University of Minnesota Alumni Association : Campus: Faculty Research


Search

University of Minnesota Alumni Association


Alumni Association Home > Minnesota Magazine > Past Issues > 2003 > January-February 2003	Print View

Campus: Faculty Research
1/23/2003

Hmong Healing in the West
Shamans play an important, complementary role in the medical care of Hmong patients, according to a study by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality and Healing and other Twin Cities organizations. By following 32 patients and 11 shamans, or traditional healers, researchers found that cultural traditions and beliefs have a great impact on Hmong health-care choices. About half of the study participants see both Western physicians and shamans for health care. The traditional healers treat the “spiritual manifestations” of illnesses. Hmong tradition holds that physical and spiritual worlds exist side-by-side. The shamans were not at all opposed to regular physician care; in fact, all of those interviewed use doctors for their own physical illnesses. Most were also willing to refer patients to physicians. The study suggests questions that Western doctors ask Hmong patients and offers ways to be sensitive to the desire to use traditional healing in conjunction with Western medical care. An article on the research is available here.

Promising Brain Cancer Treatment
An often untreatable and fatal form of brain cancer appears to be susceptible to a molecule engineered by researchers at the University of Minnesota. The molecule, DTAT, contains three active parts: a receptor that finds and attaches to glioblastoma tumor cells, another element that penetrates the cell, and a portion of diphtheria toxin that kills the cancer cell. In trials on mice with implanted glioblastoma cells, a team led by Dr. Walter Hall and immunologist Daniel Vallera of the University of Minnesota Cancer Center induced a 90 percent reduction in tumor size in every mouse. In 60 percent of the cases, tumors disappeared entirely. In studies on tumor-free mice, DTAT had little or no effect on most internal organs except for a small but non–life threatening effect on the liver. The trials must be replicated and further studies done on potential side effects before human trials can begin. Glioblastoma account for about 40 percent of the 15,000 to 17,000 primary brain tumors diagnosed annually and, with optimal treatment, has a median survival period of one year. Hall presented the finding September 23 at the annual meeting of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons in Philadelphia. The original study was published in the April 17 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

When HIV/AIDS Therapy Fails
In a breakthrough in understanding why some HIV/AIDS patients don’t respond to aggressive drug therapy, University of Minnesota researchers discovered another way in which the disease damages the immune system. The chronic inflammation of lymph nodes common in HIV/AIDS can lead to scarring in the part of the nodes vital to the T cells that fight the disease. HIV/AIDS depletes the body of CD4 T cells, the cells responsible for coordinating the body’s immune response. Drugs aim to enhance the body’s ability to manufacture and keep a healthy number of T cells to stave off the disease. But in individuals with significant scarring in the lymph node, the body can’t recover to a normal-sized population of T cells. The area of the lymph nodes damaged or blocked by scar tissue is the very place where new T cells migrate to divide and become functional. With this discovery, researchers can begin to work on ways of reducing inflammation and scarring in the lymph nodes in order to enhance drug therapy. An estimated 25 percent of people with HIV-1 infection don’t see an increase in T cell count with aggressive therapy. The results were published in the October 16, 2002, issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Trouble seeing the text? | Contact UMAA | Privacy