Virginia Mason has again earned an “A” in the national Hospital Safety Grade program, The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit patient safety watchdog, announced today.
When it comes to prostate cancer biopsies, risk and reality don’t always match up, according to research published online today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Investigators from SWOG, the cancer clinical trials network funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), found widespread detection bias after a fresh examination of data from the two largest prostate cancer prevention trials ever conducted in the United States.
SPOKANE, Wash. – Gonzaga University’s College of Arts and Sciences welcomes William D. Adams, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, who will discuss “Making an Impact: Veterans and the Humanities” in a free public lecture in Cataldo Hall’s Globe Room at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 14.
Gonzaga-in-Florence, Gonzaga University’s flagship study abroad program begun here in 1963, will mark the 50th anniversary of the devastating flooding of the Arno River on Nov. 4, 1966, one of the worst in Florence history, with a special exhibition opening at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 16 in the Mozilo Center
Your wait time for an Uber ride in Seattle is shorter if you are in a lower income neighborhood. Alternatively, wait times are longer for an Uber in wealthier neighborhoods, according to a new University of Washington study that measures one dimension of whether Transportation Network Companies are providing equitable access.
Grasping a cup or brushing hair or cooking a meal requires feedback that has been lost in amputees and individuals with paralysis -- a sense of touch. University of Washington researchers have have used direct stimulation of the human brain surface to provide this basic sensory feedback through artificial electrical signals, enabling a person to control movement while performing a simple task: opening and closing his hand.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) may be linked to the build up of carbon dioxide and existing inner ear damage according to a new study in the journal Neuroscience. Author Dr. Daniel Rubens, an anesthesiologist and researcher at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, says the finding could help researchers understand the sequence of events and risk factors that lead to SIDS deaths.
Microbes have a remarkable ability to adapt to the extreme conditions in fracking wells. New finding help scientists understand what is happening inside fracking wells and could offer insight into processes such as corrosion and methane production.
Oceanographers used tools developed for semiconductor research to get a detailed picture of a marine shell's early formation, to understand how organisms turn seawater into solid mineral.
In our digital age, it’s not uncommon to see a toddler on an iPad at the airport or a teenager at the mall fixated on a smartphone. To help families establish healthy habits for media use, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released new media and screen time policies for children. Co-authors of the policy, Drs. Megan Moreno and Dimitri Christakis of Seattle Children's Research Institute, share their insight.
Shortly after Olivia Alva was born, doctors diagnosed her with biliary atresia, a rare disease of the liver that occurs in about 1 in every 15,000 babies. Olivia's mother, Patricia, became a living donor for her daughter by getting a portion of her liver removed to replace Olivia's diseased liver.
Virginia Mason Medical Center announced today it has been recognized by Healthgrades as one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals for Cardiac Care, Pulmonary Care, Critical Care, Gastrointestinal Care and General Surgery.
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center today announced the appointment of Dr. Bruce Clurman to serve as its executive vice president and deputy director, effective Nov. 1.
Estella Leopold, a University of Washington professor emeritus of biology, has written a new memoir of her formative years, "Stories from the Leopold Shack: Sand County Revisited." She describes life on the land where her father, Aldo Leopold, practiced the revolutionary conservation philosophy described in his famous book of essays "A Sand County Almanac."
Automobiles — and the planning and infrastructure to support them — are making our cities sick, says an international group of researchers now publishing a three-part series in the British medical journal The Lancet.
A new University of Washington study is among the first to look at why women are more represented in some STEM fields than others. Their conclusion: a masculine culture is the most powerful factor.
As online retailing booms, the new University of Washington Urban Freight Lab will partner with UPS, Costco, Nordstrom and Seattle Department of Transportation to research solutions for businesses delivering goods in urban settings and cities trying to manage limited street space.
A paper published Oct. 1 in the journal Forest Ecology and Management is one of only a handful of reports documenting and analyzing the patterns of morel mushroom growth following a wildfire. Within Yosemite National Park, morels were most likely to cluster in groups across burned areas.
A new $157 million initiative launched by the National Institutes of Health aims to create a comprehensive understanding of how chemicals and environmental factors like air pollution impact childhood development. Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana, a pediatric environmental health researcher at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, was selected as one of the principle investigators whose focus is chemical exposures.
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center today announced that Dr. Nancy E. Davidson, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, has accepted the position of executive director of clinical oncology for the Fred Hutch / University of Washington Cancer Consortium, one of 47 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers nationwide. Her appointment will become effective Dec. 1.
Seattle Children’s Intensive Outpatient OCD Treatment Program is only one of six intensive programs in the country. Since the program opened in July 2016, it has seen tremendous success in treating patients like Eva Tomassini who was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) when she was 4 years old.
Unlike in the movies, and in some theories of climate change, the recent slowdown of Atlantic Ocean circulation is not connected with the melting of the Arctic sea ice. Instead, it seems to be connected to shifts around the southern tip of Africa.
A new disaster investigation center housed at the University of Washington and funded by a $4 million National Science Foundation grant will collect and analyze critical data that's often lost in the immediate aftermath of hurricanes and earthquakes but that can help create more resilient communities.
David James Thouless, professor emeritus at the University of Washington, will share the 2016 physics Nobel Prize with Professor F. Duncan M. Haldane of Princeton University and Professor J. Michael Kosterlitz of Brown University “for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter."
Today the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network announced Precision Promise, the first large-scale precision medicine trial designed to transform outcomes for patients with pancreatic cancer by tailoring their treatment to their cancer’s unique molecular profile. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center will play a major role in the effort; it has been selected to lead one of the 12 initial clinical trial sites equipped to provide treatment to pancreatic cancer patients under the new initiative. Dr. Sunil Hingorani, an oncologist and pancreas cancer researcher based at Fred Hutch, will serve as principal investigator of the site and lead collaboration with clinical care partners Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and UW Medicine.
A better understanding of how bacteria fix nitrogen gas into nitrogen-carrying ammonia could lead to energy savings in industrial processes. Researchers are studying the bacterial enzyme that does this, a complicated enzyme called nitrogenase. In new work, researchers discovered that the two sides of nitrogenase cooperate in producing ammonia, alternating through different steps in a way that makes efficient use of the complex enzyme.
Seattle Children’s Hospital has opened a new Gender Clinic for children, adolescents and young adults up to 21 years of age. The multidisciplinary clinic, which opened Oct. 4, 2016, offers services to youth whose gender does not match their sex at birth or who do not identify with traditional definitions of male or female.
SEATTLE – (Sept. 20, 2016) – Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) has opened a new Prostate Cancer Genetics Clinic at their South Lake Union campus in Seattle. The specialty clinic will serve patients with prostate cancer that has spread beyond the prostate (metastatic) and/or who have a family history of the disease or a family history of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, lymphoma or leukemia. These men are more likely to have an inherited and more aggressive form of prostate cancer. Knowing a patient has a particular genetic mutation helps doctors choose the best treatment plan and can open doors for innovative clinical trials.
In a paper published Sept. 22 in Scientific Reports, engineers at the University of Washington unveil peptides that could help bridge the gap where artificial meets biological — harnessing biological rules to exchange information between the biochemistry of our bodies and the chemistry of our devices.
A study led by researchers at the University of Washington and NOAA is the first published paper to connect the unprecedented West Coast toxic algal bloom of 2015 to the unusually warm ocean conditions — nicknamed “the blob” — in winter and spring of that year.
Dr. Lenna Liu, a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s explains mindful eating and give tips for how to create a warm, caring and supportive environment around food for your family.
A team at Seattle Children’s Research Institute came up with an idea to make a life-changing moment feel a little more personal for patients undergoing immunotherapy. A teddy bear wearing a mask and purple cape, aptly named T-Bear, is given to patients as they receive their re-engineered T cells to help recognize and destroy their cancer.
Hunter Coffman was diagnosed with a brain tumor at Seattle Children’s when he was 2-years-old. While preparing for the surgery to remove the tumor, Hunter’s parents were also presented with the opportunity to enroll Hunter in Seattle Children’s Phase 1 trial of BLZ-100 Tumor Paint, a drug that aims to improve surgical outcomes by acting as a molecular flashlight that allows surgeons to visibly distinguish a tumor from normal brain tissue. BLZ-100 Tumor Paint was invented by a team led by Dr. Jim Olson, pediatric neuro-oncologist at Seattle Children’s.
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a novel toolkit based on modified yeast cells to tease out how plant genes and proteins respond to auxin, the most ubiquitous plant hormone. Their system allowed them to decode auxin's basic effects on a diverse family of plant genes.
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) has opened a new Prostate Cancer Genetics Clinic at their South Lake Union campus in Seattle. The specialty clinic will serve patients with prostate cancer that has spread beyond the prostate (metastatic) and/or who have a family history of the disease or a family history of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, lymphoma or leukemia. These men are more likely to have an inherited and more aggressive form of prostate cancer. Knowing a patient has a particular genetic mutation helps doctors choose the best treatment plan and can open doors for innovative clinical trials.
A new study by University of Washington scientists finds that in many cases, misreporting caught fish doesn’t always translate to overfishing. The study was published online this month in the journal Fish and Fisheries.
University of Washington engineers have devised a way to send secure passwords through the human body using smartphone fingerprint sensors and laptop touchpads -- rather than over the air where they're vulnerable to hacking.
SPOKANE, Wash. – Gonzaga University’s College of Arts and Sciences announces its new Center for Public Humanities, directed by Brian Cooney, professor of English. The center will focus on veterans this academic year with special guests including William D. Adams, chair of the National Endowment of the Humanities, and American novelists Tim O’Brien and Whitney Terrell.
A self-powered fish-tracking tag uses a flexible strip containing piezoelectric materials to emit tiny beeps that are recorded by underwater microphones. The device is designed for longer-living fish such as sturgeon, eels and lamprey.
University of Washington biologist Dee Boersma and her colleagues combed through 28 years' worth of data on Magellanic penguins to search for signs that natural selection — one of the main drivers of evolution — may be acting on certain penguin traits.
Drs. Jesse Bloom and Frederick “Erick” Matsen, evolutionary researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, were named Faculty Scholars today by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Simons Foundation. This honor comes with five years of unrestricted philanthropic support for these two scientists, both of whom focus on developing methods for understanding evolution, especially the evolution of pathogens and immune resistance.
Ever wonder what it’s like to walk in the ‘shoes’, or rather the ‘paw prints’, of a furry friend? Seattle Children's features one of the incredible canine and human companion pairs that bring joy and comfort to the hospital each week through their Visiting Dog Program.
Researchers at Seattle Children’s Research Institute published a study in the journal Pediatrics showing a new intervention for adolescents with persistent post-concussive symptoms that improved health and wellness outcomes significantly. The approach combines cognitive behavioral therapy and coordinated care among providers, schools, patients and families.
Depression can create a huge cost burden on patients and institutions, and for teenagers that includes issues like missed school and the costs of healthcare for families. A new study in JAMA Pediatrics, led by Seattle Children’s Research Institute and Group Health Cooperative, identifies a cost-effective treatment that yields promising results for depressed teens. “We used a collaborative care approach to treat teen depression, which included having a depression care manager who worked with the patient, family and doctors to develop a plan and support the teen in implementing that plan,” said Dr. Laura Richardson, an adolescent medicine physician and researcher at Seattle Children’s.
A team of conservationists at the University of Washington is among the Grand Prize Winners of the Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge for its proposal to develop genetic tracking tools to identify poaching hotspots for pangolins, one of the most trafficked group of mammals in the world.
Plants can better tolerate drought and other stressors with the help of natural microbes, University of Washington research has found. Specifically, plants that are given a dose of microbes stay green longer and are able to withstand drought conditions by growing more leaves and roots and using less water.
Researchers are now able to capture the cells of animals, sequence their DNA and identify which species were present in water at a point in time. A new University of Washington study is the first to use these genetic markers to understand the impact urbanization has on the environment — specifically, whether animal diversity flourishes or suffers.
Extremely complex plutonium has ties to energy and security. Scientists from Pacific Northwest National Lab and Washington State University found that plutonium's behavior, in plutonium tetrafluoride, can be attributed to atoms hoarding electrons
A new University of Washington study finds a trend toward earlier sea ice melt in the spring and later ice growth in the fall across all 19 polar bear populations, which can negatively impact the feeding and breeding capabilities of the bears. The paper is the first to quantify the sea ice changes in each polar bear subpopulation across the entire Arctic region using metrics that are specifically relevant to polar bear biology.