Welcome to Benchmarks, a weekly collection of research news and notes featuring Mass General investigators. With a research community of over 9,500 people that spans more than 30 departments centers and institutes, there’s more news each week that we can get to. Here are a few highlights:

Sacks wins Innovator Award for Project Promoting Healthy Sleep in Youth Affected by Gun Violence

Chana Sacks, MD, MPH, co-director of the Mass General Center for Gun Violence Prevention and a clinician investigator in the Division of Internal Medicine, received the the 2022 Innovator Award from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation.

Sacks and her team will create a multimedia education resource called “Sleep Superheroes” with the funding received. “Sleep Superheroes” will be used to assist with healthy sleep and relaxation among youth impacted by gun violence. Congratulations Chana!

AI Tool Predicts Lung Cancer Risk in Non-Smokers Six Years Out

“Much like its ancient Greek namesake, a new artificial intelligence tool dubbed Sybil may be able to see into the future—though its predictions are delivered to doctors rather than mythical gods,” writes Andrea Park in Fierce Biotech.

The AI oracle was developed by researchers from MIT and the Massachusetts General Cancer Center, who trained it to calculate the probability that an individual will develop lung cancer within the next six years. Mass General’s Florian Fintelmann, MD, and Lecia Sequist, MD, MPH are co-corresponding authors of the study along with MIT’s Regina Barzilay, PhD.

The software was designed to overcome two sticking points in standard lung cancer screening guidelines. For one, the researchers made a specific point of applying the tool to patients with no history of smoking, who are often not screened for the disease even though the cases of lung cancer in non-smokers are on the rise. The tool also aims to make screening more convenient for current or former smokers. Read more.

Laser Treatment Might Help Prevent Common Forms of Skin Cancer

Matthew Avram, MD, Director of the Dermatology Laser & Cosmetic Center, is the senior author of a new study which found that in patients who had basal or nonsquamous cell skin cancers, treatment with nonablative fractional lasers lowered the changes of cancer recurrence by half.

Nonablative fractional lasers are a relatively new treatment technique often used for cosmetic purposes.

After adjusting for age, gender and skin type, untreated patients were nearly three times more likely to develop new cancers than laser-treated patients. Among treated patients who did develop skin cancer again, the recurrence took longer than among untreated patients, the researchers noted.

We actually don’t know why this procedure has this result,” said Avram. “We have to go to the lab and try to figure out why this is the case. There are theories about whether or not the treatment causes your immune function and skin to change, but we have no evidence of that,” he said. Read more.

A Pioneer in Image-seq Technology Promoted to Instructor

The Career Development and Promotions Committee members of the Wellman Center for Photomedicine enthusiastically congratulate Christa Haase, PhD, on her promotion to the rank of Instructor at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Haase completed her PhD study in atomic and molecular physics at ETH Zurich and joined Dr. Charles Lin’s laboratory at the MGH Wellman Center for Photomedicine and the Center for Systems Biology, where she took on the challenge of integrating intravital microscopy (IVM) with single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq).

Dr. Haase has successfully brought this project to fruition and has published a remarkable paper (Nature Methods 2022) describing this new technology, called Image-seq.

Her current and future work will make use of this technology to study the factors regulating the earliest stages of hematopoiesis, hematopoietic stem cell proliferation and differentiation, as well as early leukemia progression in the bone marrow, with the goal of identifying targets that will protect against cancer relapse.

Well done Christa and we wish you all the best in the coming years and continuing success!

Tweets of the Week

This Week in Mass General History

Mass General Clinician Changes His Views on the Medical Benefits of Alcohol

Jan. 27, 1933 – In a front-page article in the Claude (Texas) News, Richard Cabot, MD, the longtime chief of staff of Massachusetts General Hospital, details how his thoughts have changed when it comes to the benefits of alcohol as a treatment for illness.

“Forty years ago, almost all the physicians at the Massachusetts General Hospital believed that alcohol stimulated the heart and the powers of resistance in fevers. Now I don’t know one who believes that.”

Cabot goes on to fault alcohol for causing an enormous loss of life via automobile accidents. “One cocktail is enough to impair the dexterity and quickness of hand and foot, to spell the man’s judgment about speeds and distances on which safe driving depends.” Read more.

Tut Tomb Explorer Dies at Mass General

Jan. 29, 1934—The Urbana Daily Courier reports that Albert Lythgoe, a famed Egyptologist and one of those present at the opening of the tomb of King Tutankhamen, died in the Phillips House at Massachusetts General Hospital at the age of 66.

Lythego, a native of Providence, RI, was appointed the first curator of Egyptian Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1902. Four years later, he was named the first curator of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

In his role at the Met, he provided support and manpower to assist British Archeologist Howard Carter, who discovered the tomb of King Tut near Luxor in 1922. Both Lythgo and his wife, Lucy, were present when the tomb was opened in 1923.

Mass General Treats Patients Injured in Paramount Hotel Explosion

Jan. 28, 1966 – Massachusetts General Hospital was one of several downtown hospitals to take in patient who were injured when an explosion and fire occurred underneath the Paramount Hotel at 17 Boylston Street in downtown Boston.

According to Wikipedia, the blast tore up a 50-foot section of sidewalk and collapsed the floor under the hotel’s cocktail lounge, sending 30 patrons tumbling into the basement.

The resulting fire quickly spread through all 11 floors of the hotel, and two more explosions resulted in the partial collapse of the building.

Nine people were killed and 68 people were injured in the blast. The injured were transported to Mass General, Boston City Hospital and Beth Israel Hospital for treatment. Read more.