The study, which appeared in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that mice lost 85 percent of their hair if they received radiation therapy in the morning, compared to a 17-percent loss when treatment occurred in the evening.

Researchers from USC, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of California, Irvine (UCI), worked out the precise timing of the hair circadian clock as well as uncovered the biology behind the clockwork — the molecules that tell hair when to grow and when to repair damage. The researchers then tested the clock using radiotherapy.

“These findings are particularly exciting because they present a significant step toward developing new radiation therapy protocols that include minimizing negative side effects on normal tissues, such as hair or bone marrow, while maintaining the desired effects on cancer cells,” said the study’s first author Maksim Plikus, formerly a postdoctoral fellow at USC and now an assistant professor of developmental and cell biology at UCI. “We will now apply our findings to design novel circadian rhythm-based approaches to cancer therapy.”

The scientists can’t say their findings will directly translate to human cancer therapy because they haven’t yet studied that possibility. But they say it is becoming increasingly clear that body organs and tissues have their own circadian clocks that, when understood, could be used to time drug therapy for maximum benefit.

“This suggests that delivering a drug to an organ while it is largely inactive is not a good idea. You could do more damage to the organ than when it is awake, repairing and restoring itself,” said the study’s co-lead investigator, Satchidananda Panda, an associate professor in Salk’s Regulatory Biology Laboratory and an expert on circadian rhythm. “If you know when an organ is mending itself, you might be able to deliver more potent doses of a drug or therapy. That might offer a better outcome while minimizing side effects.”

Cheng-Ming Chuong, professor of pathology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the study’s co-lead investigator, and Plikus are experts on hair regeneration. Panda uses genetic, genomics and biochemical approaches to identify genes under circadian regulation in different organs and to understand the mechanism of such regulation. They teamed together to find and then take apart the mouse hair circadian clock. It was a long and difficult study, according to Chuong.

“Hair is a very complicated organ, featuring different types of cells going through different stages in the life cycle in a very tiny space,” he said. “We found that hair in mice grows fast in the morning and slows down at night, engaging a very powerful clock.”

Every time hair cells divide, they pick up DNA damage that needs to be repaired. The scientists discovered that mice hair cells repair the damage primarily in the evening.

Radiotherapy damages DNA in cells that divide rapidly, which is why it is used against growing cancer cells. That means DNA damage to hair cells from radiotherapy delivered in the morning is not repaired until the evening, leading to hair loss. Damage from radiotherapy at night, however, is minimized because hair cells, already in the process of repairing DNA, can quickly heal.

“While we don’t yet know if human hair follows that same clock we found in mice hair, it is true that facial hair in men grows during the day, resulting in the proverbial 5 o’clock shadow. There is no 5 a.m. shadow if you shave at night,” Panda said.

Scientists know for certain that other organs, such as the liver, use a circadian clock, and they suspect that all human tissue is similarly regulated, though the clocks may be timed differently. According to Chuong and colleagues, the clinical implications for these various internal clocks may go beyond timing of drug therapy.

“For example, some researchers suspect that obesity and diabetes occur when an organ or organs — perhaps the liver or stomach or pancreas — should be sleeping, but is awoken by food that needs to be processed,” Panda said.

Other contributing authors on the study were Damon de la Cruz from USC, Christopher Vollmers and Amandine Chaix from Salk, and Raul Ramos from UCI.

The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (grant numbers AR42177, AR47364, DK091618 and P30 CA014195), The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, The Charles A. Dana Foundation, the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and the Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation.

Thanks to a lead gift by the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation for construction of the Norris Healthcare Consultation Center, patients like Kral will soon have even more options for personalized, compassionate care.

“I’ve learned on my journey that when a person is facing cancer, the experience and capability of the facility and its staff are of prime importance and next is the manner in which the patient is treated on a personal basis,” said Kral to an audience of donors, administrators and physicians at a groundbreaking ceremony held on May 2. “The loving care I receive at Norris is an extremely important part of my overall treatment.”

During the ceremony, Thomas E. Jackiewicz, senior vice president and CEO for USC Health, described the facility, which will include multidisciplinary clinics designed to facilitate interaction among teams, infusion therapy, an ambulatory surgery center and a women’s cancer program. The center will also feature patient- and family-centered amenities, such as a retail pharmacy and comfortable patient and family waiting areas.

“This new facility will be a model for ambulatory care in the future,” Jackiewicz said. “Today we celebrate one more opportunity to truly excel in our mission of quality health care that is personalized, compassionate and innovative.”

USC President C. L. Max Nikias thanked the members of the Norris family and Norris Foundation for their support, congratulating them on the foundation’s 50th anniversary as he presented renderings of the Norris Healthcare Consultation Center to Harlyne J. Norris, a trustee of USC and the Norris Foundation, and Lisa Hansen, chair of the board of trustees for the Norris Foundation.

“Thanks to the cutting-edge technologies and pioneering therapies that will be available at the Norris Healthcare Consultation Center, we will do an even better job of turning cancer patients into cancer survivors,” Nikias said. “We will have a world-class facility to help us provide world-class care to all of our patients, allowing us to reach Kenneth Norris’ goal of ‘making cancer a disease of the past.’ ”

During her remarks, Harlyne Norris gave a recap of the foundation’s history with USC.

“I’ve enjoyed watching USC Norris grow, and my late husband was very proud of his involvement,” she said. “The research held his interest, and he would be amazed how far we have come to answering his goal.”

The Norris Foundation’s relationship with the Norris cancer center goes back to a lead gift that made groundbreaking possible for the center in 1979.

Hansen cited the most recent gift of $15 million as evidence of the continued commitment of Norris Foundation trustees to the work being done at USC Norris.

“It is our privilege to be a part of this latest project,” she said. “As funders, we know this is a sound investment; as people who have been touched by cancer, we know the funds are in good hands.”

The gift will be augmented by additional philanthropic support of $40 million that will be raised as part of the $1.5 billion Keck Medicine Initiative of The Campaign for the University of Southern California, a multiyear effort to secure $6 billion or more in private philanthropy to advance USC’s academic priorities and expand its positive impact on the community and world.

The celebration continued at a luncheon, with a program introduced by Keck School of Medicine of USC Dean Carmen A. Puliafito, who thanked the members of the Norris Foundation and introduced USC Norris Director Stephen Gruber.

“He understands the mission of cancer centers, the integration of research and clinical care, and he’s always thinking about how to advance the fight against cancer at USC,” Puliafito said.

Gruber described the advances being made at the cancer center.

“We are already expanding the universe of precision cancer care right here at USC Norris, taking strides to cure cancers that were once thought untreatable and bringing discoveries from research benches to our patients’ bedsides,” he said. “Today we’re breaking ground on the building that will help turn our goal of making cancer a disease of the past into a reality.”

Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge also made a quick visit to express his thanks for USC Norris’ continued service to Los Angeles.

“This is a very important place,” he told the audience. “There’s no place in our county that does so much for so many as USC.”

“It was the third day of school and I was in class, touching my neck,” recalled Caryn Roach, a student in the entry-level professional program of the USC Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. “And I felt a big lump.”

When you’re a thirtysomething student enrolled in the nation’s top-ranked occupational therapy graduate educational program with a bright career ahead of you in a workforce market booming with employer demand, “lump” is the last word you expect to hear, let alone feel.

But as a budding occupational therapist (OT), Roach is naturally attuned to the ways health conditions can variously impact everyday activities and lifestyle. Rather than shrug off those first suspicions, as she might have when she was working in the real estate industry prior to coming to USC, red flags were raised immediately.

After class was dismissed, Roach walked to Eric Cohen Student Health Services to begin a diagnostic workup. After being referred to radiology for further testing, less than two weeks after feeling that fateful lump, Roach received her diagnosis: Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“It was a shock because I’m not someone who gets sick,” she said. “I’m one of those people that are like, ‘I have such a good immune system that I don’t get sick.’ So no one, no one, expected that I would get cancer.”

At the Health Sciences Campus, occupational therapy classes convene in the Center for Health Professions, a building across the street from the USC Norris Cancer Hospital, one of a few Southern California facilities exclusively dedicated to cancer research and care. It was there in early September where she began treatments under the watchful eyes of Keck School of Medicine of USC faculty oncologists.

Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a type of blood cancer originating from white blood cells known as lymphocytes. While its cause is unknown, Hodgkin’s lymphoma is thankfully considered one of the most curable forms of cancer when detected early enough in its progression. Patients can be effectively treated with radiation therapy or chemotherapy, and because five-year survival rates exceed 90 percent, many young patients often live 40 or more years after treatment. Regardless of the relatively optimistic prognosis, nobody expects or wants cancer.

Yet with cheery optimism characteristic of many occupational therapists, Roach focused on the positive aspects of her circumstances.

“It’s not perfect,” she said, “but if I were still working in real estate and this happened, it could’ve been really, really bad. I’m here at USC, and I automatically get a good doctor. My mom’s like, ‘You’re getting your tuition’s worth.’ It’s been the best experience for what it could have been.”

Roach also exemplified the spirit of occupational therapy in the way she chose to continue living life to its fullest rather than retreating into her diagnosis.

As health care providers, occupational therapists provide clinical interventions designed to help their patients perform meaningful activities, no matter the obstacles posed by extenuating health conditions or life circumstances. For Roach, that outlook meant she would not be taking a leave of absence. Throughout the fall 2012 semester, she continued to keep pace with course lectures and assignments while also undergoing treatment.

“It wasn’t really ever a question of ‘Am I going to keep going to school?’ Yeah, I’m going to try because what else am I going to do?” she said. “That’s the foundation of occupational therapy — meaningful activities.

“Sometimes people think living is the most important thing. I know this, but I still am the same person I was before,” she said, laughing with her trademark megawatt smile. “I want to get A’s.”

Roach also has a second family — the Trojan Family — that will soon be supporting her.

“I’m not lucky that I got cancer, but I think I’m very lucky with the timing of getting cancer,” she said. “I’m at USC. I’m in occupational therapy. I’m surrounded by very caring and supportive people, my classmates and all of the faculty.”

In late November, those caring classmates rallied around their friend and colleague. Because hair loss is perhaps the most obvious side effect of cancer treatments, Roach decided to just go ahead with shaving her hair and began wearing a decorative scarf on her head.

In a touching display of solidarity, the entire second-year master’s class organized “Scarf and Hat Day” in response. More than 100 students arrived at school wearing some form of headdress, including beanies and ball caps. Together they posed for a group picture at the Harry and Celesta Pappas Quad in the heart of the Health Sciences Campus. Front and center was Roach, flexing her biceps and smiling widely.

“The Scarf and Hat Day that we had says a lot about our program and the people who are in it,” Roach said. “I thought there would be like 20 people, maybe. But it was everyone. People that I’ve never even spoken to. It was everyone.”

According to Roach, that emotional support was not only a gesture to her but a broader reflection of the empathy at the heart of USC occupational therapists, present and future.

“It makes me feel good, and I know that it makes other people feel proud to be a part of this group. Knowing that we’re going to go out, and we’re going to go be OTs, and we’re going to help people make their lives better,” she said. “It just feels good to be a part of that. I don’t know where else you can find a group of that many people that are so caring and so supportive in one place.”

In January, with treatment well under way, Roach successfully walked the Tinker Bell Half Marathon at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. With the help of Team in Training, a fundraising program of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, she used her walk as an opportunity to raise money for improving treatments of leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma. Not only did she finish the race — her 10th half-marathon and first with cancer — she was also the top fundraiser in the entire nation, raising more than $11,000.

In March, Roach finished her last scheduled treatment. With more surveillance testing ahead of her, she is technically not yet in remission. But she is already looking forward to ways of leveraging her experience to benefit others in need.

“I’ve realized that I can do more if I work in oncology,” she said. “Going through this myself, going to a few support groups and hearing how other people are dealing with things, you can see that they need occupational therapy.

“A lot of people aren’t able to work anymore — they get diagnosed and they get treatment, and they can’t work; they have to quit their jobs or go on disability because they’ll be in chemo for three days straight,” she continued. “They don’t have the energy, they can’t do the things they used to do and their whole schedule shifts. Everything changes.”

Roach also recently decided to pursue her Doctorate of Occupational Therapy, accepting a clinical residency position at the Keck Medical Center of USC with the hopes of working one-on-one with people with cancer.

“I don’t think a lot of people are getting occupational therapy, who have cancer. This is somewhere I can give my input, and it means something. I am here. I’m living it right now,” she said. “I feel like a cliché, but I think that’s where I need to be because that’s where I can really help people.”

Recent findings by Provost Professor Andrew McMahon, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC, and Qilong Ying, associate professor of cell and neurobiology, underscore the essential role of basic science in paving the way for future medical breakthroughs.

McMahon and Ying are in pursuit of the ways in which the intricate regulatory circuit balances two qualities of stem cells: pluripotency (the capacity to develop into any type of cell) and differentiation (the process of becoming different types of cells). The scientists are particularly interested in signaling pathways — important routes for intracellular communication.

Left to their own devices, ESCs rapidly progress to the next step and become specific types of cells.

“We want to freeze the cells at that normally transient stage so they are more compatible for use in any clinical situation,“ said McMahon, who holds the W.M. Keck Professorship in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the Keck School.

In a recent study published in Stem Cells, McMahon’s team focused on the Wnt signaling pathway, one of the first pathways activated in human development. This network of proteins helps determine what a cell will become; it also is over-stimulated in colon cancer and other tumors.

Intriguingly, the Wnt pathway is linked to maintenance and differentiation of ESCs — to both stalling their evolution and encouraging it — what McMahon called “paradoxical actions.” His team’s findings zeroed in on one component in that process: transcription factor T-cell factor-3, or Tcf-3. Transcription factors are proteins that bind to DNA and control the flow of genetic information.

Working in the lab with mouse ESCs and complex bioinformatics, investigators found Tcf-3 was instrumental in destabilizing the stem cells. Equally important, beta-catenin — a multifunctional protein that activates Wnt target genes in the cell nucleus — can block Tcf-3’s ability to short-circuit the stem cells.

McMahon’s experiments rely on research by Ying, which was published in Nature in 2008. The research showed that ESCs could be cultured in the lab indefinitely and kept from differentiating, provided that two molecules were added to the cocktail in which the cells were kept.

Ying also has built on his 2008 study. In research published in the March 1 issue of Journal of Cell Science, Ying and his team analyzed another signaling pathway — LIF/STAT3 (leukemia inhibitory factor) — in the maintenance of stem cells. The researchers screened 19 genes and identified an important downstream target, a protein called Gbx2, which shows capabilities of supporting stem cell self-renewal.

What remains is a sort of genetic jigsaw puzzle.

“We have another missing piece, but we know there are many more to come,” Ying said.

The clinical applications of such investigations may not be far behind. At USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, a clinical trial is now under way to study the first drug designed to specifically target and inhibit the Wnt signaling pathway. The goal is to impede the growth of cancer cells.

“This is a strong example of how basic work in stem cell biology can lead to new thinking in how to treat patients,” McMahon said.

“I was very pleased to present on our 2012 study on the prevalence and risk factors of elder abuse among low-income Latino elders,” DeLiema said. “The topic of elder abuse prevalence in the low-income immigrant Latino community is particularly important to senior service providers in the Central Valley, where, for example, the population of Fresno County is 51 percent Latino compared to 38 percent statewide.”

Other speakers for the all-day event included Jill McCarthy from Hinds Hospice, who discussed “Hospice and Palliative Care: Preventing End-of-Life Abuse” and Prescott Cole, the senior staff attorney for the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, who covered “Facility Abuse and Veterans Aid and Attendance Fraud.”

Hosted by Castle Keep Elder Abuse Prevention and Central California Legal Services, the event drew nearly 200 attendees, many of them professionals from the disciplines of nursing, innovative aging technology, home health, hospice, criminal justice and adult protection.

“Our hope is that our research will guide health care and legal professionals in responding to neglect and abuse in immigrant communities,” DeLiema said. “It was so inspiring to hear from fellow professionals and community members and to see how interested they were in learning more about all the research we’re doing at USC Davis.”

For the first time, a global team of researchers led by USC Professor Cheng-Ming Chuong has uncovered unique cellular and molecular mechanisms behind tooth renewal in American alligators. Their study appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the official journal of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Humans naturally only have two sets of teeth — baby teeth and adult teeth,” Chuong said. “Ultimately, we want to identify stem cells that can be used as a resource to stimulate tooth renewal in adult humans who have lost teeth. But to do that, we must first understand how they renew in other animals and why they stop in people.”

Whereas most vertebrates can replace teeth throughout their lives, human teeth are naturally replaced only once, despite the lingering presence of a band of epithelial tissue called the dental lamina, which is crucial to tooth development. Because alligators have well-organized teeth with similar form and structure as mammalian teeth and are capable of lifelong tooth renewal, the authors reasoned that they might serve as models for mammalian tooth replacement.

“Alligator teeth are implanted in sockets of the dental bone, like human teeth,” said Ping Wu, assistant professor of pathology at the Keck School and first author of the study. “They have 80 teeth, each of which can be replaced up to 50 times over their lifetime, making them the ideal model for comparison to human teeth.”

Using microscopic imaging techniques, the researchers found that each alligator tooth is a complex unit of three components — a functional tooth, a replacement tooth and the dental lamina — in different developmental stages. The tooth units are structured to enable a smooth transition from dislodgement of the functional, mature tooth to replacement with the new tooth. Identifying three developmental phases for each tooth unit, the researchers concluded that the alligator dental laminae contain what appear to be stem cells from which new replacement teeth develop.

“Stem cells divide more slowly than other cells,” said co-author Randall Widelitz, associate professor of pathology at the Keck School. “The cells in the alligator’s dental lamina behaved like we would expect stem cells to behave. In the future, we hope to isolate those cells from the dental lamina to see whether we can use them to regenerate teeth in the lab.”

The researchers also intend to learn what molecular networks are involved in repetitive renewal and hope to apply the principles to regenerative medicine in the future.

The authors also reported novel cellular mechanisms by which the tooth unit develops in the embryo and molecular signaling that speeds growth of replacement teeth when functional teeth are lost prematurely.

Co-authors included colleagues from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, University of Georgia, National Cheng Kung University, National Taiwan University and Xiangya Hospital in China.

The research was supported by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (grant numbers 5R01AR042177-19, 5R01AR060306-03 and 2R01AR047364-11A1).

Unusual, yes, but certainly appropriate. Quagliozzi made the art while recovering from an acute exacerbation episode of his cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic condition that lands him in the hospital two or three times a year.

Quagliozzi channeled his illness through his art, giving viewers a chance to see what cystic fibrosis looks like — at least through the eyes of a trained artist.

In all, he made 20 paintings that reflected the pain and loneliness he felt during his 11-day hospital stay. An additional image was projected on a bathroom wall.

The subject matter ranged from his interpretation of the hives he developed during an allergic reaction to abstract drawings of faces that represented the hospital staff.

“When the doctors come into the room, they wear gowns and facemasks to protect me,” said the 30-year-old Burbank resident, who has a degree in fine art. “I made abstract paintings of that sensation of having all these people come in and observe me and take care of me, but I never see their faces.”

Others showed what Quagliozzi called “base human functions,” paintings of him relieving himself, for example.

“My work is basically all centered around the body, health, fitness and how society reacts to that,” he said.

The rest of the 11-by-15-inch pieces represented how he dealt with his situation.

“There are emotions about being alone in the hospital — isolation, alienation, separation anxiety,” he said. “These things that come up when you’re in the hospital for an extended period alone.”

With local artists expanding the idea of what a gallery can be, Quagliozzi had the idea of showing his paintings right there in his room.

“The CF team heard about it,” he said. “They contacted the hospital administration. They were really supportive of having the show.”

In fact, the hospital catered the event with cookies and drinks in April.

“Being in a hospital for two weeks can be really hard,” he said. “It really meant a lot to me. Having drinks and cookies really made the guests appreciate what was going on.”

Debbie Benitez, nurse coordinator for the CF program at Keck Hospital of USC, said the hospital encourages patients to find fulfilling activities during their stay.

“We want to support our patients and their dreams,” she said. “It was really amazing. You were just looking through the eyes of a CF patient.”

When guests arrived, they had to navigate around Quagliozzi’s bed and his IV pole. He didn’t want them to forget where they were.

“I was interested in the dynamic of people coming to a hospital room to observe not only a patient but the periphery,” he said.

Quagliozzi hopes his art teaches others that having an illness isn’t something to hide.

“Sometimes I have a group show and I’ll just project one of my X-rays,” he said. “It’s a prompt to make it OK for people to feel comfortable enough to share their personal health stories.”

To see more of Quagliozzi’s artwork, visit artistdominic.com

The USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the Keck School, has recently begun recruiting female participants for three new clinical trials studying breast, ovarian and cervical cancer immunotherapies. It is scheduled to open recruitment for a second ovarian cancer study over the summer. No other facility in California provides patients with access to all four of the trials.

“Research on cancer immunotherapy has proliferated over the years, but we are just beginning to see that research move into the clinic — these clinical trials are all new patient treatments that are targeted to boost the immune system,” said oncologist Agustin Garcia, associate professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School and principal investigator on two of the studies.

The first is a multicenter, phase-three trial for newly diagnosed breast cancer, which means the treatment has been deemed safe and effective in previous studies but must be observed in a larger group to confirm the findings. About 25 percent of people with lymph node-positive breast cancer who receive the most effective treatments available will still have a recurrence within three years after achieving remission.

In the “PRESENT” trial, sponsored by Galena Biopharma Inc., Garcia is testing the efficacy of the nelipepimut-S vaccine to prevent or delay breast cancer recurrence after receiving conventional chemotherapy. The drug, marketed as NeuVax, stimulates the body’s immune response to recognize, neutralize and destroy cancer cells that express the HER2 protein, a common target for breast tumor medicine.

Patients who express high levels of the HER2 protein are typically treated with trastuzumab, also known as Herceptin. However, about 20 percent of women with breast cancer express lower levels of HER2 and are not eligible to take trastuzumab. If NeuVax works, the vaccine could help those women.

“The traditional concept was that the immune system could not recognize tumors,” Garcia said. “Now, we see that the immune system just doesn’t react enough. That’s why vaccines like NeuVax are trying to make the immune system stronger.”

Similarly, the “CANVAS” trial is a phase-three study of whether the Cvac vaccine can help prevent epithelial ovarian cancer from recurring. While most patients achieve complete remission after surgery and chemotherapy, many will relapse and need chemotherapy again.

Adding Cvac to the front-line treatment regimen for ovarian cancer patients could potentially delay or prevent the cancer from relapsing and potentially lengthen overall survival. It is created from special cells taken from the ovarian cancer patient’s blood and “trained” in the lab to destroy certain tumor cells when reintroduced into the body.

CANVAS, slated to begin recruiting USC patients this summer, is a global, multicenter study sponsored by Prima BioMed Ltd., for newly diagnosed patients with ovarian cancer. The trial’s principal investigator at USC is Huyen Pham, assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at the Keck School.

Garcia is leading another study of ovarian cancer patients, a multicenter phase-two trial studying whether the drug INCB024360 can help patients whose ovarian cancer comes back after successful first-line treatment. In some women, the only evidence of recurrence is an abnormal blood test (a tumor marker known as CA-125), meaning that they show no symptoms and their physical exam and imaging studies are all normal. The patient must decide whether to undergo chemotherapy and its side effects when she is feeling otherwise healthy or wait until other symptoms appear and the cancer has advanced. INCB024360 is being studied as a less toxic alternative to chemotherapy.

Experimental drugs in phase-two clinical trials have been shown to be generally safe with minimal side effects and are being studied for effectiveness.

INCB024360 inhibits tryptophan, an enzyme that dampens the body’s immune response against cancer cells. Preclinical studies have shown that inhibition of tryptophan increases the immune system’s tumor-killing activity as well as the effectiveness of various chemotherapy drugs. The trial, supported by Incyte Corp., is randomized, which means that some participants will receive INCB024360 and others will receive tamoxifen, a hormone-based treatment that is effective for some women with recurrent ovarian cancer.

The fourth trial, led by Yvonne Lin, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Keck School, is a multicenter phase-one cervical cancer study developed at USC and sponsored by the National Cancer Institute’s Gynecologic Oncology Group and the USC Norris Auxiliary. Chemoradiation usually cures locally advanced cervical cancer except for a critical subset of high-risk patients with tumors that may have spread to the lymph nodes. Lin’s trial is focused on finding a new treatment option for those women.

Since most cervical cancers are caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) infecting cervical cells, Lin and her colleagues believe the body’s own immune system can eliminate those HPV-infected cells with the help of a new drug called ipilimumab. The immune system normally works by starting and stopping like a car controlled by gas and brake pedals. Marketed as Yervoy and approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2011 to treat melanoma, ipilimumab essentially works by temporarily taking off the brakes so that the immune system can continue running — and killing off HPV-infected tumor cells.

Because it is a phase-one study, the trial’s main goals are to identify side effects and select the best dose of the drug to give to these high-risk patients after chemoradiation.

“This type of immune modulatory treatment is very new,” Lin said. “No one really knows the kinetics of the immune system — how long it takes to rev up and rev down. So, an important part of our trial will actually try to answer that question by taking three snapshots of the patient’s immune landscape: at diagnosis, after chemoradiation and over the course of treatment with ipilimumab.”

For more information, visit uscnorriscancer.usc.edu/ClTrials/

Samet spoke on challenges and opportunities in arts and health care and the need for stewardship of the planet at an Earth Day forum on April 22 at Los Angeles City Hall.

Pointing to examples of air pollution from traffic in Beijing and from indoor cooking fuels and diesel vehicles in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Samet said, “Now the air pollution of Beijing and Addis is everyone’s problem in our global world. At 7 billion, we have exceeded the absorptive capacity of the planet, polluting one of our global commons — the atmosphere.”

Yet Samet, holder of the Flora L. Thornton Chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine in the Keck School of Medicine of USC, remains optimistic.

“The move to green-energy technology will make a difference,” he said. “Already the market is responding to the climate crisis with carbon-free strategies for energy production and for saving energy. New fuel efficiency standards and public preferences have already begun to shift the vehicle industry from SUVs to hybrid and electric vehicles. People will continue to make the right choice, if they have that option.

“I have confidence that people will unite around a common goal of saving our planet,” he added. “They know that we may be able to procrastinate for a while, but inherently we all want a better world for our children and grandchildren.”

Samet spoke on one of three panels presenting the perspectives of health as well as international and private sectors. The international panelists came from the consulates of Bhutan, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Mexico and New Zealand.

The seventh annual Global Environment Forum held at the USC Institute for Genetic Medicine Art Gallery on the Health Sciences Campus was organized by a steering committee chaired by Muriel Wood and B.K. Rao in collaboration with the Sisters Cities of Los Angeles Inc., and the gallery’s public, private, nonprofit/faith-based, academic and media partners.

A team of researchers led by Debu Tripathy, professor of medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, looked at data provided by RegistHER, a prospective, observational study of 1,023 newly diagnosed HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer MBC patients. The researchers found that hormonal therapy given with the anti-HER2 antibody trastuzumab (Herceptin) and chemotherapy is associated with improved survival and progression-free survival outcomes, compared to no hormonal therapy.

The study appears in The Oncologist, the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Translational Oncology.

“This study can aid in significantly improving treatment planning and shared decision-making with patients,” Tripathy said. “It provides a platform for considering hormonal therapy as a standard component of treatment regimens for patients with HER2-positive and hormone receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer.”

Using data from RegistHER, a multicenter, prospective cohort registry study, the research team determined that the targeting of both hormone and HER2 receptors is associated with better outcomes compared to HER2-based therapy alone. HER2-positive breast cancer, which accounts for approximately 25 percent of breast cancers diagnosed, tends to be more aggressive than other types of breast cancer because it promotes the growth of cancer cells.

About half of HER2-positive breast cancer cases are also estrogen receptor-positive. Trastuzumab specifically targets HER2 cells and is the standard of care for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, while HR-positive breast cancer is treated with hormonal therapy designed to interfere with HR signaling.

A lack of uniformity in how hormone therapy is used in treating HER2-positive breast cancer complicates the registry study analysis, but adjustments showed consistent, improved progression-free survival times and even overall survival rates with the addition of hormone therapy to either trastuzumab alone or with chemotherapy.