Florida - July 2015 Archives

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In their bid to find the best combination of therapies to treat anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC), researchers on Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus demonstrated that all histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are not created equal. In testing multiple HDAC inhibitors in combination with the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel, known to give some benefit for this aggressive cancer, they found that class II HDAC inhibitors signal through a newly discovered pathway to promote synergy with chemotherapy treatment. Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Copland are available in the downloads. MEDIA CONTACT: Kevin Punsky, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 904-953-0746, punsky.kevin@mayo.edu

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — U.S. News & World Report again has named Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus to its annual list of “America’s Best Hospitals” published online today. Mayo Clinic is ranked No. 1 in the Jacksonville metro area, No. 4 in Florida and among the top 50 hospitals nationally in cancer, gastroenterology (GI) and GI surgery, geriatrics, and neurology and neurosurgery. The Florida campus also was recognized as high performing in diabetes and endocrinology, ear, nose and throat, gynecology, nephrology, orthopedics, pulmonology and urology. “This honor reflects the deep commitment of our staff to provide the highest quality of care to our patients every day,” says Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., CEO of Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus. “Our employees are critical to the success of Mayo Clinic. I’m extremely grateful for their dedication and commitment to making the patient experience the very best it can be.” Journalists: Sound bites from Dr. Farrugia are available in the downloads. MEDIA CONTACT: Kevin Punsky, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 904-953-0746, punsky.kevin@mayo.edu

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Researchers on Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus have identified key differences between patients with sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) and those with the most common genetic form of ALS, a mutation in the C9orf72 gene. Their findings, reported online today in Nature Neuroscience, demonstrate that ALS patients show abnormalities in levels and processing of ribonucleic acids (RNA), biological molecules that determine what gene information is used to guide protein synthesis. More than 30,000 Americans live with ALS, a condition that destroys motor neuron cells that control essential muscle activity, such as speaking, walking, breathing and swallowing. While increasing efforts are geared toward therapeutic development, an effective drug for ALS has yet to be identified, in large part because of our incomplete understanding of the disease. “Our results using advanced, modern laboratory techniques called next-generation sequencing, allowed us to acquire a library of new knowledge about patients with ALS,” says the study’s senior author, Leonard Petrucelli, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Neuroscience on Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus. Dr. Petrucelli and Hu Li, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology on Mayo Clinic’s campus in Rochester, Minn., led a team of investigators who carefully analyzed the RNA from human brain tissues. They found that ALS brains had numerous RNA defects, compared to nondisease brains. They also predicted molecular events that may be altered due to the changes found in RNAs involved in pathways regulating those events and that may contribute to ALS.