ARIZONA SUMMER
WILDCAT
Pac-12 decides no further action in referee scandal
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WED. JUNE 5, 2013 VOLUME 106 ISSUE 152
DAILYWILDCAT.COM
OUT OF THE ORDINARY New findings provide answers for epilepsy MARK ARMAO Arizona Summer Wildcat
JORDIN O’CONNOR/ARIZONA SUMMER WILDCAT
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA MUSEUM OF ART HAS A SHOW running from May 31 to Sept. 8 called “No Ordinary Place.” Among the works is this mixed media piece by Kevin Cyr titled “Little Tag Along” done in 2011.
Michael Hammer, geneticist and researcher at the UA, is one of a few in his field who can lay claim to a groundbreaking medical discovery, but his personal stake in the matter is much deeper. Hammer’s daughter, Shay, was epileptic and began having seizures at an early age and had limited coordination and learning skills. She died from complications from the disease in March 2011. After she died, Hammer, along with a team of UA researchers, were able to find the genetic cause of her affliction. Those findings led the team to conduct a second study, in which they used DNA sequencing technology to look for the causes of severe epilepsies in children from 10 different families. That study, which was recently published in the journal “Epilepsia,” found genetic mutations that are known to or suspected of having caused epilepsies in seven of the 10 children studied. Although Hammer, who is a research scientist in UA’s Arizona Research Laboratories Division of Biotechnology and a member of the UA BIO5 Institute, was initially hesitant to speak publicly about his daughter’s story, he said he is now more open about it because he knows it helps families
who are in a similar situation. “It’s important for me to acknowledge that none of this would have happened without her,” he said. In 2010, after years of inconclusive tests, Hammer said he made it his mission to find the cause of his daughter’s epilepsy. He sent samples of his family’s DNA to a lab in California to have them sequenced. The data produced were then analyzed by Hammer and his team at UA. Hammer said many of his colleagues tried to talk him out of it, citing the low probability of success, but he persisted. “I said, ‘Well, even if there’s a 1 percent chance of finding something, I’m going to try it,’” Hammer said. Despite the odds, Hammer’s team identified a mutation in a gene not previously associated with epilepsy, which, upon further research was shown to have effects relevant to epilepsy. “That was the first ever case of finding a gene involved in any neurological disorder using these new whole-genome techniques,” said Krishna Veeramah, a postdoctoral researcher in Hammer’s group and the first author of the study. “I thought, ‘If we can do it for her, we can do it for other kids,’” Hammer said.
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Approval needed for marijuana research on campus STEPHANIE CASANOVA Arizona Summer Wildcat
Despite a recent amendment in Arizona law, a UA researcher must continue to wait for federal approval before conducting medical marijuana research. Dr. Sue Sisley, assistant director of interprofessional education and assistant professor of internal medicine and psychiatry, was approved by the Food and
Drug Administration two years ago to study the effect of cannabis on veterans who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. However, the FDA’s approval is one of many regulations Sisley will need to get through in order to move forward with the study. Although Arizona voters approved the use of medical marijuana in 2010, an Arizona law was passed in 2012 that prohibited the possession and use of medical marijuana on
college campuses. After realizing the law didn’t make exceptions for marijuana research, UA administration urged the state to adopt a statute allowing such research on college campuses. Last month, Senate Bill 1443 was signed as an exception to the law, allowing medical marijuana research to be conducted on college campuses. The research must also be approved by federal administrations
National Institute on Drug Abuse and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as well as the university’s Institutional Review Board. Sisley is still waiting on approval from NIDA and the DEA before she can begin her study. The drug must be purchased from NIDA after the study is approved based on
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