The Ramazzini Institute
for Occupational and Environmental Health Research   

Who Are We?

      Lymphomas are generally difficult to diagnose since no single test is currently sufficient to establish their presence. In the clinic, pathologists look for changes in normal lymph node architecture and cell characteristics through a series of tests, such as blood tests, x-rays, computerized tomography (CT) scans, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and bone marrow biopsy. But an Italian-American team headed by Professor Antonio Giordano, MD, PhD, may have made diagnosis easier.
     “There are many types and subtypes of lymphoma, some of which are easy to detect, but many that are very difficult to identify,” according to Dr. Giordano, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Sbarro Institute at Temple University. He is one of the authors of a recent study analyzing the expression levels of the gene CDK9 (cyclin-dependent kinase) and its attached molecule CYCLIN T1 in lymphoid cells. Now, reports Dr.Giordano, a simple sample of blood can accurately pinpoint lymphoma.
     The study was done at Temple’s Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine (http://www.shro.org) and the Department of Human Pathology and Oncology at the University of Siena in Italy.
     The researchers found that by taking a sample of blood and doing immunohistochemical analysis for the expression of CDK9 and CYCLIN T1, they were able to accurately pinpoint the type of lymphoma—Hodgkins or non-Hodgkins—as well as its stage of advancement.  Non-Hodgkins lymphoma is the sixth-most common cancer in the United States.
     “Basically, this new method is a very powerful tool in determining the presence of cancer by analyzing these two molecules in the lymphoid tissue,” explains Giordano, a specialist  in the genetics of cancer and gene therapy.  “The change of levels of CDK9 and CYCLIN T1 in lymphoid cells shows a correlation with activity of the cancer. The higher the expression of the gene and the attached molecule in the blood sample, the more likely for lymphoid cancer.”
     Giordano and his team originally isolated CDK9 in 1992. He has also discovered the tumor suppressing gene Rb2/p130.
     “We were screening a human DNA library in order to look for members of this family, and we found CDK9,” says Giordano, which has proven to be a “multi-functional” gene, playing many different roles in specialized tissue, as seen in this study with lymphoid tissue.”
     Clinical work for the study was performed at the Department of Human Pathology and Oncology at the University of Siena in Italy in collaboration with professors Lorenzo Leoncini and Piero Tosi.  The study was supported by the Italian Ministry for Education, Universities and Research and Sbarro Health Research Organization, National Institutes of Health and Petruccelli–American Italian Research Scholarship.