Experiments by scientists at Johns Hopkins and in Boston have unraveled two biological mechanisms as the major cause of protein citrullination in rheumatoid arthritis. Protein citrullination is suspected of sparking the immune system and driving the cascade of events leading to the disease.
Scientists say they’ve produced “the clearest evidence yet” the SARS virus originated in Chinese horseshoe bats and that direct bat-to-human transmission is “plausible.” The 2002 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) pandemic was one of the most significant public health events in recent history and researchers have been studying the virus to better understand how it is transmitted to prepare for future outbreaks.
Shashank Dravid, Ph.D., received more than $400,000 from the NIH to study a protein believed to play a role in the development of autism spectrum disorders.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center will participate in a national trial to see if outcomes for critically injured patients with uncontrolled bleeding can be improved by administering plasma to these patients while in flight to the hospital. In a first-of-its-kind study, randomized patients who are at risk of hemorrhaging and flown to Vanderbilt University Hospital via LifeFlight’s Clarksville, Tenn., base could receive two units of plasma, which can improve a patient’s ability to clot and ultimately survive their injuries.
With prescription drug abuse at epidemic levels nationwide, a new study provides striking new data about the misuse of potent prescription painkillers and sedatives by teens and young adults. In all, 10.4 percent of those treated in the emergency room for any reason admitted to misusing a prescription painkiller or sedative at least once in the last year.
The NSF has awarded Johns Hopkins $3 million to build a program that will determine the effect of repeated hurricanes and heat waves on the Mid-Atlantic region and suggest ways to improve the region’s ability to withstand them.
Some of the most common vision disorders take their toll by damaging blood vessels near the retina. But it’s difficult for eye care professionals and researchers to see these vessels with standard techniques. NIH’s National Eye Institute is supporting the development of new methods to get deeper, more detailed views of the retinal vasculature.
Two subtypes of human papillomavirus (HPV) prevented by vaccines are half as likely to be found in African-American women as in white women with precancerous cervical lesions, according to researchers at Duke Medicine.
Nanoscale engineering boosts performance of quantum dot light emitting diodes
New research published in JAMA Psychiatry reveals that topiramate, a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat epilepsy and migraine headaches, also could be the first reliable medication to help treat cocaine dependence.
An international research consortium led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the University of Chicago has answered several questions about the genetic background of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette syndrome (TS), providing the first direct confirmation that both are highly heritable and also revealing major differences between the underlying genetic makeup of the disorders. Their report is being published in the October issue of the open-access journal PLOS Genetics.
Using a discovery platform whose components range from yeast cells to human stem cells, Whitehead Institute scientists have identified a novel Parkinson’s disease drug target and a compound capable of repairing neurons derived from Parkinson’s patients.
Our ability to hear relies on hair cells, sensory receptors that mechanically amplify low-level sound that enters the inner ear through a transduction channel. A new study in The Journal of General Physiology could help lead to a definitive identification of this mystery channel.
Just when some scientists were becoming more hopeful about finding a strategy to outwit HIV’s ability to resist, evade and otherwise survive efforts to rid it from the body, another hurdle has emerged to foil their plans, new research from Johns Hopkins shows.
State-of-the-Art Advances Are Expected to Provide More Choice for Cloud Consumers
University of Colorado Cancer Center study shows that breast cancer cell growth, motility and aggression is promoted by excess glucose, as experienced by patients with diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Patients with high glucose may require higher doses of the drug metformin to achieve the same anti-cancer activity as patients with normal glucose levels.
Reporting on a small preliminary study, Johns Hopkins researchers say a simple blood test based on detection of tiny epigenetic alterations may reveal the earliest signs of pancreatic cancer, a disease that is nearly always fatal because it isn’t usually discovered until it has spread to other parts of the body.
As part of the National Robotics Initiative, NIH has awarded funding for three projects to develop the next generation of robots that work cooperatively with people.
Youth obesity is associated with receptiveness to TV fast food advertising, Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC) researchers found in a study published in the November issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
A team of scientists at Duke Medicine and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has created an artificial protein coupled with a sugar molecule that mimics a key site on the outer coat of HIV where antibodies can bind to neutralize a wide variety of HIV strains.
A novel autism intervention program using theatre to teach reciprocal communication skills is improving social deficits in adolescents with the disorder that now affects an estimated one in 88 children, Vanderbilt University researchers released today in the journal Autism Research.
Low levels of the “sunshine” vitamin D appear to increase a child’s risk of anemia, according to new research led by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. The study, published online Oct. 10 in the Journal of Pediatrics, is believed to be the first one to extensively explore the link between the two conditions in children.
A substance in breast milk that neutralizes HIV and may protect babies from acquiring HIV from their infected mothers has been identified for the first time by researchers at Duke Medicine.
States across the country have started to implement the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM). But, according to a National Science Foundation-funded study, a large majority of middle school math teachers point to the new high-stakes tests and teacher evaluations associated with the CCSSM as challenges for implementing the new standards. In fact, most teachers reported that the content of these new state assessments and the teacher evaluation systems aligned with the CCSSM will ultimately drive their classroom practices. These are among other findings released as part of a new survey, conducted by researchers from the University of Rochester, Western Michigan University, Michigan State University, and Washington State University Tri-Cities in April and May 2013, that examines how teachers perceive the new standards, CCSSM-related assessments, and the teacher evaluation process linked to the new standards.
A new Department of Energy grant will fund research to advance an additive manufacturing technique for fabricating three-dimensional (3D) nanoscale structures from a variety of materials.
Cell biologists have discovered that message-relaying proteins inside cells always initiate the cellular projections that act as hands to help cells "crawl." The messenger protein network was known to be required for directional movement but scientists now know that it can self-activate spontaneously to direct random movement as well.
Johns Hopkins researchers used suction to learn that individual “molecular muscles” within cells respond to different types of force, a finding that may explain how cells “feel” the environment and appropriately adapt their shapes and activities.
Researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute have developed a tool for doctors to forecast the potential survival of individual patients, enabling faster, more accurate information on whether to try additional rounds of treatment or seek clinical trials.
When financial gain depends on cooperation, we might expect that people would put aside their differences and focus on the bottom line. But new research suggests that people’s racial biases make them more likely to leave money on the table when a windfall is not split evenly between groups.
Harvest, an open-source, highly interactive software toolkit introduced by a team of informatics experts and researchers, enables biomedical researchers to explore their data without having to become specialized database technicians.
Researchers have developed a new technology to sort human cells according to their stiffness, which might one day help doctors identify certain diseases in patients, according to a new study.
Johns Hopkins researchers say that by measuring levels of certain proteins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), they can predict when people will develop the cognitive impairment associated with Alzheimer’s disease years before the first symptoms of memory loss appear.
Though worlds apart, four unrelated families have been united in a medical mystery over the source of a rare inherited disorder that results in their children being born with abnormal brain growth and severe functional impairments.
Mayo Clinic researchers have found a surprising occupational hazard for teachers: progressive speech and language disorders. The research, recently published in the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease & Other Dementias, found that people with speech and language disorders are about 3.5 times more likely to be teachers than patients with Alzheimer’s dementia.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center have received a $25 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the Harold and Muriel Block Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) at Einstein and Montefiore. The two institutions received their initial Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) from the NIH in 2008 to launch this joint collaboration.
Contradicting long-standing conventional wisdom, results of a Johns Hopkins-led analysis of data previously gathered on more than 3,000 family caregivers suggests that those who assist a chronically ill or disabled family member enjoy an 18 percent survival advantage compared to statistically matched non-caregivers.
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has awarded Thomas J. Kipps, MD, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, with a 5-year, $6.25 million Specialized Center of Research program grant to support research on chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have succeeded in making flattened, football-shaped artificial particles that impersonate immune cells. These football-shaped particles seem to be better than the typical basketball-shaped particles at teaching immune cells to recognize and destroy cancer cells in mice.
Children who undergo transplants of solid organs have a high risk of developing advanced kidney disease, according to a new national study. The findings reinforce the importance of continued screening of kidney function in these children.
An international consortium co-led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Australia has identified four genetic variants associated with an increased risk of esophageal cancer and its precursor, a condition called Barrett’s esophagus.
A study led by Robert N. Weinreb, chairman and Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has received a $6.4 million, 5-year grant from the National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, to elucidate the genetics of glaucoma in persons of African descent.
A protein that is increased by endurance exercise has been isolated and given to non-exercising mice, in which it turned on genes that promote brain health and encourage the growth of new nerves involved in learning and memory, report scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” goes the playground rhyme that’s supposed to help children endure taunts. But a new study suggests that there’s more going on inside our brains when someone snubs us – and that the brain may have its own way of easing social pain.
A new paper published in the journal Climate Dynamics suggests that ‘unpredictable climate variability’ behaves in a more predictable way than previously assumed. The paper’s authors, Marcia Wyatt and Judith Curry, point to the so-called ‘stadium-wave’ signal that propagates like the cheer at sporting events whereby sections of sports fans seated in a stadium stand and sit as a ‘wave’ propagates through the audience.
Using the Food and Drug Administration's Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), a hospital electronic health records database, and an animal model, a team of researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai report that by adding a second drug to the diabetes drug rosiglitazone, adverse events dropped enormously. That suggests that drugs could be repurposed to improve drug safety, including lowering the risk of heart attacks.
Using mice, lab-grown cells and clues from a related disorder, Johns Hopkins researchers have greatly increased understanding of the causes of systemic sclerosis, showing that a critical culprit is a defect in the way certain cells communicate with their structural scaffolding. They say the new insights point the way toward potentially developing drugs for the disease, which affects approximately 100,000 people in the United States.
Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University working in a novel mouse model of Stiff Skin Syndrome have made key discoveries that may have broad implications for future scleroderma therapy.
Johns Hopkins researchers say they have pinpointed a site in a highly developed area of the human brain that plays an important role in the subconscious recognition of which way is straight up and which way is down.
A recently published study suggests that exposure to social stress not only impairs a mother’s ability to care for her children but can also negatively impact her daughter’s ability to provide maternal care to future offspring.
Indiana University School of Medicine emergency medicine faculty hope to improve the way childhood asthma is medically managed in Marion County through an innovative program that incorporates the skills and flexible schedules of specially trained Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services paramedics.
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