Curated News: Grant Funded News

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Using data from a large federal government telephone survey of adults, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report evidence that inhaling heated tobacco vapor through e-cigarettes was linked to increased odds of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), conditions long demonstrated to be caused by smoking traditional, combustible cigarettes. The data, the researchers say, also suggest that odds of developing COPD may be as much as six times greater when people report they both vape and smoke tobacco regularly, compared with those who don’t use any tobacco products at all.

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Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys have identified a new way to boost the immune system’s ability to fight cancer. The study used a mouse model to identify the importance of the Siah2 protein in the control of immune cells called T regulatory cells (Tregs), which limit the effectiveness of currently used immunotherapies. The research, which offers a new avenue to pursue immunotherapy in cases where the treatment fails, was published today in Nature Communications.

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Scientists report that the genetic anomaly causing the neurodegenerative disease Friedreich’s ataxia – the multiple repetition of a three letter DNA sequence – could potentially be reversed by enhancing a natural process that contracts the repetitive sequences in living tissue.

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Researchers have developed new nanoscale technology to image and measure more of the stresses and strains on materials under high pressures.

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Researchers have demonstrated a new all-optical technique for creating robust second-order nonlinear effects in materials that don’t normally support them. Using a laser pulse fired at an array of gold triangles on a titanium dioxide (TiO2) slab, the researchers created excited electrons that briefly doubled the frequency of a beam from a second laser as it bounced off the amorphous TiO2 slab.

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A first-of-its-kind study on molecular interactions by biomedical engineers in the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering will make it easier and more efficient for scientists to develop new medicines and other therapies for diseases such as cancer, HIV, and autoimmune diseases. The study resulted in a mathematical framework that researchers plan to use to develop a web-based app that other researchers can use to speed the development of new therapies for diseases.

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Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania applied tools from network science to identify how anatomical connections in the brain develop to support neural activity underlying executive function.

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The Department of Neurosurgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has received more than $10 million in federal funding for several projects focusing on brain tumor research.

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Worldwide, more people die from tuberculosis than any other infectious disease, even though the vast majority were vaccinated. The vaccine just isn’t that reliable. But a new Nature study finds that simply changing the way the vaccine is administered could dramatically boost its protective power.

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Engineering students at South Dakota State University are designing a drone large enough to carry a human for their capstone senior design project through a nearly $80,000 grant from NASA.

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For sick or prematurely born babies spending their first days of life in a hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), the soothing voice and gentle touch of a loving parent can have a tremendous impact toward a positive outcome — that is, unless mom or dad’s visit leaves the infant with something extra: a dangerous bacterial infection.

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One of the wonders of cell biology is its symmetry. Mammalian cells have one nucleus and one cell membrane, and most humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Trillions of mammalian cells achieve this uniformity — but some consistently break this mold to fulfill unique functions. Now, a team of Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have found how these outliers take shape.

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Adding a medication used to treat epilepsy, bipolar disorder and migraines to a blood pressure medicine reversed some aspects of breast cancer in the offspring of mice at high risk of the disease because of the high fat diet fed to their mothers during pregnancy. Conversely, this treatment combination increased breast cancer development in the offspring whose mothers had not been fed a high fat diet during pregnancy.

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A new study revealed that one dose of the HPV vaccine may prevent infection from the potential cancer-causing virus, according to research published in JAMA Network Open from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

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Teenage boys who witness their peers abusing women and girls are much more likely to bully and fight with others, as well as behave abusively toward their dates, compared to teenage boys who don’t witness such behaviors, according to a new study.

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Lab-grown brain organoids developed from a patient’s own glioblastoma, the most aggressive and common form of brain cancer, may hold the answers on how to best treat it. A new study in Cell from researchers at Penn Medicine showed how glioblastoma organoids could serve as effective models to rapidly test personalized treatment strategies.

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An innovative approach to analyzing the medical scans of patients in clinical trials could help ensure the accuracy of trial results while reducing the workload for busy oncologists, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center.

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No one knows what makes a mild dengue viral infection morph into a severe and sometimes deadly dengue hemorrhagic fever/dengue shock syndrome. Experts previously believed the likely cause was ramped up activity of T cells, which can massively boost an immune response to a virus. Now, however, researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), have found definitive evidence that CD4 T cells, one of two main subtypes of T cells, are not to blame.

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Over many years, exposure to the levels of ozone and other forms of pollution found in most U.S. cities and some rural communities can take a toll on a person’s health. Two studies led by Johns Hopkins researchers describe the impact of pollution on lung disease, particularly chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), in the U.S.

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Hackensack Meridian Health is honored to announce that it has received an award from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the amount of $15.8 million to be distributed over seven years to establish the New Jersey Integrated Care for Kids (InCK) Model that will test an Alternative Payment Model (APM) for the Medicaid program supporting multi-sectoral integrated case management and pediatric practice capacity-building in Monmouth and Ocean Counties. Hackensack Meridian Health is the administrative lead organization and is partnering with co-lead organizations, the VNA of Central Jersey (VNA), the New Jersey Medicaid Agency, and the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute (Quality Institute) on this initiative. Hackensack Meridian Health will partner with the VNA and a broad-based Partnership Council (PC) to monitor and execute the model, while the state’s Medicaid office, Hackensack Meridian Health and the Quality Institute will work collaboratively to design and impl

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Tiny solutions are being sought for big liver problems by a scientist at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

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A GPS map to guide neural navigation devices developed by a Case Western Reserve University cancer researcher has shown 90% accuracy in pinpointing brain tumors and will soon be tested in real time with patients at Cleveland Clinic under a three-year, $600,000 V Foundation grant.

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Heart cells have tiny pores that generate electrical signals to initiate each heart beat. Structural studies of these channels are providing details how they work, how they malfunction due to different inherited mutations, and how they respond to drugs.

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A multidisciplinary team of University of Utah Health scientists has received a five-year, $3 million grant from the National Institutes of variations in pollutant-sensing genes in the lungs could influence air pollution’s effects on children who have asthma. Health to investigate how variations in pollutant-sensing genes in the lungs could influence air pollution’s effects on children who have asthma.

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In the past six months, scientists at The Wistar Institute received funding from private foundations totaling $2,418,000 that will fuel new discoveries in cancer, immunology and infectious diseases.

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Despite a national opioid crisis, prescribed opioid analgesics remain a viable option for pain management for patients with cancer. In effect, patients with cancer represent one of the few groups excluded from most state legislation and policy initiatives on prescribing opioids as well as from opioid stewardship programs of many health systems. However, little is understood about oncology patients’ opioid self-management practices and potential safety risk that may stem from these practices.

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A minuscule, counterintuitive chemical tweak is advancing an organic solar technology that was believed unviable.

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Researchers at the University of Toronto have identified a key protein that supports the growth of many colorectal cancers. The study, which will be published December 27 in the Journal of Cell Biology, reveals that a protein called Importin-11 transports the cancer-causing protein βcatenin into the nucleus of colon cancer cells, where it can drive cell proliferation. Inhibiting this transport step could block the growth of most colorectal cancers caused by elevated βcatenin levels.

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Transportation costs and limited transit accessibility restrict students’ capabilities to access college campuses, which can hinder their progress and the likelihood of successfully graduating. Florida Atlantic University is leading a first-time transportation collaboration to improve southeast Florida’s transit ecosystem for college students and ultimately student success and retention.

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Cover crops may increase sustainability of carambola groves

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have found a way to increase protein production in bacteria up to a thousandfold, a discovery that could aid production of proteins used in the medical, food, agriculture, chemical and other industries.

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The project, Kentucky Advanced Partnership for Enhanced Robotics and Structures (or KAMPERS), will harness the collective research power of 40 multidisciplinary researchers from eight Kentucky universities and colleges. The grant will support the fundamental science needed to advance next generation manufacturing technologies, flexible electronics and robotics.

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The wind over deep-sea waters offers the potential to become one of the country’s largest renewable energy sources. University of Texas at Dallas researcher Dr. Todd Griffith has spent years working on an offshore turbine design that can convert those deep-ocean winds into electricity. Recently, Griffith received a $3.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to take his technology to the next level. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) award provides support for his team to design and build a prototype for a floating offshore wind turbine. The new grant was part of $26 million in funding from ARPA-E for 13 projects to accelerate floating offshore wind turbine technologies through the Aerodynamic Turbines, Lighter and Afloat, with Nautical Technologies and Integrated Servo-Control (ATLANTIS) program.

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As e-cigarette use by young people reaches epidemic proportions, researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) have received a $3.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct the first-ever assessment on the long-term results of a nationwide nicotine vaping prevention program for youth called CATCH My Breath.

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A major goal of tuberculosis (TB) research is to find a way to treat people with the latent (or inactive) form of the disease to keep them from developing symptomatic TB. A breakthrough study using a new animal model developed for this purpose showed a combination of two classes of antibiotics can wipe out this hidden threat.

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U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette has issued the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) second Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020.

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UIC’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has received $3 million from The Davee Foundation to assist high-achieving English and history undergraduate students who have prohibitive levels of financial need.

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Extracting nectar from flowers that may be dancing in the wind requires precise, millisecond timing between the brain and muscles. By capturing and analyzing nearly all of the brain signals sent to the wing muscles of hawk moths (Manduca sexta), which feed on such nectar, researchers have shown that precise timing within rapid sequences of neural signal spikes is essential to controlling the flight muscles necessary for the moths to eat.

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With the help of a three-year, $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, a research team from Wayne State University will comprehensively evaluate the characteristics of cyberattacks for processes involving chemical processes of different types, and will develop fundamental advances in control theory and algorithms for enhancing cybersecurity of control systems for these processes through control designs integrated with other frameworks such as detection algorithms.

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Researchers have developed a more efficient fabrication method for silk that allows them mold the material like plastic into solid forms for a wide range of applications, including medical devices. The properties of the end products can be “tuned”, and modified with bioactive molecules, such as antibiotics and enzymes.

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Researchers in China have discovered how a Zika virus protein reshapes its host cell to aid viral replication. The study, which will be published December 23 in the Journal of Cell Biology, reveals that the viral protein NS1 converts an interior cellular compartment called the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) into a protective region where the virus can survive and replicate. Blocking this process could be a novel therapeutic strategy to treat patients infected with Zika or similar viral pathogens, such as the yellow fever and dengue viruses.

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A new study led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests there is a link between bacteria that live in the upper airway and the severity of asthma symptoms among children with mild to moderate asthma.

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Researchers at UC San Diego and MIT linked theory and experiment to move closer to developing materials that address global water scarcity.

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Researchers at Iowa State University are creating a system that will provide students, teachers, police officers and others with accurate, real-time information in the event of an active shooter in a school.

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With the help of a $1.7 million grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health, a team of researchers in Wayne State’s College of Engineering will explore ways to address urgent need for a safe and efficient oral delivery technology for insulin to improve the lives of diabetes patients.

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Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital announced today that PetSmart Charities has offered a gift of $75,000 to extend the tenure of Professor Bunsen Honeydew the hospital’s first of three facility dogs, through October 2020.

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In the next five years, the NACP will focus the program's immediate priorities on enhancing the partnership with the University of Arizona Cancer Center to make a greater impact in addressing cancer health disparities for Native Americans in Arizona and throughout the Southwest.

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Using a targeted gene epigenome editing approach in the developing mouse brain, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers reversed one gene mutation that leads to the genetic disorder WAGR syndrome, which causes intellectual disability and obesity in people. This specific editing was unique in that it changed the epigenome — how the genes are regulated — without changing the actual genetic code of the gene being regulated.

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Researchers identify production strategies to help manage phosphorus

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Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute have shown that worms live longer lives if they produce excess levels of a protein, p62, which recognizes toxic cell proteins that are tagged for destruction. The discovery, published in Nature Communications, could help uncover treatments for age-related conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease, which are often caused by accumulation of misfolded proteins.