OMRF Stories

Higher Powers:
How 1,100 nuns, priests and brothers are helping OMRF researchers unlock the secrets of Alzheimer's.

Cooties in the Lab:
Whither the White Lab Coat?

Going With the Flow:
Dr. Margaret Clarke, OMRF Microbiologist.

Research Tower:
OMRF unveils the greenprint for a historic campus expansion.

Meagan's Miracle:
An OMRF discovery saves a dying college student.

Lessons In Philanthropy:
Putnam City School students learn early that giving to OMRF’s cancer research efforts is a good thing.

Prayers Answered:
Two Oklahomans suffering from a rare, life-threatening disease.

The Giver:
Jim Chapman’s generosity helped make OMRF what it is today.

Cancer From Every Angle:
OMRF researchers seeking clues to a variety of cancers.

Next of Kin:
It doesn't matter if you're a banana, fruit fly or writer; DNA is inside all your cells. Join OMRF's Greg
Elwell as he peels back his own genetic skin

The Strange Case of Tom Little
The Strange Case of Tom Little

The Comeback Kid:
An OMRF Discovery helped bring Rayna Dubose back from death, then Rayna had to learn to live again

Mighty Mice
Mighty Mice

Predicting Disease:
Live, Long and Prosper

This Is My Brain on 3-Tesla MRI

Autism: A Personal Story
Bringing up Jeremy

OMRF People
Bon Appetit

A New Birthday

Hitting the Right Note: Bob Floyd

Running Man: Gary Gorbsky

Family Matters: Kathy Moser

The Gospel According to Luke (Szweda)

Autism, Our Story

The Survivor

It's In The Genes

OMRF researchers seeking clues to a variety of cancers

Cancer has many faces and can present itself at almost any location in the body. Scientists at OMRF are studying a wide variety of cancers in hopes of finding ways to treat or prevent them.

Starting at the top
Dr. Robert Floyd’s most recent work centers around a class of chemicals called nitrones. Working with Dr. Rheal Towner, director of OMRF’s Advanced Magnetic Resonance Center, Floyd has hit upon compounds that show extraordinary promise in fighting brain and liver cancers.

Most recently, he and Towner have found in lab tests that gliomas can be halted and shrunk with the use of a nitrone, with some eventually disappearing.

“In rats, we’ve seen dramatic effects on the same kind of tumor that Senator Kennedy has,” said Floyd, who holds the Merrick Foundation Chair in Aging Research at OMRF. “If the drug worked the same way in humans, it would, at a minimum, extend lives. And if it worked really well, it might suppress the tumors indefinitely.”

Screening for genes
A discovery in Dr. Linda Thompson’s lab led to the founding of a company called InterGenetics and the development of OncoVue, the world’s first genetic-based risk assessment test for breast cancer.

The impetus for the test came when it was discovered that women with breast cancer were more likely to have a particular form of a gene being studied in Thompson’s lab. Based on that finding, InterGenetics researchers began looking for more genes to help identify the risk of breast cancer in women. Today, OncoVue is being used by physicians to warn their patients of their risk of developing breast cancer. Thompson now holds the Putnam City Schools Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research.

Stopping copycats
In Dr. Paul Kincade’s lab, immunologists are studying the ways in which the immune system makes mistakes during replication, causing lymphomas, leukemia and myelomas.

“Whenever you have cells that are proliferating, they can make mistakes and cause mutations – a lot can go wrong,” said Kincade, who holds the William H. and Rita Bell Chair in Biomedical Research.

“The normal function of blood cells is to grow up, leave the bone marrow, do their job and then die and be replaced by new blood cells,” he said. “But in leukemia, the blood cells get stuck at an abnormal stage. Then they produce a ton of copies of those abnormal cells, pushing fully functional cells out of the way.”

By better understanding the immune system and the way it constantly replenishes itself, Kincade hopes to pinpoint the cause of immune-related cancers.

And the search goes on
It’s true. Cancer remains high on the list of least-wanted diseases. And cancer still strikes nearly half the people in our country. But it no longer carries an automatic death sentence, thanks to all that scientists have learned about it in recent years.

More and more cancers are better understood and highly treatable these days. OMRF researchers hope to make that list grow, and with your support and a little time, they will succeed.