A deeper look at College of Pharmacy faculty - Stories from the departments' newsletter BEAVERx.
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Department of Pharmacy Practice
Gene could allow lab-grown teeth
Story from British Broadcasting Company
Scientists believe they have found a way to grow teeth in the laboratory, a discovery that could put an end to fillings and dentures.
The US team from Oregon have located the gene responsible for the growth of enamel, the hard outer layer of teeth which cannot grow back naturally.
Other scientists are already growing the inner parts of teeth in animals - but they have no hard enamel coatings.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences work may plug this gap.
Experiments in mice have shown that the gene, a “transcription factor” called Ctip2, has several functions involving immune responses and the development of skin and nerves.
The work at Oregon State University made the link with enamel by studying mice bred to lack Ctip2.
Lead researcher Dr Chrissa Kioussi said: “It’s not unusual for a gene to have multiple functions, but before this we didn’t know what regulated the production of tooth enamel.”
The scientists found that Ctip2 was crucial for the enamel-producing cells, called ameloblasts, to form and work properly.
Dr Kioussi said: “This is the first transcription factor ever found to control the formation and maturation of ameloblasts, which are the cells that secrete enamel.”
Controlling the gene in conjunction with stem-cell technology could make the artificial creation of functional teeth a real possibility.
Alternatively, the knowledge could be used to strengthen existing enamel and repair damaged enamel, cutting decay and the need for fillings.
Dr Kioussi said: “A lot of work would still be needed to bring this to human applications, but it should work. It could be really cool, a whole new approach to dental health.”
Paul Sharpe, an expert on tooth development at the Dental Institute at King’s College London, said: “If you could find some way of growing ameloblasts that make enamel, you could find a way to repair teeth.
“Any gene like this is worth understanding. The more we learn about it the more we can use the information to make biological models of tooth repair.
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Anti-Cancer Compound Found in Beer
At the Linus Pauling Institute (LPI) and several OSU colleges, some groundbreaking work is being done on the promise of xanthohumol as an anti-cancer compound. Xanthohumol is a flavonoid found
primarily in hops—the main ingredient in beer.
“Xanthohumol is one of the more significant compounds for cancer chemoprevention we have ever studied,” said Fred Stevens, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry and a principal investigator in LPI. “The published literature and research on its properties are just exploding.”
Don’t get your hopes up—drinking beer doesn’t prevent cancer. Levels of this compound in beer are probably too low to have any major health value. But as a possible food supplement, or in foods designed to increase its level, xanthohumol is of considerable interest for everything from preventing prostate or colon cancer to hormone replacement therapy for women.
And don’t look for a “health beer” any time soon. OSU studies of xanthohumol are just beginning.
See the article in the BEAVERx.
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Senior Instructor, Ann Zweber, in a One on One - Story from Terra
“Ann gives me a lot of confidence. She makes me feel I can do whatever I want to do,” George says. “I want to be like her when I’m a pharmacist.”
The mentor Ann Zweber, senior instructor, College of Pharmacy
The student Channa George, second-year pharmacy student from Ten Sleep, Wyoming
Making a difference Take your prescription to the Bi-Mart pharmacy on 9th Street in Corvallis, and you might find Zweber and George working side by side. Zweber works in the pharmacy part time to “maintain my practice and credibility with students,” she says. George is completing an internship as part of the pharmacy program.
George says working with Zweber gives her a role model for how to care for patients, “how she talks to them, listens to them and helps them.” The internship experience also shows how pharmacists are becoming more involved with patients and more responsible for the outcomes of medications.
“Ann gives me a lot of confidence. She makes me feel I can do whatever I want to do,” George says. “I want to be like her when I’m a pharmacist.”
Mental Health Lifeline
Before coming to OSU in 2006, Stacy Ramirez spent 20 years in community pharmacy in a variety of roles, primarily in management and pharmacy operations. Today, in addition to teaching, she works with residents of a mental treatment facility in Corvallis, including Mike Christensen, lower left. (Photos: Karl Maasdam)
The most important visitors to Stacy Ramirez’s office walk around her desk and sit in a chair next to her. As they talk, Ramirez catches subtle clues about her visitors’ emotions, whether or not they are taking their pills or maybe hearing voices again. “I can tell by their eyes if there’s something going on that I need to ask them about,” she says.
Ramirez is a clinical assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy. In addition to teaching classes on pharmacy management and operations, she meets daily with a dozen or more residents at Mid Valley Housing Plus, a residential support facility in Corvallis for people with mental illness. She shares an office with Mid Valley case manager Sam Ortiz where she answers residents’ questions, administers medications—some by court order, others on request—and serves as a liaison with physicians.
No longer focused only on dispensing prescriptions, pharmacists increasingly serve as consultants and sometimes lifelines for people with chronic illness—diabetes, high blood pressure, schizophrenia. The hope is that as specialists in drug effectiveness and interactions, pharmacists can help stabilize lives and reduce hospital visits. For people with mental illness, that includes staying out of jails and homeless shelters.
In collaboration with OSU faculty members Ann Zweber in Pharmacy and Ray Tricker in the Department of Public Health, Ramirez will evaluate the consequences of her work at Mid Valley, documenting impacts on patient quality of life, interactions with police and visits to the emergency room. Just getting started, the research could have broad implications for developing an innovative role for pharmacists in the health care system.
“I have a patient that I see once a week,” says Ramirez, how serves on boards of directors at Mid Valley and the Oregon state Pharmacy Association. “He let me know that he was hearing voices, and the voices were telling him not to take his medications, not to listen to me anymore. So I got a hold of his physician, made some adjustments to his medications, called and checked on him to make sure he was taking them, to see if the voices had come back. He’s doing much better now.
“How that’s hard to quantify. What did that do? Did it save him a hospital trip? Maybe,” she adds.
As a mental health specialist, Tricker served on the Governor of Oregon’s Task Force on Mental Health in Oregon. In 2006, he invited Ramirez to work at Mid Valley. The nonprofit organization now accommodates about 65 clients. Two to three new requests for services—a warm apartment, transportation, counseling, case management (known in mental health circles as an Assertive Community Treatment model)—arrive weekly, says Tricker, who is also on Mid Valley’s board and has worked with the nonprofit organization for more than a decade.
At OSU, he offers students in his public health courses the chance to work with Mid Valley residents. Students gain valuable field experience, assisting residents with everything from shopping to a regular exercise program known as Walking Warriors.
“The goal is to find ways to create conditions that prevent people from relapsing,” Tricker says.
In her meetings with Mid Valley residents, Ramirez sees the need daily. “These patients have multiple psychiatric issues,” she says. “They know that unless they see someone every day, their chances of staying on their medication are not as good.”
See the article in the BEAVERx.
