2 — Friday, November 20, 2015
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

THREE THINGS YOU 
SHOULD KNOW TODAY

The 
Michigan 

women’s 
basketball 

team 
cruised 
past 

Xavier, 
92-54, 
on 

Thursday night to move to 3-0 
on the season. Jillian Dunston 
had a double-double in the 
victory.

>>SEE SPORTS, PAGE 7

2

CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES

Argriculture 
lunch panel 

WHAT: Three panelists 
will discuss the 
intersection of law, policy 
and urban agriculture.
WHO: Food Law and 
Policy Association
WHEN: Today from 11:50 
a.m. to 12:50 p.m.
WHERE: 0225 South 
Hall 

Performing arts 
technology

WHAT: Brandon Carroll 
will demonstrates iZo-
tope’s audio production 
software for creating, mix-
ing, mastering and repair.
WHO: School of Music, 
Theatre & Dance
WHEN: Today at 10:30 a.m.
WHERE: Earl V. 
Moore Building, Music 
Technology Lab 

Former 
Subway 

pitchman 
Jared 
Fogle 

was sentenced Thursday 
to more than 15 years in 

prison after pleading guilty 
to having sex with minors 
and 
child 
pornography 

charges, CBS reported. 
1

Japan and the 
Middle East 

WHAT: Symposium will 
look at contemporary 
relationships between 
Japan and the Middle East. 
WHO: Center for Japanese 
Studies 
WHEN: Today from 1 p.m. 
to 5 p.m. 
WHERE: 1638 
International Institute 

A recent survey from 
the 
Pew 
Research 

Center has indicated 
more 
Mexican 

immigrants 
have 
returned 

to Mexico from the U.S. than 
have migrated here since 
2009. Only 14 percent of the 
sample population said they 
were deported. 

3

Complicating 
the color line

WHAT: History 
Department faculty members 
will explore the ways 
historical efforts to separate 
populations based on race 
have affected historical 
discourse. 
WHO: Eisenberg Institute 
for Historical Studies 
WHEN: Today from 12 p.m. 
to 2 p.m.
WHERE: 1014 Tisch Hall 

Sex workers 
and Queerness 

WHAT: Juana María 
Rodriguez, a professor at 
the University of California, 
Berkeley, will discuss visual 
representations of sex 
working. 
WHO: Department of 
Women’s Studies 
WHEN: Today from 2 p.m. 
to 4 p.m. 
WHERE: 2239 Lane Hall 

The Other Side 
of Immigration

WHAT: Documentary 
includes more than 700 
interviews with Mexican 
immigrants and examines 
why Mexicans migrate to 
the United States. 
WHO: North Quad 
Programming 
WHEN: Today at 3 p.m. 
WHERE: 2345 North 
Quad 

Food drive 
concert 

WHAT: A concert and food 
drive for the Food Gatherers 
of Ann Arbor will feature 
music from The Gravity 
Club.
WHO: Palmer Commons 
WHEN: Today from 3 p.m. 
to 6 p.m. 
WHERE: Palmer 
Commons 

Drug discovery 
lecture series

WHAT: Tomasz Cierpicki 
and Jolanta Grembecka will 
discuss drug-like molecules 
that can treat acute leukemia. 
WHO: Center for the Dis-
covery of New Medicines 
WHEN: Today from 
9 a.m. to 10 a.m. 
WHERE: Palmer 
Commons, Forum Hall

Technology developed by ‘U’ 
profs. to help treat leukemia

Speaker talks Disneyland,
herd immunity and vaccines

Molecular inhibitor 
could halt cancer by 
breaking up protein 

interactions

By KATIE PENROD

Daily Staff Reporter

After two University profes-

sors helped develop a new tech-
nology designed to treat a severe 
form of leukemia, they licensed 
the discovery to a company 
focused on creating new thera-
pies for cancer patients. Now, 
that company has made it to the 
NASDAQ stock exchange.

In recent years, University 

officials have touted the success 
of programs designed to help 
University 
researchers 
bring 

their discoveries to the market-
place. This technology repre-
sents one such example.

The new technology, devel-

oped in part by Jolanta Grem-
becka and Tomasz Cierpicki, 

assistant professors of pathology, 
was licensed by California-based 
clinical biopharmaceutical com-
pany Kura Oncology in March. 
The University holds stock with-
in Kura Oncology, according to a 
press release.

The technology supported by 

University research specifically 
works on treating a severe form 
of mixed-lineage leukemia.

Grembecka 
added 
that 

because the type of leukemia 
they are targeting is so aggres-
sive — only one-third of patients 
survive more than five years — 
there is a large need for develop-
ing new therapies.

“The 
technology 
is 
(the) 

development of small molecules, 
which we believe, or hope, might 
have a future to repel a certain 
sub-type of leukemia called MLL 
leukemia,” she said. “This is an 
aggressive leukemia which actu-
ally affects both children and 
adults and there’s no cure cur-
rently for this type of leukemia.”

Grembecka said to combat the 

MLL leukemia, the University 

team’s research designed menin-
MLL inhibitors, which can help 
target the protein interactions 
responsible for specific types of 
leukemia.

Leukemia develops in the 

body partially through protein 
interactions, rendering molecu-
lar inhibitors like the menin-
MLL ones important because 
they can potentially deter these 
interactions and stop the prog-
ress of the disease.

Because of the large role of 

protein interactions in the dis-
ease, Grembecka said finding a 
correct design for an inhibitor 
could be a crucial new avenue to 
treat this previously incurable 
type of leukemia.

“Based on the known scien-

tific literature, it was recognized 
that the protein interaction is 
very relevant to the develop-
ment of the disease. Invoking 
this interaction with small mol-
ecules, we thought, might be a 
great idea to inhibit develop-
ment or progression of the dis-
ease,” she said. “We hope that 
the inhibitors will block pro-
gression of the disease.”

Due to the confidentiality of 

the research, specific informa-
tion about the treatment’s prog-
ress was not available, and the 
professors involved in the study 
declined to facilitate interviews 
with student members of the 
team.

The 
University’s 
partner-

ship with Kura Oncology on the 
technology has allowed both 
sides to advance the research, 
Grembecka said, with both her 
and Cierpicki working with 
experts nationwide to continue 
the research they independently 
started at the University.

Wellspring Biosciences, Jans-

sen 
Pharmaceutica 
and 
the 

University of California, San 
Francisco, were also involved.

In a press release, Ken Nisbet, 

associate vice president for Tech 
Transfer, said he was proud of 
the technology’s progress.

Read more online at 
michigandaily.com

MATT VAILLIENCOURT/Daily

Dr. Karen Smith, director of the California Department of Public Health, gives a lecture on child health policy and the 
importance of vaccinations at the Kahn Auditorium on Thursday.

Annual lecture on 
child health aims 
to merge multiple 

academic disciplines

By IRENE PARK

Daily Staff Reporter

Karen Smith, director of the 

California Department of Public 
Health, gave the ninth annual 
Susan B. Meister Lecture in 
Child Health Policy on Thursday 
in light of the measles outbreak 
last December at Disneyland. 
The lecture, titled “The Power 
of the Public Eye: Disneyland, 
Measles, and Public Policy,” was 
held in Kahn Auditorium at the 
Biomedical Science Research 
Building.

The lecture is hosted by the 

University’s Child Health Evalu-
ation and Research Unit, and 
features talks on child health 
topics. Meister is the founding 
chair of the Board of Advisors 
for CHEAR, an interdisciplinary 
research unit bringing members 

from different fields together — 
such as pediatrics, pharmacy, 
business, social work, dentistry 
and law — to address current 
child health issues.

Smith, a University alum, said 

“herd immunity” is the main 
reason for getting people vac-
cinated. Herd immunity refers 
to a phenomenon when most of 
a community is vaccinated and 
immunized against a contagious 
disease, even community mem-
bers who are not able to get vac-
cinated or have compromised 
immune systems are protected 
against the disease.

Herd immunity, as its name 

suggests, is only effective when 
most 
community 
members 

are vaccinated. Unfortunately, 
Smith said, the anti-vaccination 
sentiment has spread substan-
tially and has become increas-
ingly present in California since 
2010, when a booster pertussis 
(whooping cough) vaccination 
shot became mandatory for sev-
enth graders.

Smith said the anti-vaccina-

tion sentiment is not evenly dis-
tributed throughout the state 

— some communities have more 
anti-vaxxers than others.

“(The anti-vaxxers) were gen-

erally fairly well-off Caucasian 
families,” Smith said.

The increasing number of 

unvaccinated people increases 
risk for outbreaks like the recent 
measles outbreak at Disney-
land. The measles outbreak is an 
example of this pattern. Though 
the disease was eradicated in the 
U.S. in 2000, the disease remains 
widespread in many countries 
outside of North and South 
America.

Because Disneyland attracts 

about 24 million visitors per 
year, many of whom hail from 
countries where measles is still 
prevalent, the amusement park 
has been a prime spot for conta-
gious diseases. Another measles 
outbreak that originated from 
Disneyland in 1982.

Smith also addressed the link 

between vaccination and autism, 
saying there is no causal link in 
spite of anti-vaxxers’ arguments. 
In 1998, former British physician 
Andrew Wakefield published a 

TUESDAY:

Campus Voices

THURSDAY:
Twitter Talk

FRIDAY:

Photos of the Week

WEDNESDAY:

In Other Ivory Towers

MONDAY:

This Week in History

LEFT: Rackham student Bingbing 

Wu places candles on the Diag on 

Saturday in honor of those affected 

by the recent attacks in Paris, France. 

(KRISTINA PERKINS/Daily)

RIGHT: Red Panda, the Chinese-born 

acrobat named Rong Niu, performs 

at the women’s basketball game 

against Xavier on Wednesday. (SAM 

MOUSIGIAN/Daily)

NEED MORE 
PHOTOS?

See more Photos of the 
Week on our website, 
michigandaily.com.

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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by 
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See VACCINES, Page 3

