Health Care Property Investors Adds Biotech Labs; New President at OCMA
A UCI College of Medicine team of researchers scored a $2 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to use advanced scanning techniques to determine whether early changes in breast cells lead to cancer.
The grant will last five years and could result in new, highly sensitive diagnostic techniques that could detect abnormal breast tissue growth before it develops into cancer. As of right now, it is difficult for physicians to predict how severe an early-stage case of breast cancer will become.
Under the grant, UCI professor Orhan Nalcioglu and colleagues at the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center will take magnetic resonance imaging scans of around 100 women with early stage breast cancer for the next five years. The team will see if the women’s cancer recurs, metastasizes or is treated successfully by therapy.
At the end of the five-year period, the researchers will compare the scans of women who didn’t develop further stages of breast cancer with those who did and analyze any differences in chemical, blood vessel and cellular activity.
Separately, a group of UCI researchers recently developed a form of a membrane protein that signals light information to cells. The research is expected to provide new information on a primitive form of vision and eventually may enable medical researchers to design new drugs.
Dr. Hartmut Luecke, a UCI professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, led the group. They created a three-dimensional image of sensory rhodopsin II protein to understand how it transforms when absorbing blue light.
The protein, when activated, sends a message through a transducer protein that tells bacteria how to react either by avoiding harsh wavelengths or moving toward a wavelength the bacteria uses to create energy.
The researchers are planning to further explore crystal structures of rhodopsin molecules during different photocycle states in order to understand how the protein alters its shape to send messages. The team’s findings are being published in Science.
Lab Grab
About a month back, Newport Beach-based Health Care Property Investors Inc. Chief Executive Kenneth Roath said the real estate investment trust would focus primarily on buying nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
But Health Care Property Investors, flush with cash after a secondary offering this year, looks like it’s expanding to other types of health properties, including biotechnology research labs.
The company recently said it was going to spend around $126 million on 12 medical office buildings and six healthcare research and laboratory facilities. The buildings are being bought from the Boyer Co. of Salt Lake City.
The deal encompasses 863,759 square feet altogether. Health Care Property Investors said that 67% of the new square footage is in Utah, with the majority of that on the University of Utah’s research park campus. The other buildings are in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Idaho and Wyoming.
OCMA Names President
Dr. Lytton Smith was recently named president of the Orange County Medical Association, succeeding Dr. Maria Minon as leader of the group.
Smith, a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, has practiced in Orange County since 1975. He has board certifications in family practice and geriatric medicine.
Smith, a part of the Heritage Medical Group, has a longtime affiliation with Placentia Linda Hospital, a Tenet Healthcare Corp. facility.
In a release Smith said he wants to make sure that the medical association is relevant to medium and large physician groups through its advocacy efforts. Other OCMA officers include Minon, of Children’s Hospital of Orange County; Garden Grove internal medicine specialist Dr. David Litke, who is president-elect; and Dr. Kent Adamson, an orthopedic surgeon at Mission Hospital Medical Center who is secretary-treasurer.
Bits and Pieces:
PacifiCare Behavioral Health, Laguna Hills, launched a substance abuse relapse prevention program. PacifiCare Behavioral, a subsidiary of Santa Ana-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., said the program is aimed at reducing the estimated 54% relapse rate following treatment for drug or alcohol abuse Cardiac Science Inc., Irvine, reported that it installed 100 of its Powerheart automated bedside heart defibrillation machines at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. BioCurex Technologies Inc., Rancho Santa Margarita, said it purchased a “control position” in BioLargo Technologies Inc. for an undisclosed amount. BioLargo, also out of Rancho Santa Margarita, holds two patents for disease transmission prevention. BioCurex’s products are used in tumor therapy, cancer diagnostics and therapeutics Integrated Health Plan Inc. of St. Petersburg, Fla., extended a managed care contract with the InfuSystem subsidiary of Lake Forest-based I-Flow Corp. to provide infusion pump management services. The extension covers 12.5 million patient members.
