Volume 24 • No. 5 • MAY 2000

A Novel Thought?
Hospital turns toward service

Response prepared to national medical errors report

Hospital's join forces to balance budget

How attitudes toward pain can influence its effect

The accomplishments of your colleagues and associates
are making a significant impact.
Detailed news releases and/or source material
are available at the
News Bureau of the Stanford University
Medical Center Office of News and Public Affairs,
701 Welch Road, Suite 2207, Palo Alto, CA 94304;
phone (650) 725-5376 or 723-6911;
and on the World Wide Web
http://www-med.stanford.edu/center/communications/

CAREGIVER RELIEF - Telephone coaching can improve diet and increase healthful exercise for middle-aged women feeling the stresses of caring for an older relative, according to research reported April 6 at the Annual Scientific Sessions of the Society of Behavioral Medicine in Nashville. Abby King, associate professor of health research and policy and of medicine, and colleagues said the results are particularly encouraging because they demonstrate that wellness benefits can even accrue to people with such severe time constraints that taking care of themselves is unusually challenging.
DWI (Diffusion Weighted Imaging) - uses standard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to measure the diffusion of water molecules in the brain to provide scans which pick up lesions undetectable by traditional MRI scans, according to a study published in the April 25 issue of the journal Neurology. Gregory Albers, professor of neurology and lead author of the study, said the use of DWI changed the diagnosis of 19 of the 40 patients in the study.
GENE THERAPY - Researchers in the laboratories of radiation oncologists Martin Brown and Amato Giaccia are using gene-therapy modified anaerobic bacteria to specifically attack tumor cells in mice, thus avoiding toxicity to healthy cells. The researchers presented their findings at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in San Francisco April 1-5.

RNA - Stanford researchers have solved the structure of the RNA polymerase protein, one of the pivotal molecules in biology because it copies genes from DNA to RNA - an essential step in the transfer of information from gene to protein. The discovery was reported by Roger Kornberg, professor of structural biology, in the April 28 issue of Science magazine.
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