Nov. 5—GRAND FORKS — Research at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences branches far, involving researchers from across the country and globe in the pursuit of improving people’s health.

Dean Marjorie Jenkins said people may not see where research ends up, but the healthcare and prescriptions patients receive begins with discovery.

“Research saves lives,” she said.

Some studies published this year by faculty at the med school include research on radon, eyesight and cancer cells. The studies each have yielded further investigations by their respective faculty members, and all involve partnership with other researchers outside the university.

Jenkins said the school is well equipped for research, with state of the art facilities and labs on all four stories of the SMHS building.

“We can lead from North Dakota,” she said.

Gary Schwartz and Mark Williamson from the Department of Population Health have been looking into the correlation between ovarian cancer and exposure to radon, a radioactive gas produced from uranium decaying in soil.

The study, which involved the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, took data from the Women’s Health Initiative, looking at more than 127,000 women over a 31-year period.

The study found that women living in counties with high radon had a significantly higher risk of ovarian cancer. Williamson said ovarian cancer is hard to detect until it’s fairly progressed.

There is “basically no way to prevent” ovarian cancer, he said. There is also no screening for it or early marker. Finding something that can be changed and can be fixed associated with ovarian cancer is potentially important.

“We don’t know anything about what causes ovarian cancer,” he said. “Almost nothing.”

However, it was found women exposed to the atomic bomb in World War II had developed ovarian cancer. It told scientists that high dose exposure to ionizing radiation, which the bomb released, increases risk of ovarian cancer. The largest amount of ionizing radiation to which most people are exposed is radon gas at home.

Williamson said ovaries seem to be particularly radiation sensitive, which is not the case with all organs. In dissected ovaries, researchers have found particles of, essentially, soot. Radon decays into a lighter, more reactive element that can stick to it, he said.

“If radon really was a risk factor, that’s fairly modifiable,” he said. “You can test your house, if you have high radon you can get it remediated.”

Keith Henry and his lab in the Department of Biomedical Sciences have been investigating the possibility of supplementing children’ s diets with the amino acid taurine to help in preventing early-onset retinal dystrophy.

Henry was contacted by Stylianos Antonarakis, professor of genetic medicine at the University of Geneva Medical School in Switzerland, who asked him about a review article Henry and other SMHS members wrote about a family of solute-carrying transport proteins (transporters move things like compounds, solutes and nutrients). Antonarakis asked if Henry knew someone who could help with a study about retinal diseases — specifically, a transport protein that appeared to be associated with early-onset retinal dystrophy. The two spoke further and came up with a collaboration.

The study looked at a family in Pakistan with two children who had two variant copies of a taurine transport protein. The researchers tested the variant and found it could only transport about 15% to 30% of what a normal one could. Both children had vision problems. The older sibling had completely lost their vision, while the younger “could see hands, but not really count fingers,” Henry said.

The scientists and clinicians began to give the children more taurine in their diets for two years, tracking the taurine levels in their plasma. They saw their taurine levels increase to the normal amount and remain that way through the rest of the treatment. The children’s retinal structures and sensitivity were also monitored. The damage to their structures stopped progressing, halting the degeneration of the retinas, though the damage wasn’t reversed.

Both children also had issues with their hearts, which were reversed over the course of the treatment.

“It’s fair to say that someone that has taurine malfunction in the eye, that same transporter is being used elsewhere in the body in those organs and would also be malfunctioning, so there can be comorbidities,” Henry said.

Motoki Takaku, associate professor of biomedical sciences, has worked with his team in collaboration with his friend Mamoru Takada from the Chiba University in Japan on a study investigating how cell-free DNA can show how cancer treatments are working on pre- and post-treatment breast cancer patients.

When cancer dies in a cell, it can leave behind cell-free (or circulating free) DNA — altered DNA separate from the cell that can appear in a patient’s blood or urine. Samples of cell-free DNA can be used as a diagnostic tool for cancer or other diseases. DNA-based diagnosis is becoming popular, Takaku said.

Before the study, he said he had read a paper about isolating DNA from patient blood and finding patterns correlating to tissue or tumor origins. He was fascinated by how scientists could use DNA as a possible diagnostic tool for cancer or other diseases.

“I was kind of waiting for the opportunity for me to start this type of blood-based diagnosis type of study,” he said.

He chose breast cancer partially due to his past studying it in North Carolina for six years, as well as due to the amount of information in the breast cancer research field, making it advantageous to use it as a starting point. The team took DNA from more than 70 patient samples and found clear differences between patients and health donors and between patients before and after treatment.

One of the most exciting parts, Takaku said, was the result suggesting that doctors may be able to predict drug efficacy or sensitivity even before treatment.

“That’ll be a huge help for the patient to either save money or identify more effective treatment,” he said. “But we cannot really make a strong conclusion.”