881 research outputs found
Utilizing biomarkers in colorectal cancer: an interview with Ajay Goel
No full text Ajay Goel speaks to Rachel Jenkins, Commissioning Editor. Ajay Goel, PhD, is a Professor and Director, Center for Gastrointestinal Research, and Director, Center for Translational Genomics and Oncology, at the Baylor Scott & White Research Institute, Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Dr Goel has spent more than 20 years researching cancer and has been the lead author or contributor to over 240 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed international journals and several book chapters. He is also a primary inventor on more than 15 international patents aimed at developing various biomarkers for the diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of gastrointestinal cancers. He is currently using advanced genomic and transcriptomic approaches to develop novel DNA- and miRNA-based biomarkers for the early detection of colorectal cancers. In addition, he is researching the prevention of gastrointestinal cancers using integrative and alternative approaches, including botanical products such as curcumin (from turmeric) and boswellia. Dr Goel is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the American Gastroenterology Association (AGA) and is on the international editorial boards of several journals including Gastroenterology, Clinical Cancer Research, Carcinogenesis, PLoS ONE, Scientific Reports, Epigenomics, Future Medicine, Alternative Therapies in Heath and Medicine and World Journal of Gastroenterology. He is also actively involved in peer-reviewing activities for more than 100 international scientific journals and various grant review panels of various national and international funding organizations. His research has been actively funded by various private and federal organizations, including funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the NIH, American Cancer Society (ACS) and other state organizations. He has won more than dozen awards and honors, including the Union of European Gastroenterology Federation's Distinguished Researcher Award, multiple Poster of Distinction Awards from the AGA, and Visiting Professorships from various national and international academic institutions and academic bodies. Some of his key research interests include: Understanding the basic genetics and epigenetic basis of gastrointestinal cancers; Use of epigenetic markers, both DNA and RNA, for the early detection of colorectal, pancreatic and other gastrointestinal cancers; Personalized medicine and treatment of gastrointestinal cancers; Chemoprevention, using complementary and alternative approaches using nutraceuticals such as curcumin, green tea, resveratrol and other botanicals. </jats:p
Experimental evaluation of long term evolution-based NC OFDM secondary-to-secondary interference
No full textScarcity of spectrum resources, inefficient spectrum usage and the inflexibility of the current spectrum assignment are few of the major roadblocks in the development of new wireless communication standards. Secondary spectrum sharing has become a viable solution to alleviate this problem. Secondary users are unlicensed devices that use opportunistic spectrum access to identify vacant frequency bins and thereby utilize the spectrum. For advanced wireless communication standards like the Long Term Evolution (LTE) which primarily calls for higher data rates, evaluation of design parameters for ensuring efficient coexistence of heterogeneous secondary users and guaranteeing acceptable minimum level of performance becomes essential. Additionally, the understanding of the interference between secondary users occupying adjacent frequency bands for their transmission is imperative. This thesis focuses on the coexistence of secondary users in the same band assuming that the primary spectrum is found available. By Implementing two Non Contiguous Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing ( NC-OFDM) based secondary transmitters on a real time platform, the design parameters that need to be considered to ensure efficient coexistence have been identified and investigated. The performance degradations observed at a particular secondary link due to presence of another interfering secondary link occupying adjacent frequency bands for its transmission have also been studied. This thesis also focuses on implementation of algorithms to modify the existing NC-OFDM transmission at the secondary transmitter end to reduce its Interference effects on the other secondary links operating within the same band. The focus is on an LTE-based Secondary Non Contiguous Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Transceiver on a Real Time Platform developed by National Instruments. The various blocks needed to design a real time LTE based communications links are discussed. An experimental LTE-to-LTE interference analysis based on the Real Time Platform and the designed system is presented.M.S.Includes bibliographical referencesby Ajay Ramkumar Iye
Automated image-based detection and grading of lymphocytic infiltration in breast cancer histopathology:
No full textThe identification of phenotypic changes in breast cancer (BC) histopathology is of significant clinical importance in predicting disease outcome and prescribing appropriate therapy. One such example is the presence of lymphocytic infiltration (LI) in histopathology, which has been correlated with a variety of prognoses and theragnoses (i.e. response to treatment) in BC patients. In this thesis work a computer-aided diagnosis (CADx) system is detailed for quantitatively measuring the extent of LI from hematoxylin and eosin (H & E) stained histopathology. The CADx system is subsequently applied to BC patients expressing the HER2 gene (HER2+ BC), where LI extent has been found to correlate with nodal metastasis and distant recurrence. Although LI may be graded qualitatively by BC pathologists, there is currently no quantitative and reproducible method for measuring LI extent in HER2+ BC histopathology. Hence, a CADx system that performs this task will potentially help clinicians predict disease outcome and allow them to make better therapy recommendations for HER2+ BC patients. The CADx methodology comprises three key steps. First, a combination of region-growing and Markov Random Field algorithms is used to detect individual lymphocyte nuclei and isolate areas of LI in digitized H & E stained histopathology images. The centers of individual detected lymphocytes are used as vertices to construct a series of graphs (Voronoi Diagram, Delaunay Triangulation, and Minimum Spanning Tree) and a total of 50 architectural features describing the spatial arrangement of lymphocytes are extracted from each image. By using Graph Embedding, a non-linear dimensionality reduction method, to project the high-dimensional feature vectors into a reduced 3D embedding space, it is possible to visualize the underlying manifold that represents the continuous nature of the LI phenotype. Over a set of 100 randomized cross-validation trials, a Support Vector Machine classifier shows that the architectural feature set distinguishes HER2+ BC histopathology samples containing high and low levels of LI with a classification accuracy greater than 90%.M.S.Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-35)by Ajay Basavanhall
Increased Expression of Chemerin in Squamous Esophageal Cancer Myofibroblasts and Role in Recruitment of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells
No full textStromal cells such as myofibroblasts influence tumor progression. The mechanisms 45 are unclear but may involve effects on both tumor cells and recruitment of bone 46 marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) which then colonize tumors. 47 Using iTRAQ and LC-MS/MS we identified the adipokine, chemerin, as 48 overexpressed in esophageal squamous cancer associated myofibroblasts (CAMs) 49 compared with adjacent tissue myofibroblasts (ATMs). The chemerin receptor, 50 ChemR23, is expressed by MSCs. Conditioned media (CM) from CAMs significantly 51 increased MSC cell migration compared to ATM-CM; the action of CAM-CM was 52 significantly reduced by chemerin-neutralising antibody, pretreatment of CAMs with 53 chemerin siRNA, pretreatment of MSCs with ChemR23 siRNA, and by a ChemR23 54 receptor antagonist, CCX832. Stimulation of MSCs by chemerin increased 55 phosphorylation of p42/44, p38 and JNK-II kinases and inhibitors of these kinases 56 and PKC reversed chemerin-stimulated MSC migration. Chemerin stimulation of 57 MSCs also induced expression and secretion of macrophage inhibitory factor (MIF) 58 that tended to restrict migratory responses to low concentrations of chemerin but not 59 higher concentrations. In a xenograft model consisting of OE21 esophageal cancer 60 cells and CAMs, homing of MSCs administered i.v. was inhibited by CCX832. Thus, 61 chemerin secreted from esophageal cancer myofibroblasts is a potential 62 chemoattractant for MSCs and its inhibition may delay tumor progression
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