Associate professor of chemistry Scott Ulrich's paper, titled "Histone Deacetylase 8 in Neuroblastoma Tumorigenesis," appears in the January 1, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research.
Abstract
Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are enzymes that help control which genes are on and off, which in turn defines the differences between different types of cells. This paper describes for the first time the clinical relevance of a particular HDAC family member, HDAC8, in a large cohort of childhood neuroblastoma cancer patients. High levels of HDAC8 was found to be correlated with progression of the disease and poor survival of patients. This also study showed that drugs that suppress HDAC8 caused the inhibition of neuroblastoma cell growth and induced a switch back to a more normal cellular morphology. The results strongly indicate that pharmacological targeting of HDACs could be useful for this disease. The HDAC8 drugs used in the paper were previously developed by Ithaca College chemistry and biochemistry students in the Ulrich lab.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20090113120049135