Curated News: Grant Funded News

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Researchers examined exposure to high-magnitude head impacts (accelerations greater than 40g) in young athletes, 9 to 12 years of age, during football games and practice drills to determine under what circumstances these impacts occur and how representative practice activities are of game activities with respect to the impacts. This type of information can help coaches and league officials make informed decisions in structuring both practices and games to reduce risks in these young athletes.

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Researchers investigating pediatric low-grade gliomas (PLGG), the most common type of brain tumor in children, have discovered key biological differences in how mutated genes combine with other genes to drive this childhood cancer. By shedding light on subtle distinctions in tumor biology, these findings offer clues to designing more effective anticancer treatments to precisely target tumors in individual patients.

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Students who attend a middle school compared to a K-8 school are likely to have a lower perception of their reading skills, finds a new study by NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

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More males and people of color are entering nursing, and more nurses are earning bachelor’s degrees compared with a decade ago, according to a new study by NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing researchers.

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As hospitals seek to improve inpatient satisfaction, one effective way takes only a few minutes and no expensive equipment. A study at the University of Virginia School of Medicine recently found that a daily five-minute conversation that focused on hospitalized patients “as people” significantly improved their satisfaction with their medical care.

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Inducing a biochemical alteration in brain proteins via the dietary supplement glucosamine was able to rapidly dampen that pathological hyperexcitability in rat and mouse models. These results represent a potentially novel therapeutic target for the treatment of seizure disorders

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A web-based tool recently developed by UC San Diego researchers under an NSF grant to perform data-driven predictive modeling and real-time tracking of fires has already been viewed about one million times and generated more than 115,000 unique visitors since the outbreak of numerous wildfires across Northern California late last weekend.

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Investigators at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Health System have identified a new molecular pathway that controls lifespan and healthspan in worms and mammals. In a Nature Communications study published today, researchers showed that worms with excess levels of certain proteins lived longer and healthier than normal worms. In addition, mice with excess levels of these proteins demonstrated a delay in blood vessel dysfunction associated with aging. The study has major implications for our understanding of aging and age-associated disorders.

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A new study from scientists on the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) offers important insights into possible links between sleep and hunger.

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Researchers at UC San Diego have developed a genome-scale model that can accurately predict how E. coli bacteria respond to temperature changes and genetic mutations. The work sheds light on how cells adapt under environmental stress and has applications in precision medicine, where adaptive cell modeling could provide patient-specific treatments for bacterial infections.

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Bending laser light around sharp turns and corners—without scattering—is now possible thanks to a new laser cavity developed by electrical engineers at UC San Diego. This is the first laser cavity that can fully confine and propagate light in any shape imaginable. The work could lead to faster computers and optical fibers that perform well even when bent.

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Creating a model pipeline that will assist adults on the autism spectrum find meaningful and gainful employment while enhancing local business innovation. That is the purpose of Vanderbilt University’s Center for Autism & Innovation (VCAI). The new center brings together academic researchers, educators, employers, philanthropists and community organizers to address one of the biggest problems that individuals with ASD and their families face as they reach adulthood: How can they achieve financial independence and become contributing members of society? “Autism now represents one-and-a-half percent of the population,” said center director Keivan Stassun, Stevenson Professor of Physics and Astronomy.

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Carbon dioxide measured by a NASA satellite pinpoints sources of the gas from human and volcanic activities, which may help monitor greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.

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A new study suggests that the ability of a stem cell to differentiate into cardiac muscle (and by extension other cell types) depends on what portions of the genome are available for activation, which is controlled by the location of DNA in a cell’s nucleus.

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Working with mice and rats, Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a way to successfully deliver nano-sized, platinum-based chemotherapy drugs to treat a form of bladder cancer called nonmuscle-invasive that is found in the lining of the organ and has not invaded deeper into bladder tissue. The tiny drug-infused particles, they say, potentially offer a less toxic clinical alternative to standard chemotherapy delivered intravenously or through a catheter inserted into the bladder.

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A research team is assessing how a person’s genetic profile affects his body. The results could help show how individual genetic differences contribute to disease and guide treatments for heritable disorders such as Alzheimer’s, high cholesterol or Type 1 diabetes.

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Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have demonstrate that they can repurpose DNA to create new substances with possible medical applications.

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Children living in neighborhoods where incomes are low and fewer adults have bachelor’s degrees are less likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder compared to kids from more affluent neighborhoods.

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Finding new clues about the molecular origins of disease is the goal for a comprehensive atlas of variation in gene expression.

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A ceramic-based mechanical pump able to operate at record temperatures of more than 1,400 degrees Celsius (1,673 Kelvin) can transfer high temperature liquids such as molten tin, enabling a new generation of energy conversion and storage systems.

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In discovering how certain chemotherapy drugs cause the nerve damage known as peripheral neuropathy, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have found a potential approach to preventing this common and troublesome side effect of cancer treatment.

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Acupuncture has been successfully used to treat such ailments as back and neck pain, osteoarthritis and headaches. Judith Schlaeger is working to discover whether it can help the up to 14 million American women who experience genital pain.

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A new mouse study found that, even in immunized animals, noroviruses can escape the immune system and still spread by hiding out in an extremely rare type of cell in the gut.

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Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new computer-aided approach that streamlines the design process for origami-based structures, making it easier for engineers and scientists to conceptualize new ideas graphically while simultaneously generating the underlying mathematical data needed to build the structure in the real world.

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Johns Hopkins researchers report that the level, or “copy number,” of mitochondrial DNA—genetic information stored not in a cell’s nucleus but in the body’s energy-creating mitochondria—is a novel and distinct biomarker that is able to predict the risk of heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths a decade or more before they happen. In the future, testing blood for this genetic information could not only help physicians more accurately predict a risk for life-threatening cardiac events, but also inform decisions to begin—or avoid—treatment with statins and other drugs.

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A new study of national survey information gathered on more than 12,000 Hispanic children from immigrant and U.S.-native families found that although they experience more poverty, those from immigrant families reported fewer exposures to such adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) as parental divorce and scenes of violence.

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Michigan Technological University is leading a $1.8 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) study to understand alcohol’s effects on sleep, blood pressure and brain activity

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A major grant to the Electa Quinney Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will help increase the number of American Indian teachers and school administrators.

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Associate Scientist Melanie Carless, Ph.D., has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health to identify microRNA biomarkers in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid that are associated with changes in the brain correlated to neuropsychiatric disorders, using a non-human primate model.

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Researchers have known for decades that fevers in the first trimester of pregnancy increase risk for some heart defects and facial deformities such as cleft lip or palate. Exactly how this happens is unclear. Duke researchers now have evidence indicating that the fever itself, not its root source, is what interferes with the development of the heart and jaw during the first three to eight weeks of pregnancy.

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Researchers have developed a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent with safe-to-use, metal-free compounds. The organic nanoparticles illuminated tumor tissue in mice just as well as metal-based contrast agents

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TAMPA, Fla. (Oct. 10, 2017) – Developing new drugs to treat cancer can be a painstaking process taking over a decade from start to Food and Drug Administration approval. Scientists are trying to develop innovative strategies to identify and test new drugs quicker and more efficiently. A team of researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center used cellular drug screening, functional proteomics and computer-based modeling to determine whether drugs with well-known targets may be repurposed for use against other biological targets. They found that an FDA approved drug for non-small cell lung cancer called ceritinib has anti-cancer activity against previously unknown targets. Their results were published today in the journal, Nature Chemical Biology.

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Surgeons at Penn Medicine are using a fluorescent dye that makes cancerous cells glow in hopes of identifying suspicious lymph nodes during head and neck cancer procedures. Led by Jason G. Newman, MD, FACS, an associate professor of Otorhinolaryngology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the study is the first in the world to look at the effectiveness of intraoperative molecular imaging (IMI) of lymph nodes in patients with head and neck cancer.

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A $2.4 million grant from the National Cancer Institute awarded to Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey behavioral scientist will support the development and testing of a novel behavioral intervention delivered through the social media site Facebook to reduce high-risk indoor tanning behaviors among young women.

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Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have discovered the first compound that directly makes cancer cells commit suicide while sparing healthy cells. The new treatment approach, described in today’s issue of Cancer Cell, was directed against acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells but may also have potential for attacking other types of cancers.

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UC Riverside physicists have developed a photodetector – a device that converts light into electrons – by combining two distinct inorganic materials and producing quantum mechanical processes that could revolutionize the way solar energy is collected. The researchers stacked two atomic layers of tungsten diselenide on a single atomic layer of molybdenum diselenide. Such stacking results in properties vastly different from those of the parent layers, allowing for customized electronic engineering at the tiniest possible scale.

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Indiana University has been awarded a one-year, $7.6 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to establish a network of sites to study early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

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Using flexible conducting polymers and novel circuitry patterns printed on paper, researchers have demonstrated proof-of-concept wearable thermoelectric generators that can harvest energy from body heat to power simple biosensors for measuring heart rate, respiration or other factors.

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U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes and staff who traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the 2016 Summer Games did not become infected with Zika virus but did test positive for other tropical, mosquito-borne viral infections, including West Nile Virus, Dengue Fever and Chikungunya. Results from the University of Utah Health-led study will be reported at IDWeek, a national infectious disease conference being held in San Diego.

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Recent clinical trials have shown that 90 percent of early stage breast cancer patients over age 70 do not benefit from radiation after breast-conserving surgery. And yet, use of radiation in this context has dropped only minimally. A new University of Michigan study examines why.

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A new study on cannabis use that involved 1,136 patients (from 18 to 40 years of age) with mental illnesses who had been seen five times during the year after discharge from a psychiatric hospital demonstrates that sustained used of cannabis is associated with an increase in violent behaviour in young people. Moreover, the association between persistent cannabis use and violence is stronger than that associated with alcohol or cocaine.

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An international team led by scientists at the National Institutes of Health is the first to discover a new way that cells fix an important and dangerous type of DNA damage known as a DNA-protein cross-link (DPC). The researchers found that a protein named ZATT can eliminate DPCs with the help of another protein, TDP2. Since DPCs form when individuals receive some types of cancer treatments, understanding how TDP2 and ZATT work together to repair the damage may improve the health outcomes of cancer patients. The findings were published in the journal Science.

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University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center Researcher Jessica Blackburn has earned a prestigious National Institutes of Health's New Innovator Award, a grant totaling $1.5 million over five years to fund pediatric cancer research.

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University of Utah scientists have mapped the near-surface geology around Old Faithful, revealing the reservoir of heated water that feeds the geyser’s surface vent and how the ground shaking behaves in between eruptions. The map was made possible by a dense network of portable seismographs and by new seismic analysis techniques.

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Three Wayne State University (WSU) research teams were recently awarded funding from Wayne State’s Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization (MTRAC) program. The goal is to accelerate the translation and commercialization of their innovative biomedical technologies by providing the resources to validate technical and market opportunities. The MTRAC projects will be supported by $1.1 million in awards from the Michigan Strategic Fund, which is administered by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), with matching funds from Wayne State.

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Investigators plan to determine the lowest dose of chemotherapy needed for babies with severe combined immunodeficiency undergoing bone marrow transplant. The goal is to restore the immune system safely and effectively with less toxicity than the higher dose regimens currently in use.

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Several studies indicate that the prevalence of myopia is increasing in the U.S. and worldwide, and researchers project that the trend will continue in the coming decades. Otherwise known as nearsightedness, myopia occurs when the eye grows too long from front to back. Instead of focusing images on the retina—the light-sensitive tissue in the back of the eye—images are focused at a point in front of the retina. As a result, people with myopia have good near vision but poor distance vision.

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New research from scientists at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah and collaborators at University of Utah Health (U of U Health) sheds light on the complex process that occurs in the development of human sperm stem cells.

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The 2017 hurricane season has highlighted the critical need to communicate a storm's impact path and intensity accurately, but new research from the University of Utah shows significant misunderstandings of the two most commonly used storm forecast visualization methods. The study, published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, looked at summary displays and ensemble displays for communicating information about a hurricane.

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The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health has awarded Wayne State University $2,063,188 for a new study that will analyze longitudinal data spanning 20 years collected from five U.S. cohorts, including 480 African-American mothers and children in the Detroit Longitudinal Cohort Study, to take a closer look at the key developmental outcomes and prenatal alcohol exposure levels that characterize FASD.