Mega Doctor News
Newswise — A small point on the ear could hold big answers for cancer patients in pain. With a new pilot grant, researcher Hongyu Wang, MD, PhD, is digging into the biology behind auricular point acupressure to better understand how it eases the debilitating effects of chemotherapy.
Wang received the $20,000 grant from the UTHealth Houston Cizik Nursing Research Institute for her project, “The Epigenetic Signatures of Auricular Point Acupressure Therapy Response in Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy.” Wang is an associate professor in the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, as well as a faculty member at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston.
Auricular point acupressure is a nonpharmacological pain management approach that involves stimulating standardized points on the ear associated with specific areas of the body. The late Dr. Chao Hsing Yeh, a professor at Cizik School of Nursing, did pioneering work in the field. Wang helped continue Yeh’s work in studies led by nursing school faculty Constance Johnson, PhD, MS, RN, and Jennifer Kawi, PhD, MSN, FNP-BC.
The team collected blood samples from cancer patients before and after auricular point acupressure administration for Yeh’s large study, “Auricular Point Acupressure to Manage Chemotherapy Induced Neuropathy (3R01CA245054),” which was funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
The samples are stored in the -80°C freezers at the Cizik Nursing Research Institute’s Biobehavioral Health Biomarker Discovery Center. Housed at Cizik School of Nursing, the lab is a designated UTHealth Houston research service center, providing a full range of services from specimen sample collection, preservation, and storage to assay development. The lab also holds a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments Certificate of Waiver from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to provide a variety of tests for clinical purposes.
In her new project, Wang will analyze blood samples from 25 participants of Yeh’s study to detect how auricular point acupressure affects gene expression. Determining whether or to what degree auricular point acupressure may activate or suppress specific epigenetic characteristics can help scientists develop more targeted treatments for chemotherapy side effects, Wang explained.
Cizik Nursing Research Institute pilot grants help researchers lay the groundwork for large NIH awards. Wang hopes future funding will enable her to analyze blood samples from many more of the participants in the earlier study.
