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WSU News Service

Daoud Receives $250,000 for Cancer Research at WSU

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Washington State University breast cancer researcher Sayed Daoud is among those chosen this year for a $250,000 grant from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

The grant will allow Daoud to continue with cancer research he hopes will someday result in individual treatment therapy for women with a type of breast cancer that is difficult to treat.

"This is a new approach with a very direct clinical application, which is why the Komen Foundation is excited about it," Daoud said.

Daoud's grant was one of 174 awarded this year by the Komen Foundation to breast cancer researchers. The 2004 grants, which totaled more than $32 million, were announced in June.

Headquartered in Dallas, the Komen Foundation was established in 1982 by Nancy Brinker to honor the memory of her sister, Susan G. Komen, who died from breast cancer at age 36.

WSU News Service NIH Grant Supports Gene Mapping for Eye Condition WSU researcher Bassem Bejjani A four-year grant worth $1.3 million from the National Institutes of Health will support research at Washington State University Spokane on the number-one cause of corneal transplants in the developed world. Bassem Bejjani, MD, a research professor at WSU Spokane and co-director of molecular diagnostics at Sacred Heart Medical Center, received the funding for his research on keratoconus, or cone-shaped cornea, caused by a thinning of the cornea. A genetic researcher who has conducted federally funded research on congenital glaucoma, Bejjani says keratoconus is not currently known to be a genetic condition. However, during a trip to Ecuador to collect samples for his work on congenital glaucoma, which is a genetic condition, he said he met a doctor who told him about nearly three dozen families with kertoconus, suggesting the possibility of a genetic component. Bejjani and his colleague from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Richard A. Lewis, collected samples from some of these families and submitted a proposal to the NIH. The new funding will support mapping of the genes in an effort to find a genetic link. Click for the full story from the WSU News Service.

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• WSU Spokane Clinical Research Team Selected for Two New Diabetes Trials

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• Eat, Sleep, Stay Warm: How Our Bodies Find the Balance

  PULLMAN, Wash. –A new study led by scientists at Washington State University shows that alternate products of a single gene help control whether an animal sleeps or stays awake, craves food or doesn’t, and maintains its body temperature or plunges deep into hypothermia.

• Sleep Researchers Receive Air Force Grant to Model Cognitive Fatigue

  SPOKANE, WASH. - Researchers from the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University Spokane have been awarded a grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to develop a computational model predicting the precise effects of fatigue on cognitive performance tasks.

• WSU Veterinary Cardiologist Discovers Gene for Heart Disease

  PULLMAN, Wash.—Washington State University veterinary cardiologist Kathryn M. Meurs has discovered a mutant gene in the Boxer breed that causes a type of heart disease that can be fatal in animals and humans. Well known in the Boxer breed community, the disease is called Boxer cardiomyopathy. The more formal term is arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy or ARVC.

• Washington State University Researchers Awarded $1.4M for Driver Fatigue Studies

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• Better Tests Needed to Pinpoint Memory Problems, Study Shows

  PULLMAN, Wash. – There’s a lot more to memory than the ability to remember a story, who the President is, or what you ate for lunch. Do you recall who told you the story? How about whether you heard it before or after the President’s inauguration? Do you remember that you planned to meet a friend for lunch tomorrow?

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  PULLMAN, Wash.—The finding was a paradox. In a study involving malignant melanoma, it was discovered that increased alcohol consumption resulted in decreased spread of the cancer into the lungs of mice.

• Bindler Continues Fight against Childhood Obesity as WSU’s First Cougar Gold Scholar

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  PULLMAN, Wash.—A team of Washington State University scientists has devised a method that could lead to the development of vaccines against some of the most troubling infectious diseases we face—diseases that have so far been difficult or impossible to vaccinate against.

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