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HIV/AIDS Education Project Targeting Pennsylvania Black Women Examined
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profiled the Girlfriends Project, a domestic violence and HIV/AIDS education program implemented by the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force that targets at-risk black women in three Allegheny County, Pa., cities. Blacks "comprise just 7 percent of the total population in southwestern Pennsylvania but 41 percent of those living with HIV/AIDS, according to Allegheny County Health Department statistics provided by the task force," the Post-Gazette reports. "The Girlfriends Project was designed for Braddock, Clairton and Duquesne "because we knew nobody was doing outreach there," project coordinator, Lisa Dukes, said. As part of the project, Dukes hosts Tupperware party-style gatherings in homes of residents where she provides HIV testing and education, sexual health information, safe sex products and cash gift cards. The project is an outgrowth of the CDC"s prevention program Sisters Informing Sisters About Topics on AIDS, or SISTA, and has been so successful that CDC "has asked the task force to introduce it at the CDC"s 2009 National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta Aug. 23," the article states (Smith, 7/29).
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Cancer Research Center Of Hawai'i Clinical Trials Program Receives 2009 Clinical Trials Participation Award From American Society Of Clinical Oncology
The Cancer Research Center of Hawaii"s (CRCH) Minority Based
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What Are Gallstones? What Causes Gallstones?
Gallstones are lumps or stones that develop in the gallbladder or bile duct. Some of the chemicals which exist in the gallbladder, such as cholesterol, calcium bilirubinate, and calcium carbonate, harden into either one large stone or many small ones. According to Medilexicon"s medical dictionary, a gallstone is "A concretion in the gallbladder or a bile duct, composed chiefly of a mixture of cholesterol, calcium bilirubinate, and calcium carbonate, occasionally as a pure stone composed of just one of these substances". An article describes a gallbladder in the bile duct similar to trying to squeeze a golf ball through a straw.
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Halting Advanced Metastatic Breast Cancer By Targeting MMPs

An upcoming G&D paper reveals how two specific matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) proteins contribute to bone metastasis in advanced breast cancer - lending important new insight into the design of clinically useful small molecule inhibitors. The study was led by Dr. Yibin Kang in Princeton University in close collaboration with Dr. Joan Massaguç© at MSKCC and Dr. Michael Reiss at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey. It will be published online ahead of print athttp:// www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1824809. "More than 70% of late stage breast cancer patients have skeletal complications," explains Dr. Yibin Kang. "It is important to uncover molecular mechanism of bone metastasis in order to come up with better treatments to reduce the pain and suffering from bone metastasis." MMPs are a large class of related enzymatic proteins that degrade the extracellular matrix. Normal MMP activity is tightly regulated, and is necessary for a number of physiological processes, like tissue remodeling, angiogenesis, ovulation and wound healing. However, MMP dysregulation facilitates tumor metastasis. MMP1 and ADAMTS1 are two different MMP family members that were previously identified in a genomic screen for breast cancer bone metastasis genes. Dr. Kang and colleagues now show how alterations in MMP1 and ADAMTS1 expression promote bone metastasis. MMP1 and ADAMTS1 are upregulated in breast cancer cell lines with an enhanced ability to metastasize to bone. Dr. Kang and colleagues demonstrated that MMP1 and ADAMTS1 enzymatically cleave and release EGF-like growth factors from tumor cells to stimulate EGFR signaling in the bone-building osteoblasts. The researchers went on to show that such signaling reduces the production of OPG, a suppressor of the bone-resorbing osteoclasts, eventually leading to hyperactivity of osteoclasts, bone destruction and subsequent expansion of bone metastasis. Thus, this paper supports a rationale for the therapeutic targeting of MMP1 and ADAMTS1, and suggests that inhibition of EGFR signaling in bone stromal cells to block osteoclast activity may represent a viable method of mitigating bone complications in advanced metastatic breast cancers. Reference: ADAMTS1 and MMP1 proteolytically engage EGF-like ligands in an osteolytic signaling cascade for bone metastasis Xin Lu, Qiongqing Wang, Guohong Hu, Catherine Van Poznak, Martin Fleisher, Michael Reiss, Joan Massague, and Yibin Kang Heather Cosel-Pieper Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory


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