------------------------------------------------------------ NEWSBRIEFS ------------------------------------------------------------ U.S. Army to fund School of Nursing breast cancer research The School of Nursing has received one of its largest grants ever to explore pain management and coping strategies for women with breast cancer who undergo painful bone marrow transplants. The $783,572 grant was made by the U.S. Army to Fannie Gaston-Johansson, Elsie M. Lawler Professor of Nursing and director of the school's post-master's nurse practitioner program. The study will use 142 patients and their primary caregivers to examine how oral communication, relaxation videotapes and education about negative, distorted-thinking patterns can affect pain management. The grant is part of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command's $151.5 million breast cancer research plan, part of a larger, nationwide federal initiative in women's health. "Bone marrow transplants are usually a last-resort treatment after surgery, chemotherapy and radiation fail," Dr. Gaston-Johansson said. "What is unusual about our study is that we include a patient's significant other because the burden of care on this primary caregiver is quite extensive." The American Cancer Society estimates 182,000 new cases of female breast cancer occur each year in the United States. Carnegie Institution at Homewood to be renovated The W.M. Keck Foundation has awarded the Carnegie Institution of Washington $600,000 to support the expansion and renovation at the institution's Department of Embryology on the Homewood campus. The new facilities will be known as the W.M. Keck Foundation Laboratories for Vertebrate Developmental Genetics. They will accommodate two scientists in the department's staff associate program. As part of the program, recent recipients of a doctorate or medical degree are given the opportunity to develop their own new research without interruption. Though the department currently supports four staff associates, the available research space is adequate for only two. The grant will allow the construction, renovation and furnishing of two laboratories. Construction is slated to begin next month. The Carnegie Institution is not affiliated with Hopkins, though some of its staff members are adjunct professors at the university. Technique for studying genetic regulators proved conclusive Scientists at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and the University of Michigan have proved that a technique used to study molecular structures is accurate enough to analyze a class of proteins that help control the activity of genes. The finding is significant because scientists could not be certain until now that the information obtained through this technique--extended X-ray absorption fine spectroscopy, or EXAFS--was completely accurate. Information from the study should also help scientists improve EXAFS, making it easier to examine zinc-finger proteins' role in some forms of cancer and in growth and development processes, among others. Zinc-finger proteins have been found in a wide array of biological systems. Scientists believe they play an important role in making genes active or inactive. The researchers presented their findings at the American Chemical Society's August meeting in Washington, D.C.