NEW DIAGNOSTIC FOR APPENDICITIS: An antibody discovered by scientists at The Wistar Institute will help doctors diagnose cases of appendicitis quickly and accurately. NeutroSpec™, a new imaging agent approved by the Food and Drug Administration in July, is based on a Wistar-discovered monoclonal antibody called SSEA1. NeutroSpec™ binds to a type of white blood cell that travels through the body to sites of infection. When injected into the blood, NeutroSpec™ binds to these white blood cells battling an infection, enabling physicians to detect the infection with a gamma camera, a common piece of equipment in hospitals. The Wistar antibody was developed further by Palatin Technologies with assistance from Thomas Jefferson University . The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the FDA’s approval of NeutroSpec™ and the Wistar discovery that made the advance possible in a front-page story in July.

 UNDERSTANDING A CANCER GENE: First discovered twenty years ago, the cancer gene MYC is the most overexpressed oncogene in human cancers. The promise of therapies targeting MYC appears especially great; MYC mutations are associated with a wide range of common cancer types, including breast, colon, ovarian and prostate cancers, and melanoma. Recent studies have determined that the MYC protein, known as a transcription factor, binds to about 15 percent of all genes. Scientists had long believed that when MYC binds to a target gene, it turns that gene on, or activates it. Surprisingly, new work by scientists including Wistar assistant professor Steven B. McMahon, Ph.D., demonstrates that MYC frequently binds to genes without activating them. The unexpected discovery that MYC binds to a large percentage of genes without activating them calls into question long-held assumptions about MYC’s functioning and opens new directions for MYC research, McMahon says.

MAJOR SKIN CANCER GRANT: A scientist at The Wistar Institute is heading a major skin-cancer research effort supported by a highly competitive grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Meenhard Herlyn, D.V.M., D.Sc., professor and leader of Wistar’s Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis Program, is the principal investigator of a Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE), one of only three SPOREs in the country related to skin cancer. Recently, Herlyn’s SPORE was renewed by the NCI for $2.3 million per year through 2009. His project focuses on melanoma and cutaneous T cell lymphoma, the deadliest forms of skin cancer. The NCI established the SPORE program in 1992 to promote interdisciplinary research and to speed the transfer of basic research findings from the laboratory to hospitals and clinics to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment. In addition to skin cancer, the NCI funds SPOREs supporting research into many other major types of cancer, including breast, prostate, lung, ovarian and brain cancers, and lymphoma. The Wistar Institute is the only NCI Cancer Center focused on basic research that holds a SPORE grant.