Hello everyone, We are preparing an exciting new addition to this year's Geneva Park: Family Feud.
For those of you that aren't aware of how Family Feud works, here's a wikipedia link so you can get up to speed.
In order to make this event work, we need YOU to respond to some survey questions. Go ahead and fill this out, and your responses will be tallied for the game.
Thanks for playing!
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Applying for scholarships this fall? The MBPGSU is piloting a new project to help you out. Join us Monday, September 12th from 4-5pm in room 7-605 at PMH for an organizational meeting and to find out more about how the program will work. What: Scholarship Workshops When: Mondays 4-5pm, room 7-605 PMH from September 12th to October 10th
Questions? Contact Shawn Stapleton (s.stapleton@utoronto.ca) for more information.
Read MoreFirst time visitors, welcome to the MBP Graduate Student Union website! Returning readers, welcome back! This website is created and designed for you by the MBP blog team. We strive to bring you articles and posts covering a diverse range of topics that we hope you'll find thought-provoking, useful, and/or hilarious. Drop us a line on our Contact page and let us know what you think of your website. Better yet, share your thoughts and ideas with the whole department by joining our blog team! We invite MBP students of all years and streams to contribute. You can choose just about any topic that you find interesting, from what's growing in your Petri dish to fashion in the lab, from whom you saw at the film festival to recipes for the student on the go, etc. Joining is easy: just email webmaster@mbpgsa.ca and we'll help you get started.
Even if you think you won't have time to contribute regularly, we encourage guest postings. For example, send us a short blurb the next time your paper is accepted and we'll feature your publication in our Academic blog.
From all of us on the MBP blog team, we hope that you learn lots, get great results, publish often, and have fun this upcoming year!
Get the latest updates from MBPGSU: RSS: http://www.mbpgsa.ca/?feed=networkrss Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/mbpgsu_uoft Facebook: coming soon... Google Calendar: mbpgsu@gmail.com
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The toxic side-effects of mercury in the environment have been heavily studied for the last couple of decades. The surprising and scary ways that mercury can move through the food supply, and accumulate at the top of the food chain, has led to an international effort to reduce industrial mercury pollution that enters our oceans and terrestrial environments. But is it working? Are we really reducing the mercury load on our environment? I don't know. And actually, that's not what I'm here to talk about. So just get off my back already, would ya?
I've come across some extremely interesting research regarding mercury poisoning that will boggle your mind. In a recent article published in the Proceedings of Biological Sciences (278 (1713): 1851-1857 (2011)), it was reported that the toxicity of mercury (specifically methylmercury) has more far-reaching effects than previously appreciated. What is being affected, you may ask? It appears that even at low levels, mercury toxicity can significantly alter the hormone levels of white ibises (water-wading birds). As a result, males of the species are more likely to mate with other males. That's right - rising levels of mercury lead to rising levels of homosexuality among male waterfowl.
"We knew that mercury can disrupt hormones - what is more disturbing about this study is the low levels of mercury at which we saw effects on hormones and mating behaviour," Peter Frederick, the leader of the study, explained in a news release. However, the authors of the study quickly pointed out that this research does not infer anything about human homosexuality; in fact, they were not attempting to research levels of homosexuality in birds at all. The study was originally set up in an attempt to understand why these coastal birds went through a precipitous drop in birth rates during the early 1990's. When they discovered higher-than-average levels of mercury in the birds' environment (in certain locations), they designed a fairly straight-forward experiment: 160 ibises were separated into 4 groups with equal males and females, and given a diet that contained no mercury, or low, medium, or high levels of mercury ("high" being equivalent to what they had encountered in nature). The authors followed the birds for three mating seasons and noted a direct relationship between male-male pairings in the bird populations and mercury concentrations.
So what does this all mean? Well, it may not "mean" anything. In the Nature news release, several evolutionary ecologists and animal physiologists cautioned that mercury concentrations may not even have the same effects on other bird species. And increasing mercury pollution is certainly not linked to human homosexuality; Frederick pointed to a number of long-term human studies on the effects of mercury poisoning, none of which have identified any changes in sexual behaviour. So maybe this is just a quirky, interesting finding. But one thing is for sure: the levels of toxic mercury being deposited into our oceanic and terrestrial environments are increasing, and more studies on the side-effects of this poison are needed.
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The MBP GSU is pleased to announce that the MBP Olympics are confirmed for Wednesday August 24th from 12:00 pm to 5 pm at Sunnybrook Park!!!
We will be continuing the tradition with a FREE BBQ as well, so be sure to book the afternoon off for some great food and amazing events. Stay tuned for event descriptions, but in the meantime you can register a team using the link below.
We look forward to seeing you come out for our events, BBQ, and a top-secret final event!
Read MoreBlogger Rachel Davis over at radiologydegree.com* has compiled a list of the top 30 radiology journals and publications. Even if your imaging project is not yet at the clinical stage, it is worthwhile to read up on the latest developments in clinical radiology and treatments so that we can strive to improve on the current medical technology through our research.
* A website dedicated to providing students with the information and tools they need to pursue a degree in radiology.
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By Diana Merino
Each month we will review/feature an article published by one of our very own MBP students in the biology and/or physics stream.
This article features the publication "Biochemical and imaging surveillance in germline TP53 mutation carriers with Li-Fraumeni syndrome: a prospective observational study" by Villani et al., Lancet Oncol. 2011 Jun; 12(6): 559-67. (PMID: 21601526) [Link to Paper]
Click! That’s all it takes to get your genome sequenced nowadays. But how would you benefit from knowing the genetic code that determines the most infinitesimal details of your being? What could you do with this information?
Imagine you sequence your genome and an underlying disease predisposition is uncovered in between your millions of T’s, C’s, A’s, and G’s...what would you do now? Would you benefit from subjecting yourself to constant tests and medical examinations with the hope of preventing disease?
These are perhaps some of the questions that individuals with Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS) might have asked themselves at one point or another. LFS is a cancer predisposition syndrome in which patients have increased incidence for soft tissue sarcomas, osteosarcomas, brain tumors, adrenocortical carcinoma, leukemia and premenopausal breast cancer. About 70-83% of patients carry a germline mutation (a mutation found in every single cell) in the tumor suppressor gene TP53, which increases their lifetime risk of cancer to as high as 73% in males, and 93% in females. Although LFS patients would greatly benefit from a comprehensive surveillance protocol, no strict guidelines have been implemented to date, mostly due to the complexity of this syndrome as exemplified by the diverse range of tumors and variability of age at onset.
The latest Malkin lab publication examines the benefit of a comprehensive biochemical and imaging surveillance protocol in LFS families carrying mutations in TP53.
Dr. Anita Villani and colleagues identified 33 TP53 mutation carriers from 8 LFS families through a multi-institutional effort between the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, and the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. 18 out of the 33 carriers decided to undergo clinical surveillance, which included various biochemical and imaging tests, such as blood tests, urinalysis, MRI and ultrasound scans. This surveillance strategy is specific for each cancer type associated with LFS and varied between children and adult patients due to the different frequency of diagnoses observed in each age category. For this analysis, the primary and secondary outcome measures were the detection of new cancers and overall survival, respectively.
The findings of this study were quite striking. In the surveillance group, 10 asymptomatic tumors were detected in 7 patients. These tumors included small, high-grade tumors and low-grade or premalignant tumors. All seven patients (100%) were alive after a median follow-up time of 24 months. On the other hand, 12 symptomatic tumors presented in 10 patients in the non-surveillance group. These tumors were mostly high-grade, high-stage tumors. Only 2 out of the 10 patients (20%) survived until the end of follow-up (p=0.0417). Overall survival analysis revealed that TP53 mutation carriers with LFS in the surveillance group had a 3-year overall survival of 100%, while those in the non-surveillance group had a 3-year overall survival of only 21% (p=0.0155).
The authors note that the surveillance protocol enabled the detection of smaller, pre-symptomatic malignancies that were managed before progression and metastasis. In most cases, the early detection of these malignancies prevented the use of systemic or radiation treatment and favouring the use of definitive localized treatments, which reduced the side-effects and the health burden that commonly used cancer therapies inflict on patients.
It is also important to note that part of the success of the surveillance strategy tested is adherence to follow-up appointments. The article addresses this by suggesting that adherence in patients with surveillance methods could be improved by continuous attention and engagement of a multidisciplinary team of specialists.
In patients with cancer susceptibility syndromes, the possibility of burnout is quite high due to lifetime surveillance. As such, it is crucial to implement surveillance protocols that address this issue and institute initiatives that decrease the risk of burnout through accountability systems.
In a day and age in which access to our genetic code is as simple as a cheek swab and a credit card payment, it is crucial to have the proper insight as to how this knowledge can be used for our benefit. This article demonstrates that personalized surveillance protocols, which are designed taking into consideration each individual’s genetic susceptibilities, are extremely effective at detecting early tumors and improving overall survival. In patients with LFS, the implementation of genetic testing and personalized screening strategies is necessary as it will help patients lead longer lives, increase quality of life through early tumor detection and avoidance of side effects associated to systemic treatments, and enable them to make informed lifestyle decisions.
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