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Basic science, patient care linked at CRI by Heather Woolwine Public Relations In our own individual health care worlds, we forget that behind the clinical strides in patient care is basic science, and basic science exists in part to better patient treatments and care.   No where is this relationship more apparent than in the Charles P. Darby Children’s Research Institute. There, united under the mission of helping the state and nation’s children, basic scientists conduct research that will change the practice of medicine. But it becomes difficult sometimes to see the indirect connections between complicated scientific discoveries and the expertise it takes to implement them at the bedside.   In an effort to clarify this relationship, the work that goes on in the CRI and how it affects patients is the best way to remind us that although the various paths may be different, the destination is one and the same… the pursuit of scientific discovery for the betterment of children’s health.   No moment is as frightening to a parent as the one when Mom or Dad realizes that it’s going to require a trip to the hospital to help their child. Fortunately, MUSC Children’s Hospital stands ready to embrace and care for all those that walk through its doors.   With specialized critical care services and intensive care units like the PICU, PCICU, and the NNICU, the Children’s Hospital critical care staffs devote their skills, hearts, and minds to healing those who need it most. Directed by David Habib, M.D., the critical care division not only heals children, but their families as well. The cases range from serious illness to accident-related trauma and finding the best course of treatment for each patient is always on the minds of critical care staff.   “Because we are a children’s hospital, we have access to specialists in a variety of areas who can quickly get involved in difficult cases,” Habib said. “This is a huge benefit to our patients because we can bring in many points-of-view to ensure we come up with the best treatment plan. We also know that with talented researchers working in the Darby Children’s Research Institute, we will be among the first to have the latest treatments available. For example, Dr. (Inderjit) Singh’s recent discovery is an excellent example of emerging compounds that can protect the brain from injury following trauma, near-drowning or other diseases that cause cells in the brain to swell and die.”   On the CRI’s fifth floor, Inderjit Singh, Ph.D., CRI scientific director, and a team of research scientists including Ajab Paintlia, Ph.D., Pediatrics, discovered that lovastatin, a common cholesterol reducing drug, protects against the degeneration of the fatty myelin sheath that coats nerves within the brain. As described in the study to be published in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal’s September edition, the drug also demonstrated its ability to regenerate myelin as well.   Multiple sclerosis is a disease that affects this much-needed myelin, and as it progresses, it destroys this fatty substance that is supposed to keep neurons functioning properly. Losing myelin is like electrical wire losing insulation. Signals are still conducted but not as quickly or effectively. This is similar to what happens during other brain traumas or inflammatory infections, so according to the research, Singh’s discovery could be widespread in the treatment of a variety of types of brain damage.   Lovastatin works to rejuvenate myelin stem cells in the brain and gets them to reproduce myelin. Oddly, lovastatin behaves differently in the brain than when used to control cholesterol levels; helping produce the fatty myelin in the first case and breaking down fat elsewhere in the body.   “The importance of this finding is that it may change the paradigm of therapy from one that has focused on preventing the death of damaged cells to that of ensuring that dead cells can be replaced by a vibrant reserve of cells. The new reserve cells would be protected pharmacologically from damaging effects of brain inflammation,” said Bernard L. Maria, M.D., CRI executive director. “It is precisely this type of basic research and discovery that should be translated into clinical applications to help future children and teens admitted to the pediatric and neonatal intensive care units. Research of this kind can provide miraculous care to those children suffering from trauma, infection, and near-drowning that all cause inflammation and loss of vital brain cells.”     Friday, July 29, 2005 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.