When doctors give heart drugs to patients, the time of day can make a big difference, according to new research by University of Guelph scientists.

Many doctors prefer to give heart drugs to patients in the morning. But the study revealed that angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors -- commonly given to patients with high blood pressure or after a heart attack or during heart failure -- improve heart structure and function when given at sleep time. When given during wake time, ACE inhibitors are no more effective than a placebo, the study found.

The research was conducted on mice with high blood pressure.

Department of Biomedical Sciences Prof. Tami Martino and Prof. Jeremy Simpson, Human Health and Nutritional Sciences, conducted the study with Nazneen Tata in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Sole at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre and the Heart and Stroke Richard Lewar Centre of Excellence in Toronto.

The study will appear May 17 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

For more, read the U of G news release.

Biomedical Sciences Prof. Bettina Kalisch was one of two recipients of this year's CSA Teaching Excellence Award, presented March 24 at the Student Life Recognition Banquet.

The award was established in 1990 and serves to recognize professors who have had a considerable impact on the education of undergraduate students at the University of Guelph.

"We endeavour to provide recognition and appreciation for the contributions of outstanding instructors to teaching and learning," said Kevin Bowman, CSA academic and university affairs commissioner.

For more, see the U of G news release.

A staff member in the Department of Biomedical Sciences is one of three outstanding volunteers from the University of Guelph to receive a 2011 Dr. William Winegard Exemplary Volunteer Involvement Award.

Jocelyn Wessels, a Biomedical Sciences research assistant, volunteers with the Children's Foundation of Guelph and Wellington and Guelph General Hospital. She raises money for underprivileged children, and for patients and their families in the hospital diagnostic imaging department.

The other recipients are Prof. Cynthia Scott-Dupree, School of Environmental Sciences, and fourth-year student Jordan Thompson.

For more, see the U of G news release.

The co-directors of the U of G Institute for Comparative Cancer Investigation will be featured speakers during the U of G's 87th College Royal Weekend March 19-20.

Drs. Brenda Coomber, Biomedical Sciences, and Paul Woods, Clinical Studies, will discuss "Cancer in Pets: Comparative Cancer Treatment and Research (Of Mice and Men and Cats and Dogs)." Coomber will take the podium on March 19 at 1:30 p.m. while Woods will deliver the March 20 lecture at 1 p.m.

The College Royal lectures take place in Rozanski Hall Room 103.

Also featured is "Asking the Animals," by professor emeritus Ian Duncan, Animal and Poultry Science, a leading expert on animal welfare issues.

For a complete schedule of events, visit the College Royal website.

A breast cancer researcher in the OVC's Department of Biomedical Sciences is one of five University of Guelph professors to share in more than $815,000 in funding announced by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

Prof. Alicia Viloria-Petit received $121,232 to support her studies on how cancer cells move from a primary site to other sites in the body. Metastasis underlies about 90 per cent of cancer deaths.

CFI president and CEO Gilles Patry made the announcement in the MacNabb Room at OVC. Gary Goodyear, minister of state (science and technology), attended the event along with U of G president Alastair Summerlee, current and past CFI award recipients, and industry partners.

"It's a great honour to be among the U of G researchers selected to receive financial support from the Government of Canada and CFI," said Viloria-Petit.

"Understanding how breast cancer progresses might help in the design of more effective treatments. We believe our studies will contribute significant knowledge that could be applied to the design of improved therapies for the clinical management of metastatic disease."

For more, see the U of G news release.

Two OVC professors are among 13 University of Guelph researchers to share in a $12.8-million investment in the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program announced by the federal government.

The University received five new CRCs and had a total of eight renewed, including Department of Biomedical Sciences Prof. Allan King's Tier 1 chair in animal reproductive biotechnology and Pathobiology Prof. Dorothee Bienzle's Tier 2 chair in veterinary pathology.

On the opening day of a special conference in Toronto making the 10th anniversary of the CRC program, Canada's Industry Minister Tony Clement announced a total of 310 new or renewed chairs worth an estimated $275.6 million.

For more, read the U of G news release.

From Nov. 22, 2010 University of Guelph press release

A University of Guelph study has found that a prescription drug thought to have anti-cancer properties when used off-label may not only be less effective than claimed but may actually protect some kinds of cancers.

"Sodium dichloroacetate is not very effective at killing some kinds of cancer cells and, in fact, it has the opposite effect and could even make things worse," said Brenda Coomber, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences in Guelph's Ontario Veterinary College.

This research, which was published recently in the journal Cancer Letters, is featured in today's Globe and Mail.

Developed three decades ago to treat a rare, serious metabolic disorder in children, sodium dichloroacetate (DCA) has been touted as a safe, inexpensive anti-cancer drug.

In patients with this metabolic disorder, DCA "resets" malfunctioning mitochondria to restore the body's normal energy pathway. Mitochondria are cellular "power plants" that convert glucose into energy. Normally, they also generate oxygen radicals used in further metabolism but that are also toxic to cells. Mitochondria also help trigger cell death, a normal part of tissue growth and health.

Scientists believe that, when oxygen is present, DCA forces cancer cells to use the mitochondrial pathway, producing oxygen radicals that kill the cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed. Studies of brain tumors have found that DCA selectively kills cancer cells without damaging normal tissue.

But that's not what Coomber found with colorectal cancer. Along with her team -- research associate Siranoush Shahrzad, graduate students Kristen Lacombe and Una Adamic, and technician Kanwal Minhas â€" she looked at ischemic regions of tumours, or areas with low oxygen and nutrients due to abnormal blood flow. They had expected that, under fluctuating oxygen levels, DCA treatment would force cancer cells to use the mitochondrial pathway, generate oxygen radicals and die.

In normal culture, DCA killed some human colon cancer cells. But under low oxygen, the same cancer cells were more likely to survive. In mice with human colon cancer cells grown as tumours, DCA provided no therapeutic benefit; in fact, some treated tumours grew better than untreated ones. Fewer cells in ischemic regions died in DCA-treated tumours than in untreated ones.

"The bottom line is that cancer is not a single disease, so it's unrealistic to expect a single drug to be a 'magic bullet' that's effective against every type of cancer," Coomber said, adding that many factors influence how cancer cells develop and behave.

"We are only beginning to tease these things out. DCA may well turn out to be an effective treatment in some cases, but it's not necessarily safe in all cases. There are people out there buying this drug off the Internet and self-medicating -- who knows what's going on in their tumour? They might actually be making it worse."

Her team now plans to study the pathways DCA uses to protect some cancer cells.

This research was funded by the Canadian Cancer Society's Research Institute.

A University of Guelph study has found that a prescription drug thought to have anti-cancer properties when used off-label may not only be less effective than claimed but may actually protect some kinds of cancers.

"Sodium dichloroacetate is not very effective at killing some kinds of cancer cells and, in fact, it has the opposite effect and could even make things worse," said Brenda Coomber, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences in Guelph's Ontario Veterinary College. She is also co-director of the Institute for Comparative Cancer Investigation.

The study appears today in the journal Cancer Letters.

Developed three decades ago to treat a rare, serious metabolic disorder in children, sodium dichloroacetate (DCA) has been touted as a safe, inexpensive anti-cancer drug.

In patients with this metabolic disorder, DCA "resets" malfunctioning mitochondria to restore the body's normal energy pathway. Mitochondria are cellular "power plants" that convert glucose into energy. Normally, they also generate oxygen radicals used in further metabolism but that are also toxic to cells. Mitochondria also help trigger cell death, a normal part of tissue growth and health.

Scientists believe that, when oxygen is present, DCA forces cancer cells to use the mitochondrial pathway, producing oxygen radicals that kill the cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed. Studies of brain tumors have found that DCA selectively kills cancer cells without damaging normal tissue.

But that's not what Coomber found with colorectal cancer. Along with her team -- research associate Siranoush Shahrzad, graduate students Kristen Lacombe and Una Adamic, and technician Kanwal Minhas â€" she looked at ischemic regions of tumours, or areas with low oxygen and nutrients due to abnormal blood flow. They had expected that, under fluctuating oxygen levels, DCA treatment would force cancer cells to use the mitochondrial pathway, generate oxygen radicals and die.

In normal culture, DCA killed some human colon cancer cells. But under low oxygen, the same cancer cells were more likely to survive. In mice with human colon cancer cells grown as tumours, DCA provided no therapeutic benefit; in fact, some treated tumours grew better than untreated ones. Fewer cells in ischemic regions died in DCA-treated tumours than in untreated ones.

"The bottom line is that cancer is not a single disease, so it's unrealistic to expect a single drug to be a 'magic bullet' that's effective against every type of cancer," Coomber said, adding that many factors influence how cancer cells develop and behave.

"We are only beginning to tease these things out. DCA may well turn out to be an effective treatment in some cases, but it's not necessarily safe in all cases. There are people out there buying this drug off the Internet and self-medicating -- who knows what's going on in their tumour? They might actually be making it worse."

Her team now plans to study the pathways DCA uses to protect some cancer cells.

This research was funded by the Canadian Cancer Society's Research Institute.

An adjunct professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences was featured in the weekend edition of the Globe and Mail.

Dr. Thomas Koch was quoted in an article about stem cell therapy in pets. Koch expressed caution about companies offering stem cell therapy treatments for animals, saying clinical application of the technology is preceding scientific evidence. Koch, who is also an associate professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, was awarded a prestigious post-doctoral fellowship in 2009 worth more than $1 million to advance pioneering research into using stem cells to treat cartilage injuries in horses.

An OVC cancer researcher is one of three University of Guelph scientists to share in more than $2 million in funding announced by the Canadian Insitutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Prof. Roger Moorehead will use his $453,000 grant to study breast cancer, particularly the susceptibility of mammary glands to tumour formation and dietary effects. In earlier CIHR-supported work with colleague Jim Petrik, Moorehead discovered a potential marker protein for ovarian cancer.

The U of G grants are part of a five-year, $230-million investment for 405 health-related projects at universities and research institutions across Canada announced this week.

For more information, see the U of G news release.