When Saathvik Kannan’s father, a faculty member at the University of Missouri, saw his friend, Kamlendra Singh, a research professor at MU, on television being interviewed for his research identifying possible treatments for COVID-19, he called Singh to congratulate him on his work. After learning that his friend’s son, Saathvik, had experience with and a passion for computer programming, Singh invited the 8th grader, who was a student at West Middle School in Columbia, Missouri, at the time, to collaborate with researchers at MU to identify mutations in the virus causing COVID-19.

Salman Hyder has spent nearly two decades at the University of Missouri researching ways to stop the spread of breast cancer.

Among his greatest discoveries was that combined hormone replacement therapy (estrogen + progestin) — once thought to be a panacea for women struggling with loss of estrogen during menopause — increases the risk of breast cancer in some women. The discovery was later affirmed by a Women’s Health Initiative study, which led to dramatic changes in how doctors treat menopausal women.

While Hyder, the Zalk Endowed Professor in Tumor Angiogenesis and professor of biomedical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center, is passionate about his research, he remains humble about his discoveries — characteristics that have endeared him to many graduate students over the years.

Mentoring up-and-coming researchers has not only been a chance for Hyder to inspire young minds, but an opportunity to continuously challenge his own ideas and invigorate his work with new perspectives.

“Of course it takes a very long time to find new therapeutics,” he said. “But what has kept me going — looking for something new every day — are the wonderful students I have had over the years. It’s not just my own interest in research, but training the next generation of researchers that keeps me going.”

Hyder’s work ethic has left an indelible mark on the graduate students who have come through his lab, including Benford Mafuvadze, who came to Mizzou in 2008 from Zimbabwe.

For five years, Mafuvadze was involved in many research projects, including a published study that found luteolin, a natural compound found in herbs, such as thyme and parsley, as well as vegetables, such as celery and broccoli, could reduce the risk of breast cancer for some women who have taken hormone replacement therapy.

Mafuvadze said Hyder’s mentorship put him at ease and allowed him to take risks, make mistakes and, eventually, do his best work.

“Dr. Hyder was concerned about my success as a person, not just the results of our research,” said Mafuvadze, who today is an assistant teaching professor in the department of molecular biosciences at the University of Kansas, where he also runs a lab. “That was very important to me.”

Scientists at the University of Missouri have discovered possible biological markers that they hope could one day help identify the presence of an opioid use disorder during human pregnancy.

Cheryl S. Rosenfeld, an author on the study, said women often take opioids for pain regulation during pregnancy, including oxycodone, so it’s important to understand the effects of these drugs on the fetal placenta, a temporary organ that is essential in providing nutrients from a mother to her unborn child. Rosenfeld is a professor of biomedical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, investigator in the Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center and research faculty member in the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of pregnant women diagnosed with an opioid use disorder has quadrupled between 1999 and 2014.

“Many pregnant women are being prescribed opioids — in particular OxyContin, or oxycodone — to help with the pain they can experience during pregnancy, and this can lead to opioid use disorders,” Rosenfeld said. “Many women also don’t want to admit to taking these drugs, and we know that children born from mothers who have taken opioids during pregnancy experience post-birth conditions, such as low-birth weight. But, so far no one has studied the potential ramifications of opioid use during fetal life. Thus, we focused on the placenta because it is the main communication organ between the mother and her unborn child.”

Previous studies examining these effects have used human cell cultures, but this is one of the first studies to use an animal model to examine how developmental exposure to these drugs affect the conceptus. In the study, Rosenfeld and her colleagues focused on how a mother’s use of oxycodone during her pregnancy can affect a mouse’s placenta. Mouse and human placentas are similar in many ways, including having placenta-specific cells in direct contact with a mother’s blood. They found the use of this drug during pregnancy can negatively affect the placenta’s structure, such as reducing and killing cells that produce by-products needed for normal brain development. In addition, Rosenfeld said their findings show specific differences in genetic expressions between female and male placentas in response to maternal oxycodone exposure.

“Our results show when mothers take oxycodone during pregnancy, it causes severe placental disruptions, including elevation of certain gene expressions,” Rosenfeld said. “We know what the normal levels should be and if there are any changes, then we know something might have triggered such effects. For instance, in response to material oxycodone exposure, female placentas start increasing production of key genes essential in regulating material physiology. However, in male placentas, we see some of these same genes are reduced in expression. These expression patterns could be potential biomarkers for detecting exposure to oxycodone use.”

Rosenfeld said by studying this in an animal model, it allows scientists to see these changes quicker than if they were completing a comparable study in people, because a pregnant mouse can give birth in 21 days compared to about nine months in people.

“This also allows us to easily study other regions of the body, especially the brain of exposed offspring, that would be affected by taking these opioids,” Rosenfeld said. “We can then use this information to help epidemiologists identify behaviors that people should be looking at in children whose mothers have taken these opioids.”

Rosenfeld suggests that opioids should be added to other widely discussed warning factors during pregnancy, such as smoking and drinking alcohol. She said short-term use of opioids by pregnant women, such as someone who has kidney stones, might not cause much of an effect on their pregnancy, but that likely depends on when the mother is taking the drug while pregnant. Future plans for this study include analyzing how offspring are affected once they are born.

Rosenfeld’s research is an example of an early step in translational medicine, or research that aims to improve human health by determining the relevance of animal science discoveries to people. This research can provide the foundation for precision medicine, or personalized human health care. Precision medicine will be a key component of the NextGen Precision Health Initiative — the University of Missouri System’s top priority — by helping to accelerate medical breakthroughs for both patients in Missouri and beyond.

The study, “Maternal oxycodone treatment causes pathophysiological changes in the mouse placenta,” was published in Placenta, the official journal of the International Federation of Placenta Associations. Other authors include Madison T. Green, Rachel E. Martin, Jessica A. Kinkade, Robert R. Schmidt, Nathan J. Bivens and Jiude Mao at MU; and Geetu Tuteja at Iowa State University.

Funding was provided by grants from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.

Story courtesy of Show Me Mizzou
Contact: Eric Stann, 573-882-3346, StannE@missouri.edu

Pancreatic cancer is rarely detected at its early stages because symptoms often do not present themselves until after the cancer has progressed. By then, invasive procedures such as surgery, chemotherapy or radiation are often needed to treat the cancer.

Now, researchers at the University of Missouri’s College of Veterinary Medicine and School of Medicine have identified novel pieces of biological information, such as RNA, which may serve as biomarkers for early detection of pancreatic cancer.

“If we can identify the potential for disease development as early as possible, preventative measures can be taken by the patient, which will ultimately lead to improved health outcomes,” said Senthil Kumar, a research professor in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine. “By drawing a blood sample in a minimally invasive manner, we can analyze the nano-carriers called ‘exosomes’ that are present in the bloodstream, which contain different biological information from normal and tumor cells.”

In this initial collaborative study between Kumar and surgeons Eric Kimchi and Jussuf Kaifi from MU Health Care’s Ellis Fischel Cancer Center, the researchers analyzed the blood samples of healthy individuals and patients at different stages of pancreatic disease. They identified novel RNAs that can be useful in distinguishing between healthy and cancerous conditions in the pancreas.

Screening both cancerous and non-cancerous subjects allows researchers to compare biological patterns to see if certain populations, such as those with a family history of pancreatic cancer, might be more predisposed to develop the disease.

“Identifying these biomarkers early on can help us learn of one’s susceptibility for disease development,” Kumar said. “Our goal eventually is to keep people well-informed so they have a greater awareness regarding any preventative measures.”

While these studies are in the initial phase, more patient studies, which are currently ongoing, will shed light on the potential of identified biomarker applications in pancreatic disease.

This interdisciplinary collaboration between the MU College of Veterinary Medicine and MU School of Medicine helps advance precision medicine, one of the core principles of the NextGen Precision Health Initiative. Identifying specific biomarkers in various populations will ultimately lead to more individualized treatment plans and improved health outcomes.

“RNA cargos in extracellular vesicles derived from blood serum in pancreas associated conditions” was recently published in the February 2020 edition of the journal Scientific Reports.

Story courtesy of Mizzou News Bureau
Contact: Brian Consiglio, 573-882-9144, consigliob@missouri.edu