Meditation Sessions Underway

Lilian Cheung, a lecturer in the Department of Nutrition at HSPH, and David Arond, a clinical instructor in pediatrics at HMS, lead a mindfulness meditation every Tuesday in Kresge 203 from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. All HSPH members are welcome.

The sessions may include shared readings and meditating while sitting or walking. According to the organizers, the sessions can help people handle stress better, think more clearly, improve concentration skills, become more creative, have more energy, and feel more content and peaceful.

For more information, contact darond@massmed.org or lcheung@hsph.harvard.edu.

NCI Awards Grant to Look at Genetics and Lung Cancer Treatments

The National Cancer Institute recently awarded David Christiani, professor of occupational medicine and epidemiology in the Department of Environmental Health, a $2.84 million grant to assess how genetic variations affect the outcome of lung cancer treatment.

The five-year grant, "Molecular and Genetic Analysis of Lung Cancer Survival," involves collaborations with co-investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The research team will examine inherited variation in genes that may affect responses to treatments for lung cancer, including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. In addition, the group will assess whether variations in tumor genes themselves may predict response to therapy.

A novel aspect of this work is a genome-wide scan for a characteristic known as loss of heterozygosity (LOH) using microarray technology. The team will search for patterns in LOH that may make diagnosis more accurate and may predict treatment responses.