the treatment risk can exceed the baseline risk. CONCLUSION: The risk of developing a second malignancy from neutrons from proton beam therapy of a brain lesion is small (i.e., presumably outweighed by the therapeutic benefit) but not negligible (i.e., potentially greater than the baseline risk). The patient’s age at treatment plays a major role.
Radiation, Macrophages, and Oxidative Burst
Posted by: Ubertramp on 2008.07.04
Categories & Tags: Gamma Radiation,Macrophage,Mouse,New Results,Oxidative Burst,Radiation
Comments: None
We’ve been working with a couple of macrophage cell lines over the last few years and I thought I’d toss up some of our latest results. For those of you who don’t know, macrophages are involved in the initial response to bacterial infections (along with a bunch of other cells such as neutrophils). These particular experiments involve a macrophage cell line, J774, originally cultured from an inbred mouse strain, Balb/c.
The first thing you need to know is that J774s are a transformed cell line. Which basically means two things: 1) we can grow them in dish and 2) they ain’t normal.
Where have all the radiobiology bloggers gone?
Posted by: Ubertramp on 2008.06.19
Categories & Tags: Bacteria,Department of Energy,Grant,Immunity,Low Dose Radiation,Radiation
Comments: None
Lately, I’ve been a bit busy with a few things. Mostly writing grants for DOE (due June 25) and NIH (due July 15), and working with Farnaz to get the first space shuttle paper out (we sent it out to our co-authors for their input earlier today). Not to mention a couple of graduation ceremonies and a dissertation defense. Needless to say, this means I haven’t been as productive here as I’d like. So, since I had to write a summary statement for my DOE grant, I thought I’d post it here as well.
Theoretically, it’s supposed to be written for the layperson. But, as you’ll see, some of it ain’t. Unfortunately, I was limited to one page of text, and there were requirements on what I had to include (like hypothesis and specific aims), so I couldn’t go into a lot of detail. The actual grant proposal is 15 pages long. And trust me, you have no idea how hard it is to keep a proposal that short until you’re forced to do it.
