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Device improves breast cancer detection Quing Zhu, engineering
Where the politics are David Yalof, political science

UConn professor leads effort to improve accuracy of diagnosis

Photo: Peter Morenus

Quing Zhu, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, with her device for detecting breast cancer.

Each year, more than 200,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer. Thousands more experience a scare because detection is not always precise.

Quing Zhu, a UConn physicist, has developed a tool to make breast cancer detection easier and more accurate. Zhu's "combined ultrasound and light imager" is undergoing clinical trials at the UConn Health Center.

"We hope to improve diagnostic imaging of breast lesions by increasing detection sensitivity and specificity, which will save lives and reduce anxiety for patients," says Zhu, a UConn assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.

She hopes to fine-tune the imager and prove its effectiveness with an $800,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health. Her collaborators from the UConn Health Center include breast cancer specialists and radiologists.

When a breast mass is found, either by a mammogram or physical exam, breast cancer specialists often perform an ultrasound to determine whether the mass is a harmless cyst or solid lesion. But ultrasound technology is unable to accurately detect whether the solid lesions are benign or malignant, so a biopsy is often done to confirm the diagnosis. The device Zhu developed combines ultrasound and near-infrared optical techniques. Near-infrared light is harmless, but highly sensitive to functional parameters that distinguish between benign and malignant lesions. During the imager's clinical trials, Zhu conducts her test before a biopsy is undertaken, and the results are compared with the confirming biopsy.

"For some time we've needed better tools to determine who needs a biopsy and who does not because the majority of women who undergo biopsies are found not to have cancer," says Scott Kurtzman, a breast cancer specialist. "Because results from the imager can be determined much faster, women won't have to wait and worry about the biopsy results."

Zhu is encouraged by the trials' early results, which have been published in scientific journals, although more research is needed for conclusive results. She is also optimistic that the imager will lend a hand in the early detection process, because it is proving effective detecting the smaller more aggressive cancers.

Detection may not be the only role for the imager. Near-infrared light may also be effective in monitoring the success of anti-cancer drug treatment. The hope is that the near-infrared light will tell doctors whether or not the cancer cells are responding to the treatment.

Zhu's ultimate goal, however, is "to contribute to the final eradication of this deadly disease," she says.
- Janice Palmer

David Yalof's journey to study U.S. Supreme Court nominations

When David Yalof began work on his award-winning 1999 book, Pursuit of Justices: Presidential Politics and the Selection of Supreme Court Nominees, he knew that he was heading into uncharted waters. Yalof, then an assistant professor of political science at UConn, was aware that in studying 28 U.S. Supreme Court nominations in the post-World War II period he would have limited quantitative information. Instead he developed a qualitative analysis employing case study methodology to examine the process that led to the selection of justices.

Photo: Peter Morenus

David Yalof combines his interest in law and politics studying U.S. Supreme Court nominations.

"I learned that there is some very important political science to be done that can't necessarily be counted or statistically tested," Yalof says.

Yalof, who holds a law degree as well as a doctorate in political science, also found that despite what the media pundits in Washington, D.C., might like to think, political science does not reside solely in the nation's capital.

"To do political science well, sometimes you have to be willing to go where the politics are and where the people who are part of politics are," says Yalof, who traveled to Rancho Mirage, Calif., to meet with former President Gerald R. Ford; to College Park, Md., to read the vice presidential papers of Richard M. Nixon; and to Abilene, Kansas, to conduct research at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library. He further traveled to conduct interviews with seven men who once served as attorney general of the United States about the behind-the-scenes details involved in the Supreme Court nominating process.

Yalof, whose most recent book, The First Amendment and Media in the Court of Public Opinion, was written with Kenneth Dautrich of the UConn Center for Survey Research and Analysis, says being able to talk with the political decision makers adds greatly to the understanding of his specialty.

"They can add a nuance, a character. They can give you texture and tell you what was in the room," he says. "There is something wonderful about that. That's a front row on history. It is exciting. You're always waiting for that gold mine, for someone to say, 'I have this box of stuff upstairs you might be interested in.'

That precise kind of moment did not happen, however. Yalof was one of the first scholars to gain access to President Ronald Reagan's papers, and he was impressed by the efforts of that administration to find judicial candidates. He says Reagan's staffers reviewed thousands of judicial opinions in searching for candidates to fill lower court seats, as well as the Supreme Court. Such is not always the case, as during the Truman presidency, when the chief executive's friends were placed on the Court, he says.

"The Supreme Court is one of those rare places where incredibly important people are placed in position not by voters but by the decision makers," says Yalof. "It was reassuring and heartening to me that there really was, in recent years, a great amount of effort and seriousness that went into that enterprise."
- Kenneth Best