insider -...

insider

insi

der

Monday, June 7, 2010

St. Jude

A l s o i n t h i s i s s u e

2 St. Jude No. 1St. Jude is ranked the No. 1 children’s cancer hospital in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.

2 On the HorizonDr. William E. Evans, St. Jude director and CEO, discusses the strategy of treating specific abnormalities with anti-cancer drugs.

5 Room for change Several departments on campus are settling into new or remodeled areas.

6 School DaysThe St. Jude School Program helps patients stay on the academic track during treatment.

A biweekly internal publication for St. Jude employees

Please recycle after reading.

insider is a publication intended for employees of

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It is published biweek-

ly by the Public Relations department. Any use of these stories

by other parties or for other purposes requires authorization

by hospital Public Relations. E-mail story ideas to insider@

stjude.org. Submissions such as achievements, births, in me-

moriam and wedding announcements are welcomed. Public

Relations reserves the right to edit or hold any submissions.

The mission of St. Jude is to advance cures, and means of pre-

vention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research

and treatment. St. Jude is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

If you prefer to obtain St. Jude Insider online, visit http://

home.web.stjude.org/insider/. To change the number of paper

copies your department receives, e-mail [email protected].

St. Jude investigatorscont’d from front cover

cont’d on back cover

SE

TH

DIX

ON

St. Jude investigators release data on potential

new treatment targets for malaria

An international team led by St. Jude

investigators recently released data

detailing the effectiveness of nearly 310,000

chemicals against a malarial parasite that

remains one of the world’s leading killers of

young children.

The research, which appeared in the

scientific journal Nature, identified more than

1,100 new compounds with confirmed

activity against the malarial parasite.

Of those, 172 were studied in detail,

leading to identification of almost two

dozen families of molecules investigators

consider possible candidates for drug

development. St. Jude researchers already

used one of the molecules to stop the

parasite’s growth in mice.

The six-year project was launched

by Kip Guy, PhD, Chemical Biology

and Therapeutics chair, in an effort to

revive malaria drug development. Guy

is senior author of the study. Armand Guiguemde, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow

in Guy’s laboratory, is the first author.

“Malaria causes roughly 8 percent of

childhood deaths worldwide and remains

among the greatest threats to children

in the developing world,” Guy said. “At

St. Jude, we focus on diseases that kill

children, but lack good treatments. That is

what drove us to start this work.”

Added Dr. William E. Evans,

St. Jude director and chief executive

officer: “These are the same tools and

techniques that we are now using to find

new targets and drugs to treat childhood

cancer. This work illustrates their

enormous power for drug discovery.”

The effort has grown into a

consortium of investigators at nine

institutions and foundations in the U.S.,

Australia and Europe. The collaborators

created a public database to share their

research.

“We’ve provided a toolbox to the

global community and have given them a

lot of the early results from working with

the tools so they won’t have to repeat the

work,” Guy said.

The database includes the chemical

structure and activity profile of each of

the 309,474 molecules in the St. Jude

library of drugs, natural compounds

and other chemicals. There is additional

information about the 172 compounds

that were more comprehensively

evaluated. Researchers interested in

accessing the database can visit www.

stjuderesearch.org/guy/data/malaria.

For this study, St. Jude researchers

used technology known as high-

throughput screening to survey the

hospital’s chemical library for compounds

effective against the Plasmodium

falciparum, the deadliest of the malaria

parasites.

Anang Shelat, PhD, a postdoctoral

fellow in Guy’s laboratory, analyzed

the structures of the 1,100 identified

compounds that reliably blocked the

parasite’s growth to find a representative

sample of 172 molecules. The anti-

malarial properties of those 172

were confirmed by two collaborating

laboratories using different techniques.

Investigators at another eight participating

institutions then studied those compounds

in more detail. Eighty percent of the 172

molecules were found to act against new

targets.

St. Jude is pursuing drug

development with three families of

compounds. Investigators hope to have a

new drug in the clinic within a decade.

The other St. Jude authors are David Smithson, PhD, Michele Connelly, Julie Clark and Fangyi Zhu, PhD, all of

Chemical Biology and Therapeutics.

Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti, PhD, Immunology, is principal investigator of a two-year, $462,000 R21 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases titled “NLR Signaling in Intestinal Inflammation.” The grant is funded from 2010 to 2012. The co-investigators are Jerry Rehg, DVM, Pathology, and Douglas Green, PhD, Immunology chair.

Major New Grant Award

The following major new grant was awarded to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital between May 12 and May 21:

KIp Guy, PhD, Chemical Biology and Therapeutics chair (center, foreground) and his research

team released data that detailed the effectiveness of more than 300,000 chemicals against a

malarial parasite that remains one of the world’s leading killers of young children. The findings

appeared in the scientific journal Nature. Chemical Biology and Therapeutic research members

(from left) are: Julie Clark; Fangyi Zhu; Michele Connelly; Armand Guiguemde, PhD; Guy;

David Smithson, PhD; and Anang Shelat, PhD.

St. Jude research into new treatment targets

for malaria made the cover of the May 20

issue of the journal Nature. The 3-D rendering,

created by Samuel Connell, St. Jude Light

Microscopy director, shows malarial parasites

infecting a red blood cell.

www.stjude.org Monday, June 7, 2010 insider

1

insider

insiderSt. Jude

Monday, June 7, 2010A biweekly internal publication for St. Jude employees

St. Jude Garden saves money, promotes ‘growth’ from within

St. Jude introduced a Farmers

Market recently with the idea of

supporting local vendors while

offering employees, patients and

families the chance to purchase meat,

hand-picked fruit and produce. The

success of the Farmers Market led to

the vision of building an alternative

food system—the St. Jude Garden—to

supply some of the needs of Food

Services.

“I believe it was the culmination

of becoming more aware of the

effects of genetically modified foods

and the excessive use of pesticides,

getting involved with the local farmers

Employees from Pathology and other departments volunteered some of their time on Earth Day to paint the planters in the St. Jude Garden a variety of vibrant colors. Volun-teers included (from left): Rebecca Rogers, Pathology; Deirdre Cullen, Blood Donor Center manager; Todd Dawson, Pathology; and Karen Wimpee, Blood Donor Center.

From left, Kay Kafe manager Mary Schuchaskie and St. Jude executive chef Miles McMath speak during a May 28 reception to open the St. Jude Garden. “The fresher the produce, the better the taste,” McMath said. “But, it was also important to me to show a cost savings for St. Jude. By the end of this season, I want to show that this really did give us better produce and saved the hospital money.” The St. Jude Garden will provide a continuous supply of fresh vegetables during the growing season.

by purchasing local produce and

observing the expressed interest and

support we received when we brought

the Farmers Market to St. Jude,”

said Mary Schuchaskie, Kay Kafe

manager.

The creation of the garden was

made possible thanks to the efforts

of St. Jude employees from various

departments as well as support from

local growers, the magazine Edible

Memphis and Grow Memphis.

Located on the vacant lot across

from the Third Street gate, the

garden will replace some of the large

amounts of purchased produce. The

plot contains potatoes, cucumbers,

tomatoes, squash, peppers, herbs and

other varieties of vegetables. To provide

a continuous supply of fresh produce,

volunteers will plant vegetable beds

weekly. Choosing sustainably produced

vegetables not only helps to lower food

costs, but it also helps to lower patient

and employee exposure to pesticides,

hormones and herbicides that are

widely used with the conventional

food system. The garden operates

strictly on donations and is maintained

primarily by St. Jude employees who

contribute supplies and equipment and

donate their time. The staff at St. Jude

serves as primary caretakers and will

be responsible for the upkeep of the

garden.

“We have been recruiting

volunteers for some time now, and

currently, all but one are employees,”

Schuchaskie said. “We’ve made

ourselves available to assist in

unloading last-minute wood donations

and planting 200 heirloom tomato

plants that were donated. When you

build your garden around donations,

you have to be available and flexible.”

For more information on the

St. Jude Garden, or to volunteer,

contact Mary Schuchaskie, 595-6239.

What is the expected value of the yield from the St. Jude Garden?Estimated savings based on six months:

Item Yield per 6 Beds Days to Harvest Plantings Value

Cucumbers 200 lbs. 55 3 $400.00Large Tomatoes 225 lbs. 70 2 $600.00Cherry Tomatoes 150 lbs. 70 2 $650.00Summer Squash 300 lbs. 55 2 $1000.00Potatoes 250 lbs. 100 1 $125.00Peppers 275 lbs. 75 2 $500.00Herbs 40 lbs 60-90 1 $800.00

Total $4075.00

bm

c p

HO

TO

S

insider Monday, June 7, 2010 www.stjude.org2

on the horizonWith St. Jude Leadership — Dr. William E. Evans

W hen St. Jude opened in 1962, the only anti-cancer

agents available for children were medications

developed for adult cancers. Because these anti-

cancer drugs were not targeted to precise abnormalities in adult

cancer cells but instead were killing cells that were growing

and dividing, they had activity against many childhood cancers.

St. Jude emerged as a world leader in the treatment and research

of childhood cancers when it used these adult anti-cancer drugs to

develop novel treatment protocols for childhood ALL that pushed

cure rates to ~50 percent in the late 1960s.

Since that early success, St. Jude has deployed similar

strategies to develop more effective treatments for brain tumors,

solid tumors and ALL in children, and most recently published the world’s

best results for treating AML in children (Rubnitz et al, Lancet Oncology,

2010). Our progress has come from not only optimizing the doses, schedules

and combinations of adult anti-cancer agents, but also through using scientific

advances (e.g., cancer genomics, minimal residual disease detection,

pharmacogenomics, etc.) to individualize and optimize cancer treatment.

Why should the treatment of children with cancer be limited to anti-cancer

drugs developed for adult tumors? Isn’t the best way forward the discovery of

new anti-cancer drugs that are targeted to the specific abnormalities that cause

childhood cancers?

In 2005, St. Jude launched a bold new initiative to establish the expertise,

technology and strategies needed to discover new anti-cancer drugs that are

targeted specifically for abnormalities in childhood cancers. This is a long-term

strategy that may take decades to change the way we treat childhood cancers, but

it is clearly the best way forward.

The first step in developing our new Department of Chemical Biology and

Therapeutics (CBT) was to define its mission, which was accomplished by

members of the St. Jude Executive Committee in ca. 2000. The second step was

to build the facilities needed to house this new effort, and this was accomplished

on the top floor of the IRC in 2001. The third and most critical step

was to recruit an internationally prominent scientist to lead this

effort, and this came to fruition with the appointment of Dr. Kip Guy as chair of our CBT department in 2005.

We found Dr. Guy in San Francisco, where he was leading

efforts to discover new anti-malarial agents, and we convinced

him to move to St. Jude to deploy these same strategies and

technologies to find new anti-cancer drugs for children. The

progress made in establishing our CBT program has been

remarkable, and they now have extensive collaborations with

faculty across the entire spectrum of St. Jude. These collaborations

have begun to yield important discoveries of new candidate drugs

that are targeted specifically toward the molecular abnormalities in childhood

cancers (Reed et al, J. Biol. Chem., 2010). Also, Dr. Guy’s long-standing anti-

malarial research program exploiting these same strategies has recently yielded

an impressive array of new anti-malarial agents, as recently reported (Guiguemde

et al, Nature, 2010).

Development of new treatments for childhood cancer and other catastrophic

diseases is a “team sport,” requiring innovative clinical investigators, outstanding

basic scientists, strong translational researchers and an institution that is

committed to providing the resources needed to push the field forward. We are

fortunate to have all of these at St. Jude, and we are eager to accelerate our

progress in the future.

Dr. William E. Evans

St. Jude Director and CEO

St. Jude named No. 1 children’s cancer hospital in U.S.

ST. JUDE has been named the nation’s top children’s cancer hospital in the 2010-11 Best Children’s Hospital rankings published in U.S. News & World Report. St. Jude received the best overall score summarizing quality of care. As an international resource to physicians and researchers, St. Jude is the first and only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children.

“This recognition is an outstanding external acknowledgment for our institution, but more importantly for the dedicated St. Jude faculty and staff who devote their time, talent and lives to the young patients we see every day,” said Dr. William E. Evans, St. Jude director and CEO.

This year’s rankings were based on how well a hospital did in three areas: reputation; medical outcomes such as cancer survival; and care-related indicators of quality such as the number of patients, nursing staff and other factors.

The 2010-11 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings are posted at www.usnews.com/childrenshospitals. They will also be published in the August print issue of U.S. News & World Report.


3

Same tools used to advance drug development against very different diseases

This issue of the St. Jude Insider

includes a report on an international

collaboration launched six years ago


and Therapeutics chair, to jumpstart

global malaria drug development

efforts. Guy recently took time to

answer a few questions.

What do malaria research and childhood cancer have in common?

Whether the killer is cancer

or malaria, Chemical Biology and

Therapeutics faculty and staff use

the same tools and strategies in our

quest to find the next generation of

safe, effective drugs. Our mission is to

discover and develop novel chemicals

to fight disease and restore health.

The process involves high-throughput

Armand Guiguemde, PhD, is proud of his contributions to date toward treating a disease that nearly took his life. He was recently first

author on important malaria research published in the journal Nature that identified candidate anti-malarial drugs. The techniques and

tools he and other investigators used in the research can be applied toward candidate drugs for childhood cancers.

screening to survey hundreds of

thousands of known drugs, natural

products and other chemicals to find

those that might work against the

protein or parasite driving a particular

disease. Although the technical details

may vary, whether the goal is to shrink

a tumor or block the malarial parasite,

the tools we use and the approach

we take to finding drug development

candidates are very similar.

Describe the role your department plays in the St. Jude mission.

We are called the Department of

Chemical Biology and Therapeutics

for a reason. The goal is to advance

scientific understanding and develop

lifesaving treatments. We use chemical

tools to study biology and develop

Finding new drugs against the malarial parasite is more than a mere

experiment to Armand Guiguemde, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the

lab of Kip Guy, PhD, Chemical Biology and Therapeutics chair. For this

budding scientist, the connection to his research is personal.

When Guiguemde was 9 years old, a mosquito bite nearly claimed his

life. While visiting his grandparents’ West-African village near his home

in Burkina Faso, Africa, a deadly parasite lodged in Guiguemde’s liver,

multiplied and attacked his red blood cells. His grandfather immediately

recognized the fever, headaches and vomiting as classic symptoms of

malaria and whisked him away to a nearby hospital for treatment.

“I was fortunate because I was diagnosed early,” Guiguemde said.

“Usually, the reality is death for many children in Africa whose parents

do not recognize the symptoms early or whose families cannot afford

treatment.”

This troubling reality was the second factor that awakened a personal

mission devoted to catastrophic diseases. The first was inspiration from

his parents, both models for making a difference in their community.

Guiguemde’s father was one of only six physicians per 100,000 people

in Burkina Faso. Because of his father’s dedication, their home became a

revolving door for impoverished families seeking medical care. His mother,

a pharmacist, provided medications to many of his father’s patients.

Guiguemde’s father later transitioned from patient care to malaria research.

While working on his pharmacy doctorate, Guiguemde completed part

of his thesis on malaria in his father’s parasitology laboratory and moved to

Germany to pursue a doctorate in molecular biology. He earned his PhD in

2005 and was eager to begin the next phase of his research interest—drug

discovery. A friend recommended that he apply for a postdoctoral position

in the nascent Department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics at

St. Jude. He interviewed for the job and joined St. Jude in early 2006.

“Kip Guy has built a great team and the innovative work that has

come out of his laboratory happened as a result of his strong leadership,”

Guiguemde said. He and other researchers in Guy’s laboratory recently

identified new anti-malarial drug compounds using tools and techniques

that can be applied toward discovering new candidate drugs for childhood

cancers.

As he looked back on his encounter with malaria and recalled the

events that led him to St. Jude, Guiguemde said one moment in particular

resonated with him.

“When I learned about the principles on which St. Jude was built, I

agreed with Danny Thomas’ philosophy 100 percent that no child should

die in the dawn of life,” he said. “Cancer and malaria are both catastrophic

childhood diseases. I wanted to come to St. Jude to make a difference in a

child’s life and have the best opportunity to be involved in science with the

potential for translation.”

Drug development, focused mission at St. Jude hit home for postdoctoral fellow

new therapies. This department and

the state-of-the-art, high-throughput

techniques it offers for drug discovery

and development serve as a bridge

between the laboratory bench and the

clinic.

In this department, we work with

people from across the institution to

understand the disease process and

develop new compounds to serve as

promising leads for new drugs. The

projects are complex and require a

multidisciplinary approach that relies

on each collaborator’s individual

expertise.

What are some of the other projects on which you are currently working?

We are currently collaborating

with investigators across the campus.

In one project, we are working with

Michael Dyer, PhD, Developmental

Neurobiology, and others to develop

new candidate compounds against

a childhood eye tumor known as

retinoblastoma. Another collaboration

involves Richard Gilbertson, MD,

PhD, Developmental Neurobiology,

and others who are developing

compounds for use against

ependymoma, a childhood brain

tumor. In addition, we are partnering

with Richard Williams, MD, PhD,

Oncology, to discover new treatments

for drug-resistant leukemia.

pE

TE

R b

AR

TA


Low levels of minimal residual disease tied to higher relapse risk in ALL patients

Less than one cancer cell for

every 10,000 normal cells may not

sound like many, but new research

from St. Jude investigators found that

young leukemia patients with even

this low level of disease left early in

treatment were at an increased risk of

relapse later.

The study focused on children

with acute lymphoblastic leukemia

(ALL) who were not considered

candidates for intensified treatment

based on the number of cancer cells

that remained in their blood after the

first four weeks of chemotherapy.

These patients had levels of minimal

residual disease (MRD) of between 1

in 10,000 and 1 in 100,000 leukemia

cells in normal bone marrow cells.

But researchers found that nearly

13 percent of such patients relapsed

within five years, compared with

5 percent of patients with lower or

undetectable levels of MRD following

the first course of chemotherapy. The

work was published in a recent issue of

the journal Blood.

The study reinforces the predictive

power of a patient’s early response to

therapy and raises questions about how

to balance the risks and benefits of

treatment for such patients, said Dario Campana, MD, PhD, Oncology. He is

the study’s senior author.

Campana said the work will also

likely spur efforts to improve the

sensitivity of MRD testing using a

technique known as flow cytometry

to count cells. Flow cytometry is

the only method used in the United

States for MRD screening. This study

used a different, more sensitive but

more cumbersome process known as

polymerase chain reaction or PCR.

Currently, more intensive

chemotherapy is reserved for young

ALL patients with MRD levels of

greater than 1 in 10,000 cells, or

0.01 percent, after the first course

of chemotherapy. The approach, in

widespread

use for more

than a decade,

has helped

reduced

relapse in

these patients,

Campana said.

For

now, young

ALL patients

at increased risk of relapse based on

the lower MRD level identified in

this study will be closely monitored,

Campana said. If the number of

remaining leukemia cells do not fall

or begin to climb, the patients might

be candidates for more intensive

treatment, he said.

“With the cure rate for childhood

leukemia now about 90 percent, it is

important to identify the very small

subsets of patients who are at higher

risk of relapse beyond those who are

detected with traditional techniques,”

he said. “Small improvements in

clinical management will help push us

closer to 100 percent.”

This study included 455 St. Jude

patients with B-lineage ALL. They

were treated during a 14-year period

ending in 2007. They included 63

patients with MRD levels between

0.01 percent and 0.001 percent. Of

those, six patients relapsed within five

years. Elevated MRD was the only

risk factor they shared. In comparison,

cancer returned in 12 of the 316

patients with lower or undetectable

levels of MRD.

The study’s other St. Jude

authors are Patricia Stow, Laura Key, Geoffrey Neale, PhD, and

Elaine Coustan-Smith, all of

Oncology; Charles Mullighan,

MD, PhD, Pathology; Yinmei Zhou,

Biostatistics; and Ching-Hon Pui, MD, Oncology chair.

Dario Campana,

MD, PhD, Oncology

St. Jude mourns the loss of Dr. Alvin MauerDr. Alvin Mauer, who served

as the hospital’s second director and

CEO from 1973 to 1983, died May

26 at the age of 82. Under Mauer’s

leadership, the hospital doubled in

size, and he is credited with ensuring

the relationships between clinicians

and basic scientists thrived as the

hospital grew.

“The daily teaching rounds I

attended with Dr. Mauer formed

indelible memories from my earliest

years at St. Jude,” said Dr. William E. Evans, St. Jude director and CEO.

“His ability to discuss science in the

context of patient care decisions set the

tone for St. Jude treatment advances.”

During his tenure as director,

St. Jude doubled in size with the

addition of the ALSAC Tower in

1975. Mauer established the hospital’s

Domestic Affiliate Program, which

created St. Jude clinics in other cities,

enabling some children to receive their

treatments closer to home rather than

traveling to Memphis.

Judith Wilimas, MD, medical

director of the Domestic Affiliate

Program, came to St. Jude in 1974 as

a postdoctoral fellow under Mauer’s

leadership.

“Physician, scientist and most

of all, teacher, Dr. Mauer was one of

the founders of pediatric hematology/

oncology,” Wilimas said. “He was

the best teacher I ever had and taught

me and hundreds of others—students,

residents and fellows—how to

diagnose and treat diseases using a

stepwise, logical approach to provide

children with compassionate, quality

care. His many fellows and students

worldwide will miss him.”

Mauer served as president of the

American Society of Hematology

and was also elected president of

the Association of American Cancer

Institutes. Additionally, he was

awarded the prestigious St. Boniface

General Hospital Research Foundation

Award, which was established to

honor individuals who through their

genius, talent and energy have made

outstanding contributions to health care

and/or humanity.

Dr. Alvin Mauer (at right) stands in front of the hospital with St. Jude founder Danny

Thomas. Mauer, who died May 26, is credited with maintaining the balance between clini-

cians and basic scientists during a period of extreme growth at St. Jude.

bm

c p

HO

TO

S


5

R enovations to the Patient Care Center (PCC) began in spring 2008. The current stage of construction—known as Phase III of the hospital renovations—began in January 2010.

Phase III is unique from the first two stages in that it marks the first time during the renovations that three large areas were renovated simultaneously. The three main areas include the new Behavioral Medicine Clinic on the south side of the plaza level; the Blood Donor Center and the Eye Clinic on the south side of the first floor; and the new B Clinic and Medicine Room expansion on the north side of the PCC first floor. The expanded B Clinic is scheduled to open Friday, June 11.

Additional renovations and construction created new space for the Flow Cytometry Core Group on the plaza level of the Danny Thomas Research Center, and for the new Hematology, or H Clinic, which relocated from the Translational Trials Unit to a new area on the south side of the first floor of the PCC.

The PCC renovations were designed to create additional space for existing departments and to create improvements to enhance the access of patients to the services they need.

Charlotte Fineberg-Buchner (at left) and Niki Jurbergs, PhD,

both of Behavioral Medicine, Clinical Psychology, stroll through

the hallways lined with new murals in the Behavioral Medicine

Clinic on the plaza level of the PCC.

From left, Scott Perry, PhD; Elizabeth Mann, both of Flow Cy-

tometry; and Richard Ashmun, PhD, Flow Cytometry and Cell

Sorting Shared Research director, utilize the new space in the

Flow Cytometry lab on the plaza level of the Danny Thomas Re-

search Center (DTRC). In April, the lab relocated from the DTRC

fifth floor to accommodate additional equipment and transaction

space. The space’s design and large windows will allow it to be

another stop for research tours.

From left, Rebecca Gaddis and Amber Kessler, both of Nurs-

ing—ACU, Hematology, unpack boxes May 7 as the Hematology

Clinic moved into its new space on the first floor of the PCC.

As a result of the move from the Translational Trials Unit,

Hematology patients will now be closer to the services they use

most frequently such as the Medicine Room and X-Ray.

Terrence Geiger, MD, PhD, Pathol-

ogy, medical director of the Blood

Donor Center, speaks to visitors

during the grand opening ceremony

of the center May 21. The new space

is twice as large as the previous area

and now includes two additional

blood donor stations, two patient

procedure rooms, a waiting room and

new office space.

The Medicine Room and B Clinic expansion accounted for the

largest portion of the recent construction. From left, Adrian

Banks, Ashley Holland and Pat Pitman, all of Nursing—ACU,

work near one of the new private patient rooms in the Medi-

cine Room. The 10 additional private rooms came as part of a

response to requests from patients and families.

Room for Change

bmc pHOTOS


NEWS ROUNDUP

St. Jude and ALSAC hosted the inaugural

“I Am Making a Difference Fair” May 25 and

26 in the Danny Thomas Research Center

atrium. The fair was designed to unite

employees from across campus to share

information about the many volunteer and

program opportunities within St. Jude and

ALSAC that are available to faculty and staff.

Exhibitors at the fair included the Blood

Donor Center, the Child Life Program, Ronald

McDonald House of Memphis, Memphis

Grizzlies House, St. Jude Tributes, the Living

Well Program, St. Jude Memphis Marathon

Weekend, Employee Giving, Volunteer

Services, Pathway to Hope brick campaign,

Blues City Golf League, Women of St. Jude,

the ALSAC Gift Shop, St. Jude Spare Change

Program and Field Operations.

Wyman Roberts, the new president

of Chili’s Grill and Bar and On the

Border (second from left), recently

visited St. Jude to learn more about

the hospital and the partnership

between the two organizations.

Roberts and his colleagues were

greeted in the Chili’s Care Center

by Penny Tramontozzi (third

from right) and Larry Kun, MD,

Radiological Sciences chair (far

right).

Bruce Hopkins (center), St. Jude Board member and senior vice president of First

Tennessee Bank, and Brenda Abshure (right), ALSAC senior vice president of

Gift Planning, watch as Penny Aviotti of First Tennessee Foundation unveils the

foundation’s plaque before it is hung in the hospital’s Pioneer Hallway. The First

Tennessee Foundation has contributed $720,000 in gifts to St. Jude.

Top executives, general managers and key corporate staff of Williams Sonoma

visited St. Jude May 18 to celebrate the success of their 2009 Thanks and Giving

campaign. The group toured the hospital and several research labs during their

visit, enjoyed a program in the Danny Thomas/ALSAC Pavilion during lunch

and finished the day with dinner at Target House. Pictured, Rebecca DuBois,

PhD, Structural Biology, directs Williams Sonoma guests on a tour of the lab of

Stephen White, DPhil, Structural Biology chair.

bmc pHOTOS


7

Cord blood transplant pioneer details successes and continuing efforts to enhance therapy

An investigator who pioneered

the use of umbilical cord blood for

bone marrow transplants presented the

Danny Thomas Lecture May 14 in the

St. Jude Auditorium. Hal Broxmeyer,

PhD, outlined the basic science data

spanning three decades that has been

essential for realizing the promise of

cord blood as a tool in the treatment of

cancers and other disorders.

His contributions to the field

include a 1989 publication suggesting

cord blood was a potential source of

the hematopoietic or blood-forming

stem cells capable of rebuilding

a person’s complete blood and

immune system. Seven of the first

10 cord blood transplants used cord

blood collected and processed in

Broxmeyer’s laboratory. More than

20,000 cord blood transplants have

now been performed worldwide.

Broxmeyer detailed efforts

underway in his laboratory to develop

new methods to speed engraftment,

improve survival and expand the

supply of the blood-forming stem

cells collected from umbilical

St. Jude teacher Justin Gardner delivers some last-minute instructions to students

taking part in the 2010 School Program Kindergarten Graduation ceremony May 26 in the

St. Jude Auditorium. This year’s graduating class had 19 students.

cords. Broxmeyer is a distinguished

professor, chair and Mary Margaret

Walther Professor Emeritus of

Microbiology and Immunology at

the Indiana University School of

Medicine. He is also president of the

American Society of Hematology.

Although the science he detailed

was complex, Broxmeyer said he

believes in simplicity. “If you want

to translate something from the basic

laboratory to the clinic, the simpler the

better,” he explained. “It is not that you

cannot take something complicated

and bring it into the clinic, but if it is

simpler, it will probably get translated

more quickly.”

More recently, Broxmeyer and

colleagues reported cord blood frozen

for years was still viable and worked

to restore a functioning blood and

immune system in mice. “Even after

24 years, these cells are capable of

long-term repopulation of the bone

marrow and blood,” he said.

Achievements Nancy Sexton, RN, Utilization

Review, recently received a master’s

degree in professional studies from the

University of Memphis.

Wanda Rivers, Pharmaceutical

Services, obtained a Master of

Business Administration degree

with a concentration in health care

management from the University of

Phoenix.

CondolencesCondolences are extended to

Kristi Thomas, Referring Physicians

Office, on the death of her grandfather,

Henry Powell, May 17.

Condolences are extended to

Karen Cook-Pryor, Pathology, on

the death of her mother, Marie Cook-

Davis, May 19.

T he drug Heparin has varying uses in the health care

industry, such as in dialysis, lab draw procedures,

cardiac catheterization and more commonly at St. Jude

in the prevention of veno occlusive disease in transplant

patients and to keep IV lines open. Different IV lines

require different concentrations. Vials with varying

concentrations often look alike, which adds to the risk of

harm.

Heparin has recently been associated with a number of

high-profile errors that have received media attention.

“We have learned from each of the Heparin errors

at other hospitals and have taken actions to improve our

medication-use systems and decrease the risk of similar

errors at St. Jude,” said James Hoffman, PharmD,

Medication Outcomes and Safety Officer. “However,

Heparin and other anticoagulants are high-risk drugs, and

we must remain vigilant to ensure our use of these drugs is

as safe as possible.”

Realizing medication safety is a critical component of

safe patient care, a host of staff from Inpatient, Ambulatory

Care, Intensive Care, Pharmacy, Child Life, Education and

other departments have reviewed current literature and

St. Jude policies and procedures.

The Quality Improvement Council of Patient Care

Services and these partners will be presenting recent policy

changes along with patient and provider safety-awareness

tips for Heparin ordering, administration, dispensing

and storage at the Help Education Everyone-Heparin

Awareness Week fair or “HEE HAW.”

The fair is Sunday, June 13, and Monday, June 14,

from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. in the Board Room. The event will

include a prize raffle and HEE HAW Jeopardy.

Raising awareness about Heparin

School Program helps patients stay on academic trackThe St. Jude School Program,

accredited by the Southern Association

of Colleges and Schools as a Special

Purpose School, ensures patients

can continue to achieve academic

goals and interact with peers while

undergoing treatment at St. Jude.

Schoolwork helps to give patients a

sense of normalcy amid the disruption

that often comes with hospitalization.

In many ways, the rigor of academics

may provide a different avenue for

patients to cope with their illnesses.

Opened in 1999 under Behavioral

Medicine, the School Program began

with two Memphis City Schools

teachers who worked with patients

individually. The program has since

expanded to six licensed teachers who

work at St. Jude. One teacher, Dennis Medford, a Memphis City Schools

teacher, is assigned to the program on

a permanent basis and the other five

are St. Jude employees. Laurie Leigh,

School Program director, said that

there have been teachers at St. Jude for

more than 20 years.

The School Program works with

more than 250 kindergarten through

12th grade students each year. Patients

receive instruction three times a week

in compliance with standards for

homebound services in Tennessee. To

ensure a smooth, academic transition,

St. Jude teachers provide instruction

based on the curriculum set by

patients’ community schools. Students

use books and instructional materials

provided by their respective schools

while at the hospital.

“We ask the community teachers

to prioritize what the children need

to accomplish while they are here,”

Leigh said.

A recent expansion of the School

Program space has provided ways to

enhance patients’ experiences in their

school away from school.

“Our classrooms are bigger, so

we can see more patients at one time,”

Leigh said. “There may be three

teachers seeing patients at the same

time in the classroom now. Previously,

that would have been very difficult.”

Instruction takes place in two new

classrooms as well as in other areas

of the hospital such as the Medicine

Room or the Inpatient Room.

Also, program instructors are

now using the SMARTboard—an

electronic, interactive whiteboard—

to help teach the curriculum. For

example, elementary students take

spelling tests on the board, and high

school students use the board to work

algebra and geometry problems.

The expansion includes a waiting

area between the program’s two

classrooms so patients know that their

parents are nearby. New office space

provides a space where teachers can

meet with parents after class about

assignments. The new space on the

plaza level of the Patient Care Center

provides easy access to resources for

program staff.

“Now, we are all together in

one area, which is more efficient in

terms of storage and use of office

equipment,” Leigh said. “It has also

enhanced our identity as a team.”

The recent growth of the School

Program is just one more example of

the ongoing commitment of St. Jude to

treat the whole patient.

pE

TE

R b

AR

TA

insiderin

side

rMonday, June 7, 2010

St. Jude

A l s o i n t h i s i s s u e

2 St. Jude No. 1St. Jude is ranked the No. 1 children’s cancer hospital in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.

2 On the HorizonDr. William E. Evans, St. Jude director and CEO, discusses the strategy of treating specific abnormalities with anti-cancer drugs.

5 Room for change Several departments on campus are settling into new or remodeled areas.

6 School DaysThe St. Jude School Program helps patients stay on the academic track during treatment.

A biweekly internal publication for St. Jude employees

Please recycle after reading.

insider is a publication intended for employees of

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It is published biweek-

ly by the Public Relations department. Any use of these stories

by other parties or for other purposes requires authorization

by hospital Public Relations. E-mail story ideas to insider@

stjude.org. Submissions such as achievements, births, in me-

moriam and wedding announcements are welcomed. Public

Relations reserves the right to edit or hold any submissions.

The mission of St. Jude is to advance cures, and means of pre-

vention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research

and treatment. St. Jude is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

If you prefer to obtain St. Jude Insider online, visit http://

home.web.stjude.org/insider/. To change the number of paper

copies your department receives, e-mail [email protected].

St. Jude investigatorscont’d from front cover

cont’d on back cover

SE

TH

DIX

ON

St. Jude investigators release data on potential

new treatment targets for malaria

An international team led by St. Jude

investigators recently released data

detailing the effectiveness of nearly 310,000

chemicals against a malarial parasite that

remains one of the world’s leading killers of

young children.

The research, which appeared in the

scientific journal Nature, identified more than

1,100 new compounds with confirmed

activity against the malarial parasite.

Of those, 172 were studied in detail,

leading to identification of almost two

dozen families of molecules investigators

consider possible candidates for drug

development. St. Jude researchers already

used one of the molecules to stop the

parasite’s growth in mice.

The six-year project was launched


and Therapeutics chair, in an effort to

revive malaria drug development. Guy

is senior author of the study. Armand Guiguemde, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow

in Guy’s laboratory, is the first author.

“Malaria causes roughly 8 percent of

childhood deaths worldwide and remains

among the greatest threats to children

in the developing world,” Guy said. “At

St. Jude, we focus on diseases that kill

children, but lack good treatments. That is

what drove us to start this work.”

Added Dr. William E. Evans,

St. Jude director and chief executive

officer: “These are the same tools and

techniques that we are now using to find

new targets and drugs to treat childhood

cancer. This work illustrates their

enormous power for drug discovery.”

The effort has grown into a

consortium of investigators at nine

institutions and foundations in the U.S.,

Australia and Europe. The collaborators

created a public database to share their

research.

“We’ve provided a toolbox to the

global community and have given them a

lot of the early results from working with

the tools so they won’t have to repeat the

work,” Guy said.

The database includes the chemical

structure and activity profile of each of

the 309,474 molecules in the St. Jude

library of drugs, natural compounds

and other chemicals. There is additional

information about the 172 compounds

that were more comprehensively

evaluated. Researchers interested in

accessing the database can visit www.

stjuderesearch.org/guy/data/malaria.

For this study, St. Jude researchers

used technology known as high-

throughput screening to survey the

hospital’s chemical library for compounds

effective against the Plasmodium

falciparum, the deadliest of the malaria

parasites.

Anang Shelat, PhD, a postdoctoral

fellow in Guy’s laboratory, analyzed

the structures of the 1,100 identified

compounds that reliably blocked the

parasite’s growth to find a representative

sample of 172 molecules. The anti-

malarial properties of those 172

were confirmed by two collaborating

laboratories using different techniques.

Investigators at another eight participating

institutions then studied those compounds

in more detail. Eighty percent of the 172

molecules were found to act against new

targets.

St. Jude is pursuing drug

development with three families of

compounds. Investigators hope to have a

new drug in the clinic within a decade.

The other St. Jude authors are David Smithson, PhD, Michele Connelly, Julie Clark and Fangyi Zhu, PhD, all of

Chemical Biology and Therapeutics.

Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti, PhD, Immunology, is principal investigator of a two-year, $462,000 R21 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases titled “NLR Signaling in Intestinal Inflammation.” The grant is funded from 2010 to 2012. The co-investigators are Jerry Rehg, DVM, Pathology, and Douglas Green, PhD, Immunology chair.

Major New Grant Award

The following major new grant was awarded to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital between May 12 and May 21:

KIp Guy, PhD, Chemical Biology and Therapeutics chair (center, foreground) and his research

team released data that detailed the effectiveness of more than 300,000 chemicals against a

malarial parasite that remains one of the world’s leading killers of young children. The findings

appeared in the scientific journal Nature. Chemical Biology and Therapeutic research members

(from left) are: Julie Clark; Fangyi Zhu; Michele Connelly; Armand Guiguemde, PhD; Guy;

David Smithson, PhD; and Anang Shelat, PhD.

St. Jude research into new treatment targets

for malaria made the cover of the May 20

issue of the journal Nature. The 3-D rendering,

created by Samuel Connell, St. Jude Light

Microscopy director, shows malarial parasites

infecting a red blood cell.

insider -...

Documents

Transcript of insider -...