Curated News: Grant Funded News

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This new insight may allow researchers to design drugs that improve immune responses to vaccines.

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Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have determined that psychological resilience has a positive effect on health outcomes for people living with schizophrenia. This is the first study to quantitatively assess the effects of both childhood trauma and psychological resilience on health and metabolic function in people living with schizophrenia. The findings are published in the April 17 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

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• When RAS genes mutate, they generate proteins that cause cells to proliferate uncontrollably • Researchers use ‘top-down proteomics’ to characterize intact proteins isolated from colorectal cancer cell lines and tumors • By understanding precisely how proteins change in cancer, researchers open door for new targets for treatment

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Roughly one in 10 women in the United States will experience depression, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The consequences, however, may extend to their children, report researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, who found that a mother’s depression can negatively affect a child’s cognitive development up to the age of 16. The findings are published in the April issue of Child Development.

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Using chemotherapy along with aptamers -- lab-made molecules that function like antibodies -- Duke Health researchers showed that they can zero in on and kill prostate cancer tumors in mice while leaving healthy tissue unscathed.

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The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has awarded a five-year, $15 million grant to the San Diego Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) at UC San Diego, renewing support that extends back to an original establishing grant in 1994—the height of the AIDS epidemic.

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Following motions brought by the Montana Innocence Project (MTIP), Montana District Court Judge Kathy Seeley has overturned the 1995 robbery, kidnapping, and homicide convictions of Fred Lawrence and Paul Jenkins. The two men had received life sentences. In 2014, biology professor Greg Hampikian’s laboratory at Boise State University began working with the MTIP on DNA testing in the case.

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Neurobiology researchers have identified a pathway in brain circuitry that, when stimulated, leads to “antidepressive” behavior in animals. If such brain stimulation proves to have similar effects in people, it may eventually lead to a novel treatment for depression.

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School-based prevention programs can substantially reduce children’s cavities – but what type of treatment should be delivered in schools to best prevent tooth decay? A new study by researchers at NYU College of Dentistry, published in the journal BMC Oral Health, suggests that cavity prevention programs with a combination of prevention strategies may be more effective than one alone for reducing tooth decay.

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Yue Zhao, assistant professor of electrical engineering, has received a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Program to support his research on silicon carbide motor drives.

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A drug given to early stage lung cancer patients before they undergo surgery showed major tumor responses in the removed tumor and an increase in anti-tumor T-cells that remained after the tumor was removed, which resulted in fewer relapse cases in the patients.

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Checkpoint inhibitors that block the protein PD-1 are used in melanoma patients after they’ve had surgery to remove their cancer, but not all patients benefit from the immunotherapy. Now a new study from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania found that shifting use of anti-PD-1 drugs to before surgery may provide clues about which patients will benefit and which may be at increased risk for recurrence.

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Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) accounts for 14 percent of all lung cancers and is often rapidly resistant to chemotherapy resulting in poor clinical outcomes. Treatment has changed little for decades, but a study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center offers a potential explanation for why the disease becomes chemoresistant, and a possible avenue to explore new diagnostic approaches.

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Omega-3 fatty acid supplements taken orally proved no better than placebo at relieving symptoms or signs of dry eye, according to the findings of a well-controlled trial funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

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Psychological distress is common in the aftermath of a traumatic injury. Symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress can make it harder to re-establish one’s social and family life, work performance, and wellbeing after injury.

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Wistar researchers have identified a novel therapeutic vulnerability in NRAS mutant melanoma and an effective strategy to address it, using a combination of two clinically relevant inhibitors, according to study results published online in EMBO Molecular Medicine.

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Researchers have found a key role in tooth development for the transcription factor Specificity protein 7, or Sp7 — lack of Sp7 interrupts the maturation of two types of specialized cells that help create teeth. Such basic knowledge about development aids understanding of craniofacial abnormalities.

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Engineers have developed a tiny, ultra-low power chip that could be injected just under the surface of the skin for continuous, long-term alcohol monitoring. The chip is powered wirelessly by a wearable device such as a smartwatch or patch. The goal of this work is to develop a convenient, routine monitoring device for patients in substance abuse treatment programs.

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New research out of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and The Ohio State University has identified rare variants in a number of novel genes that may help improve risk prediction and prognosis for patients undergoing BMT.

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In new research published in Nature, a team led by Subhamoy Dasgupta, PhD, of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center reports its identification of two key proteins involved in glucose metabolism that could be targeted to prevent breast cancer metastasis and recurrence.

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The researchers will investigate how to design antibodies to deliver drugs to fight chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

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Researchers at Université de Montréal and the research centres of the CHUM and CHU Sainte-Justine are banding together to conquer this rare orphan pediatric disease. They have recently proven what scientists had already suspected: the disease is autoimmune, which means that it attacks patients using their own immune system.

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Beta blockers have become a prescription drug staple for recovering heart attack patients. However, these blood pressure-reducing medications cannot be tolerated by many patients who are at higher risk for developing cardiovascular disease, including those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, the elderly, and diabetics. As seen in the March 26 issue of Thyroid, researchers at New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM) now pose a new treatment for patients with beta blocker intolerance: thyroid hormone therapy.

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Johns Hopkins University researchers have developed a way to study the brain of a bat as it flies, recording for the first time what happens as a roving animal focuses and refocuses its attention.

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Experts in pediatric kidney disease have published a new staging system to help doctors better predict the length of time until a child with chronic kidney disease will need to undergo a kidney transplant or start receiving dialysis. Although this type of prognostic guide exists for adults, this is the first such tool specific to children.

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For the first time, a team of neuroscientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has demonstrated circadian control of aggression in male mice and identified the specific neurons and circuitry regulating the daily pattern.

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Sanford Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) researchers recently discovered that that inactivation of a protein called p62 in fat cells fuels aggressive, metastatic prostate cancer in mice. The findings suggest that mTOR inhibitors currently used to treat a wide range of cancers may have the unintended consequence of shutting down fat tissue metabolism and fueling tumor growth.

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Studying data from more than 125,000 individuals, an international team of researchers led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified genetic links between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia. The link between the seemingly unrelated disorders suggests that some drugs developed to treat ALS also may work against frontotemporal dementia and vice versa.

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UCLA researchers have tweaked CRISPR technology, enabling them to monitor the outcome of tens of thousands of gene edits in the time it currently takes to analyze a few. The advance will improve scientists’ ability to identify the genetic changes most likely to harm cells and contribute to disease.

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A new smartphone app allows Parkinson's disease patients and their doctors to better track the progression of symptoms, such as tremors and walking difficulties, that can vary dramatically over days, or even hours.

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New research shines a light on specific cell types that drive normal or diseased kidney function at the molecular level.

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One third of children who have autism spectrum disorder also have epilepsy. It’s related to a major autism risk gene, which is mutated in patients with autism. But scientists didn’t now why the mutation, catnap2, caused seizures.Now Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered the mutation acts like a bad gardener in the brain.

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Lucia Leone and her team will expand their successful Veggie Van project by helping organizations across the Northeast and Southeast start mobile produce markets using the Veggie Van model.

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Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and colleagues have discovered how two brain regions work together to maintain attention, and how discordance between the regions could lead to attention deficit disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression.

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It’s hard enough for parents to have “the talk” about sexual health with their kids, but parents of LGBTQ children feel especially uncomfortable and unequipped when they try to educate them about sex and dating, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.The study examined parents’ attitudes toward talking about sexual health with their lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer teens (LGBTQ).

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A study from Indiana University has found differences in the brains of athletes who participate in contact sports compared to those who participate in noncontact sports.

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A national working group led by an investigator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has developed a Consensus Statement intended to inform safe prescribing of opioids for hospitalized adults with acute pain.

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Researchers have learned to combine up to eight different metals in a single tiny, uniformly mixed nanoparticle.

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Researchers are now able to use induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) to form a model of human adult-like cardiac muscle by introducing electric and mechanical stimulation at an early stage.

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The findings could shed light on sickle cell diseases and other disorders where red blood cells are deformed.

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A new study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at MGH identified genes associated with the body’s response to relaxation techniques and sheds light on the molecular mechanisms by which these interventions may work to lower blood pressure. The findings were published today in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

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Belly fat affects the odds of women surviving kidney cancer but not men, according to a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The findings suggest that kidney cancer may develop and progress differently in women than men.

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Material left out of common processes for sequencing genetic material in cancer tumors may actually carry important information about why only some people respond to immunotherapy, possibly offering better insight than the type of material that is being sequenced, according to a study by Mount Sinai researchers published on April 3 in Cell Reports.

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Massachusetts Eye and Ear researchers have shown that mifepristone, a drug currently FDA-approved for chemical abortion, prevents the growth of vestibular schwannoma (also known as acoustic neuroma) cells. This sometimes-lethal intracranial tumor typically causes hearing loss and tinnitus. The findings, published online today in Scientific Reports, suggest that mifepristone is a promising drug candidate to be repositioned for the treatment of these tumors.

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In the tiny brain space where two nerve cells meet, chemical and electric signals shuttle back and forth, a messaging system that ebbs and flows in those synaptic spaces, sometimes in ways that scientists believe aid and abet learning and memory. But because most of the proteins found in those synapses die and renew themselves so rapidly, scientists have had a hard time pinning down how synapses are stable enough to explain the kind of learning and memory that lasts a lifetime.

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A team of computational biologists has developed an algorithm that can ‘align’ multiple sequencing datasets with single-cell resolution. The new method has implications for better understanding how different groups of cells change during disease progression, in response to drug treatment, or across evolution.

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The National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research has awarded a grant to researchers at New York University College of Dentistry to explore the biological mechanisms that contribute to poor oral health and related bone loss among people with diabetes.

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One in 10 electronic dance music (EDM) party attendees have misused opioids in the past year, exceeding the national average, finds a study by the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research (CDUHR) at NYU Meyers College of Nursing.

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Very slow brain waves, long considered an artifact of brain scanning techniques, may be more important than anyone had realized. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that very slow waves are directly linked to state of consciousness and may be involved in coordinating activity across distant brain regions.

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Scientists have previously shown that when one animal watches another performing a motor task, such as reaching for food, mirror neurons in the motor cortex of the observer's brain start firing as though the observer were also reaching for food. New Duke research appearing March 29 in the journal Scientific Reports suggests mirroring in monkeys is also influenced by social factors, such as proximity to other animals, social hierarchy and competition for food.