The immune system is the host natural defence against cancer. Cancers are caused by progressive growth of the progeny of a single transformed host cell. The immune system is generally not able to mount immune responses to “self-antigens”, due to various mechanisms of immunological tolerance that are in place. This means that despite possessing a natural defence against tumours, many of the cancer patients may not be able to mount an effective immune response to fight the tumours. Dendritic cells (DC) are highly specialised in antigen presenting that can initiate and stimulate immune responses. These cells have the ability to stimulate naïve T cell proliferation and perform specific stimulatory and tolerogenic functions respectively. When the DC are activated by antigens, these cells undergoes further maturation and migrate to secondary lymphoid tissues, present antigen to T cells and finally induce an immune response. The ability of the DC to activate naïve and primed T-lymphocytes makes these cells a good candidate to be explored as a potential immunotherapeutic agent that can modulate antitumour immune responses in the affected host.

Research on bioactive molecules is one of the thrust areas of research at the International Medical University (IMU). The bioactive molecules that have attracted the interest of IMU researchers include tocotrienol, astaxanthin, zingerone, apigenin, carrageenan and phycocyanin. There are also projects which focus on the screening of extracts from local plants such as Elephantopus mollis, Morinda citrifolia, Pereskia bleo, Euphorbia hirta, Zinger officinale, Mangifera indica and Nephelium lappaceum and algae such as Spirulina and Gracilaria. Characterisation of the toxin from Bacillus thuringiensis is another area of active research at IMU. The compounds and extracts from the various organisms are screened for anticancer, antioxidative, antiviral and immuno-modulating activity. There are also studies on the production of recombinant molecules, especially monoclonal antibodies for the detection of house dust mites, Salmonella typhi and Candida. The pool of faculty with diverse expertise and the active collaboration with public universities and institutions have enhanced the progress of bioactive research at IMU. With the current postgraduate and Bachelor of Medical Science (B. MSc.) programme and the introduction of new programmes in health sciences, there are good opportunities for training of students in the research on bioactive molecules. The future research direction should focus on the mechanisms of action of the bioactive molecules using new approaches such as ‘omic’ technologies and in silico modelling.

Background: Medical schools have long been concerned with establishing a suitable process of admission. The criteria used to select students have traditionally focussed on high academic achievement. Method: The International Medical University (IMU) accepts students from a wide range of pre-university entry qualifications for admission into the medical programme. The criteria for the various pre-university entry qualifications used by the IMU were agreed and accepted by the IMU Academic Council (AC), which consist of deans of the IMU’s partner medical schools (PMS). In this study, the various entry qualifications were first grouped into five categories based on the educational pedagogy. Then, this was aligned with the entry qualification data of all students who had been admitted into the IMU medical programme for the period of December 1993 to March 2000. During this period 1,281 students were enrolled into the IMU medical programme. The relationship between the five groups of pre-university entry qualifications and the students’ academic achievement in three end-ofsemester (EOS) examinations namely EOS 1, EOS 3, and EOS 5 were analysed. Results: Students with better grades in their preuniversity examinations showed better performance in their EOS examinations, regardless of the subjects that they took at the pre-university level. Cluster analysis revealed that students who came in with certain preuniversity qualifications generally performed poorly than the more conventional qualifications. However, after their first year in medical school, there were no significant differences in the clustering of the students. Conclusion: Students with better grades in their preuniversity examinations showed better performance in their EOS examinations, regardless of the science subjects that they took at the pre-university level.

Cancer research is an extremely broad topic covering many scientific disciplines including biology (e.g. biochemistry and signal transduction), chemistry (e.g. drug discover and development), physics (e.g. diagnostic devices) and even computer science (e.g. bioinformatics). Some would argue that cancer research will continue in much the same way as it is by adding further layers of complexity to the scientific knowledge that is already complex and almost beyond measure. But we anticipate that cancer research will undergo a dramatic paradigm shift due to the recent explosion of new discoveries in cancer biology. This review article focuses on the latest horizons in cancer research concerning cancer epigenetics, cancer stem cells, cancer immunology and cancer metabolism.

In this study, we evaluated the biological properties of human mesenchymal stem cells transfected (hMSC) with a plasmid vector expressing human cytokine interleukin-12 (IL-12). Surface markers were analysed by immunophenotyping using flow cytometry. Differentiation capability was evaluated towards adipogenesis and osteogenesis. We demonstrated that successfully transfected hMSC retained their surface immunophenotypes and differentiation potential into adipocytes and osteocytes. These results indicate that hMSC may be a suitable vehicle for gene transduction.
Antigens, Surface/metabolism ; Biological Markers/metabolism ; Bone Marrow Cells/cytology ; Bone Marrow Cells/metabolism ; Cell Differentiation/physiology ; Cells, Cultured ; Flow Cytometry ; Immunophenotyping ; Interleukin-12/genetics ; Interleukin-12/metabolism ; Mesenchymal Stem Cells/*cytology ; Mesenchymal Stem Cells/metabolism ; Transfection

Objective: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory condition that can be associated with abnormal bone turnover and hence osteoporosis. Osteocalcin (OC) levels are increased in conditions with high bone turnover, including high RA disease activity. Thus, OC levels could possibly be used as a marker to assess bone health and disease activity in RA patients. As there have been no previous studies looking at serum OC levels in Malaysian RA patients, this study was performed to examine possible correlations between OC, bone mineral density (BMD) and disease activity in this population.Methods: A cross-sectional study of 75 female RA patients and 29 healthy controls was performed. Serum OC was measured using a Quantikine® ELISA kit. Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) was used to assess BMD.Results: Serum OC levels were not significantly different between RA patients (median 14.44 ng/mL, interquartile range [IQR 12.99]) compared to healthy controls (median 11.04 ng/mL IQR 12.29) (p=0.198). Serum OC increased with age (Spearman’s rho r=0.230, p=0.047). There was no significant correlation between serum OC and body mass index (BMI), menopause status, BMD, DAS28, swollen or tender joint counts. Overall, there were 11 (14.7%) patients with osteoporosis and 27 (36.0%) with osteopenia. Menopause status was significantly associated with BMD at all sites (lumbar spine p=0.002, femoral neck p=0.004, total hip p=0.002). Conclusions: Serum OC were similar in RA patients compared to healthy controls. In RA patients, serum OC did not correlate with RA disease activity or BMD. Menopause status remains an important influence on BMD. Thus, measuring serum OC levels in Malaysian RA patients was not useful in identifying those at risk of low BMD.

A cell-based model of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a well-established in vitro experimental prototype to investigate the disease mechanism and therapeutic approach for a potential anti-PD drug. The SH-SY5Y human neuroblastoma cells and 6-OHDA combo is one of the many neurotoxininduced neuronal cell models employed in numerous neuroscience-related research for discovering neuroprotective drug compounds. Emerging studies have reported a significant correlation between PD and epigenetic alterations, particularly DNA methylation. However, the DNA methylation changes of PD-related CpG sites on the 6-OHDA-induced toxicity on human neuronal cells have not yet been reported. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) using Infinium Epic beadchip array surveying 850000 CpG sites in differentiated human neuroblastoma cells exposed to 6-OHDA. We identified 236 differentially methylated probes (DMPs) or 163 differentially methylated regions (DMRs) in 6-OHDA treated differentiated neuroblastoma cells than the untreated reference group with p<0.01, Δbeta cut-off of 0.1. Among 236 DMPs, hypermethylated DMPs are 110 (47%), whereas 126 (53%) are hypomethylated. Our bioinformatic analysis revealed 3 DMRs that are significantly hypermethylated and associated with neurological disorders, namely AKT1, ITPR1 and GNG7. This preliminary study demonstrates the methylation status of PD-related CpGs in the 6-OHDA-induced toxicity in the differentiated neuroblastoma cells model.