Thousands of times a day, doctors sign the hospital discharge papers for patients who have just had surgery. About half will get some sort of post-surgery care. But a new study finds huge variation in where they end up, depending on where they had their operation. And that variation in turn leads to huge differences in how much their care costs.
Johns Hopkins researchers who conducted a dozen focus groups with 70 straight and gay/bisexual Hispanic and African-American males ages 15 to 24 report that gaining a better understanding of the context in which young men grow up will allow health care providers to improve this population’s use of sexual and reproductive health care.
Exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke -- even before conception -- appears to have a lingering impact that can later impair the brain development of a fetus, researchers at Duke Health report.
Johns Hopkins researchers along with academic and drug industry investigators say they have identified a new biological target for treating spinal muscular atrophy.
Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered the genetic driver of a rare and lethal childhood leukemia and identified a targeted molecular therapy that halts the proliferation of leukemic cells. The finding also has implications for treating other types of cancer. Mixed lineage leukemia (MLL) primarily strikes newborns and infants.
Soon you can seek mental health advice on your smartphone as quickly as finding a good restaurant.A novel suite of 13 speedy mini-apps called IntelliCare resulted in participants reporting significantly less depression and anxiety by using the apps on their smartphones up to four times a day, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.
By developing a new mouse model to study a poorly understood protein, researchers uncovered its link to metaplastic breast cancer, opening the door to better understanding of this challenging breast cancer subtype.
Proposals are sought from higher education institutions to participate in a four-year project to create cohesive, research-based undergraduate curricula in biology, chemistry, physics, and psychology.
Doctors have found a way to manipulate wounds to heal as regenerated skin rather than scar tissue. The method involves transforming the most common type of cells found in wounds into fat cells – something that was previously thought to be impossible in humans.
In a microscopic feat that resembled a high-wire circus act, Johns Hopkins researchers have coaxed DNA nanotubes to assemble themselves into bridge-like structures arched between two molecular landmarks on the surface of a lab dish.
Results of an initial study of tumors from patients with lung cancer or head and neck cancer suggest that the widespread acquired resistance to immunotherapy drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors may be due to the elimination of certain genetic mutations needed to enable the immune system to recognize and attack malignant cells.
Electrical vagus nerve stimulation can help fight inflammatory diseases like Crohn's or arthritis but can also contribute somewhat to inflammation. Engineers have tweaked the buzz to keep the good effects and minimize those less desirable. Their innovation could be adapted to existing medical devices with relative ease.
Patients who had a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease with dementia or dementia with Lewy bodies and had higher levels of Alzheimer’s disease pathology in their donated post-mortem brains also had more severe symptoms of these Lewy body diseases during their lives, compared to those whose brains had less AD pathology
In a new University of Michigan study, gene therapy deployed with immune checkpoint inhibitors demonstrates potential benefit for devastating brain cancer.
Researchers from Schepens Eye Research Institute of Massachusetts Eye and Ear have uncovered two factors responsible for the chronic, lifelong nature of autoimmune disorders, which tend to “flare up” intermittently in affected patients. These two factors are cell-signaling proteins called cytokines—specifically Interleukin-7 and -15 (IL-7 and IL-15)—that are secreted by cells of the immune system and help modulate memory Th17 cells, a subset of T cells which are known to contribute to autoimmune disorders. Until now, it was unclear how Th17 cells maintained memory; the study results show that IL-7 and IL-15 signal the Th17 cells to chronically reside in the body.
Patients who take medication for depression report more side effects if they also suffer from panic disorder, according to a new study led by researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
A study led by researchers at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles demonstrates what lead investigator Bradley Peterson, MD, calls “a critical mass of evidence” of a common underlying lifelong vulnerability in both children and adults who stutter.
In a survey of almost 2,000 people who said they had had a past negative experience when taking psilocybin-containing "magic mushrooms," Johns Hopkins researchers say that more than 10 percent believed their worst "bad trip" had put themselves or others in harm's way, and a substantial majority called their most distressing episode one of the top 10 biggest challenges of their lives.
Welders exposed to airborne manganese at estimated levels well under federal safety standards develop neurological problems, according to a study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Current safety standards may not adequately protect welders from the dangers of the job.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) instituted financial penalties against hospitals with high rates of readmissions for Medicare patients with certain health conditions. A new analysis led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Massachusetts General Hospital has found that the penalties levied under the law’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program were associated with reduced readmissions rates and that the poorest performing hospitals achieved the greatest reductions.
Scientific research over the past decade has concentrated almost exclusively on the 2 percent of the genome’s protein coding regions, virtually ignoring the other 98 percent, a vast universe of non-coding genetic material previously dismissed as nothing more than ‘junk.’ Now, a team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) reveals that one type — called long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) — may be critically important for controlling cellular components in a tissue-specific manner. Published online today in the journal Nature, the new research points to an lncRNA’s key role in helping control processes related to muscle regeneration and cancer.
After all the lifting, hauling and wrapping, worn out gift givers may blame the season’s physical strain for any shoulder soreness they are feeling. It turns out there could be another reason. A new study led by investigators at the University of Utah School of Medicine finds that individuals with symptoms that put them at increased risk for heart disease could be more likely to have shoulder problems, including joint pain and rotator cuff injury.
Researchers are working to develop a pill to treat this serious inherited bleeding disorder. Oral delivery of the treatment--clotting factor IX--would allow individuals with type B hemophilia to swallow a pill rather than be subjected to several weekly injections of factor IX to control potentially fatal bleeding episodes.
A consortium directed by UCLA’s Dr. Kalyanam Shivkumar has received a three-year, $8.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to map the heart’s nervous system. The group’s goal: To conduct research that leads to new ways to treat cardiovascular disease by targeting nerves in the heart’s nervous system.
The researchers said this study might help shed light on sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in human babies, which is thought to be associated with dysfunctional airway sensory neurons.
Cancer researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found an obesity-associated protein’s role in leukemia development and drug response which could lead to more effective therapies for the illness.
A clump of just a few thousand brain cells, no bigger than a mustard seed, controls the daily ebb and flow of most bodily processes in mammals -- sleep/wake cycles, most notably. Now, Johns Hopkins scientists report direct evidence in mice for how those cell clusters control sleep and relay light cues about night and day throughout the body.
Preterm birth — birth before 37 weeks of pregnancy — affects up to one in every six births in the United States and many other countries. In a recent study published in the premier biomedical research journal Nature Medicine, a team of researchers led by Wayne State University’s Kang Chen, Ph.D., assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the School of Medicine, discovered the critical function of a type of mother’s immune cells — B lymphocytes — in resisting preterm birth triggered by inflammation.
A new study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is the first to show exactly how the drug Arbidol stops influenza infections. The research reveals that Arbidol stops the virus from entering host cells by binding within a recessed pocket on the virus.
A $12 Million, four-year grant will establish the Human Pancreas Analysis Program. HPAP is focused on procuring and phenotyping pancreatic tissues from individuals with or at risk for Type 1 diabetes, Type 2 diabetes, or other types of pancreatic islet dysfunction characterized by changes in beta cell mass.
Current methods to predict the risk of heart attack and stroke vastly underestimate the risk in individuals with HIV, which is nearly double that of the general population, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study. “The actual risk of heart attack for people with HIV was roughly 50 percent higher than predicted by the risk calculator many physicians use for the general population,” said first author Dr.
Nearly half of early stage breast cancer patients considered having double mastectomy and one in six received it – including many who were at low risk of developing a second breast cancer, a new study finds.
By combining two treatment strategies, both aimed at boosting the immune system’s killer T cells, Johns Hopkins researchers report they lengthened the lives of mice with skin cancer more than by using either strategy on its own. And, they say, because the combination technique is easily tailored to different types of cancer, their findings — if confirmed in humans — have the potential to enhance treatment options for a wide variety of cancer patients.
A new material invented by Michigan Technological University researchers embeds sodium metal in carbon and could improve electrode performance in energy devices. The team ran tests on the sodium-embedded carbon and it performed better than graphene in dye-sensitized solar cells and supercapacitors.
Scientists have used systems biology tools to map out molecular pathways and signaling circuits that come into play when the immune system acts against infections and cancer. Important immune cells, called CD8+ T cells, play a pivotal role in immune response, but their gene regulatory circuits have not been well understood.
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed an efficient process to rapidly discover new “enediyne natural products” from soil microbes that could be further developed into extremely potent anticancer drugs.
Ron Davis, chair of the Department of Neuroscience on the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has been awarded a $5 million Outstanding Investigator Grant, one of the first of its kind, by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) have developed a way to automatically label images of individual vertebrae during spine surgery, preventing mistakes and saving surgeons both time and stress in the operating room. New work recently published by a Johns Hopkins University team demonstrates the accuracy, feasibility, and advantages of having the technology in the operating room.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded Albert Einstein College of Medicine a five-year, $6 million grant to fund the Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (IDDRC). The grant will also support a new research program focused on 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11.2DS), an incurable genetic disorder associated with delayed intellectual development and psychiatric conditions, and some forms of congenital heart disease as well as other medical problems.
Experimenting with human cells and mice, Johns Hopkins researchers have found that a genetic mutation that alters a protein called NOD1 may increase susceptibility to human cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection. CMV is a common pathogen that infects almost 60 percent of adults in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and can lead to devastating developmental defects in fetuses and severe disease in people with weakened immune systems.
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes harboring parasitic Zika virus (ZIKV) are the primary transmitters of virus to humans, potentially causing catastrophic congenital microcephaly in babies born to women bitten by infected mosquitoes. But confirmation earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that ZIKV can also be sexually transmitted raised new alarm that virus could be passed between sexual partners in venues far from mosquito habitats.
New research identifies an inflammatory pathway in women that could help explain why they develop autoimmune diseases at a much higher rate than men.
While it may look like a pine wreath dotted with crimson berries, this holiday-themed image is in fact one of the world’s first color electron micrographs.
A new study from BIDMC reveals the mystery of delusional misidentification syndromes (DMS), a group of rare disorders that causes patients to become convinced that a loved one has been replaced by an imposter. The investigators mapped brain injuries in 17 patients with DMS to determine origins of these disorders. Injuries were linked to areas in the brain associated with familiarity perception and belief evaluation, providing a neuro-anatomical mechanism underlying misidentification syndromes.
Experimenting on mice with a genetic change similar to that found in people with a rare inherited disease called Kabuki syndrome, Johns Hopkins scientists report that a very low-carbohydrate diet can “open up” DNA and improve mental function.
In a bid to better understand the gene expression patterns that control T cell activity, researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology mapped genome-wide changes in chromatin accessibility as T cells respond to acute and chronic virus infections.
An international team led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has selected a third investigational drug to be tested in a worldwide clinical trial – already underway – aimed at finding treatments to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Targeting human genes required for HIV infection but not T cell survival may avoid inducing treatment resistance
A rare and potent type of immune cell has been discovered around the brain, suggesting the cells may play a critical role in battling Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and other diseases. By harnessing the cells' power, doctors may be able to develop new treatments for disease, traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injuries – even migraines.
Investigators in veterinary and human medicine have uncovered long-term changes in the brains of adult female rats exposed to social stresses early in life, with the biggest impact on regions of the brain linked to social behavior, stress, emotion and depression. The findings will enable researchers to begin testing preventative measures and treatments for depression and anxiety.
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