Possible brain vaccine found
An experimental vaccine for brain cancer has promising results
in preliminary investigations at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer
Center.
The vaccine, studied first as a preventive strategy for brain
tumors, completely prevented brain tumor formation in laboratory
rats. All of the rats that did not receive the vaccine developed
very aggressive brain tumors.
“The results of our study are very encouraging. The 100
percent protection is pretty dramatic,” said Dr. Linda Liau,
a brain cancer surgeon and researcher at UCLA’s Jonsson
Cancer Center.
“However, we don’t yet have ways to determine who is
at high risk of developing brain tumors. So our next step is to
begin preliminary testing of this vaccine as a possible treatment
strategy for brain tumors.”
There is a critical need for more effective therapies for brain
cancer, which affects more than 17,000 Americans each year and is
almost 100 percent fatal, Liau said. Malignant gliomas are the most
deadly type of cancerous brain tumor.
Library gets lost German texts
The UCLA Library has acquired a historical collection of books
and journals from Germany, primarily medical texts in the field of
otorhinolaryngology, which deals with the ear, nose and throat. The
materials were originally in the private library of Dr. Caesar
Hirsch, who was forced to leave all his belongings behind when he
and his family fled Germany in 1933. The texts were then
confiscated by the Gestapo.
The collection comprises 191 book titles and 37 journal titles
(filling 733 bound volumes) in a number of languages. Published in
the first three decades of the 20th century, there are also texts
from the 1800s and earlier. The collection will be added to the
History & Special Collections Division of the Biomedical
Library.
The collection is a gift of Peter Hearst and Susa Kessler,
Hirsch’s children.
Rivera event could be the last
The 15th Annual Tomás Rivera Conference at UC Riverside
April 25-26 could be the end of an era.
Concepción Rivera founded the conference in her
husband’s memory and said this is the last conference she
will organize. “It is the end of my leadership role, but I am
hoping that it is not the end of the conference,” she
said.
Tomás Rivera was UCR’s chancellor from 1979-84, the
first Hispanic chancellor in the UC, and at 43 the youngest person
ever appointed to lead a UC campus. Rivera, who died in 1984 after
a heart attack, is widely credited with paving the way for Chicanos
and Latinos in higher education.
Reports from Daily Bruin wire services.