UMD student crowned Miss Massachusetts

By Jennifer Masztal

Over the summer Valerie Amaral, a UMass Dartmouth senior and political science major, was crowned Miss Massachusetts 2007.

The Miss Massachusetts competition took place at the Bristol Community College Arts Center where 17 contestants competed for the title.

At the Miss Massachusetts competition, Amaral had to complete an interview before a panel of judges earlier in the day preceeding the onstage competition. In the interview portion, she discussed her personal platform of encouraging young people to volunteer. After the interview portion of the contest, contenders took to the stage, introducing themselves and preparing to participate in the categories of swimsuit, talent, evening gown, and question and response. For the talent portion of the competition, Amaral sang the song “Anyway” by Martina McBride, which she has decided to sing in the Miss America competition, as well.

At the end of the competition, the contestants gathered onstage for the announcement of the winners. Amaral reflected that upon receiving the title of Miss Massachusetts 2007, “I felt relieved. I knew I was prepared and ready to be Miss Massachusetts.” Amaral says her favorite moment of the competition was winning and “looking into the audience and seeing my friends and family that have been there supporting me for the past four years.”

To qualify to compete in the Miss Massachusetts competition, Amaral had to win a local title at Miss North Shore earlier this year. She also holds other titles, such as Miss New Bedford, Miss Cambridge, and Miss Merrimack Valley. She has competed in Miss Massachusetts four times and has placed in the top five every time.

Valerie began competing in scholarship programs when she was 15 years old, after being inspired by an advertisement for the Outstanding Teen Program. She ended up winning first runner up in this competition, and since then she has been winning other titles and working toward becoming Miss America.

Amaral will compete in Miss America on January 26, 2008, in Las Vegas. The final competition will be aired on TLC. While in Las Vegas, the contestants will be filmed for a four-part reality series. When asked how she will prepare for Miss America, Amaral responded, “By filling my days so I won’t be surprised by how much work she [Miss America] has. It’s almost like I have to train myself to be in that position.”

Besides preparing for Miss America, Amaral has been busy with her duties as Miss Massachusetts. She has been making public appearances and has also sang with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra.

The Miss America competition will be the last pageant in which Amaral will be allowed to compete. After her reign, she wishes to stay involved in the pageant system. In a few years she hopes to help run local pageants and also pose as a judge for them. As for post-graduation from UMD, Valerie quips, “I look forward to applying to law school.”

Between preparations and duties, Amaral teaches voice and acting at the Burtwood School of Performing Arts in Middleboro. She enjoys spending her time volunteering, working with children, and spending time with her dog. When asked what she does in her free time, she said, “Lots of normal things people like to do in their free time —I just have less of it.”

Amaral credits her education at UMass Dartmouth for helping her win her titles, especially with the interviewing process. Her classes have helped her stay up to date on current events and learn to think critically. She will go on to use those skills while representing UMass Dartmouth and Massachusetts as a whole at the Miss America pageant. “[UMass Dartmouth] has been so supportive of me,” Amaral acknowledges. “They are so helpful and so proud of me. It’s very good to have that support system.”

SCIENCE OF THE NOW

Averse effects of morphine on cancer patients

By Nathan Yetton

One of the most important methods of treatment for cancer patients is managing their pain while concurrently attempting to reduce or remove the cancerous tumor cells which cause the disease.

One of the most widespread and safe drugs used to alleviate cancer patient pain is morphine. In a late August article found in the Biochemical Journal, a Shanghai research paper was released signifying problematic traits of morphine interaction with a common cancer drug doxorubicin (DOX).

Part of the mechanism for treating cancer is to make cancer cells go through the programmed cell death called apoptosis. DOX is shown to signal the production of specific Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) which cause apoptosis. The reason for this is that cancer cells themselves are incapable of apoptosis, which is why they continue to grow, running rampant throughout the body. Morphine affects the mechanism with which DOX signals apoptosis in malignant cells and prevents cell death.

As the amount of morphine in the body increases, the cancer drug’s ability to fight cancer cells is greatly reduced.

Even though the Shanghai team has not researched morphine’s inhibition of the cancer drug doxorubicin in living humans, live cancer cell cultures gave adequate results using real-world concentrations. These tests showed a decrease in the effectiveness of DOX as more and more morphine is used. The biggest problem with this is that real-world concentrations of morphine are capable of reducing the activity of a common drug used to fight cancer.

The big problem with this antagonistic relationship between morphine and DOX is the progressive treatment of ongoing cancer. The longer a person has to cope with cancer, the greater the pain s/he feels. This requires larger and larger doses of morphine to keep the patient comfortable. As the cancer progresses and the doses of morphine increase, the drug so used to fight the cancer becomes less and less effective.

Medicine’s methods of treating patients with cancer need to be changed to accommodate the problematic interactions with common anti-cancer drugs and the most common pain relievers for sufferers of this disease. For decades, we may have been doing more harm then good by using morphine to treat patients with cancer because there has been a lack of research in drug-drug interactions, an underdeveloped field as it is.

Hopefully this research will spark new developments in modern drug research to result in a better understanding on the effectiveness of tools we use to fight nearly incurable diseases.

Source:

Morphine Inhibits Doxorubicin-Induced Reactive Oxygen Species Generation and Nuclear Factor kB Transcription Activation in Neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y Cells

By Xin Lin, Qing li, Yu-Jun Wang, Ya-Wen Ju, Zhi-Qiang Chi, Min-Wei Wang, and Jing-Gen Liu

MPP hosts open house

NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass. — The Department of Policy Studies at UMass Dartmouth is hosting an open house for persons interested in applying for Spring or Fall 2008 admission to the Master of Public Policy (MPP) program. The open house will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, September 21, 2007 at 128 Chase Road in North Dartmouth.

The open house will cover topics such as admissions requirements, application procedures, course offerings, cost and career opportunities.

Further information on the MPP may be found at the Department of Policy Studies website (http://www.umassd.edu/cas/policystudies/.cfm) or potential applicants can contact Dr. Clyde W. Barrow, Chairperson of the Department of Policy Studies, at 508-999-9265.