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Sometimes a little gentle peer persuasion goes a long way toward correcting a large problem. That’s the message from researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and seven collaborating health care organizations which report that a “Dear Colleague” performance evaluation letter successively convinced physicians nationwide to reduce the amount of tissue they removed in a common surgical treatment for skin cancer to meet a professionally recognized benchmark of good practice.

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A team of plastic surgeons and material scientists has made an important advance in treating the common clinical problem of soft tissue loss. They have invented a synthetic soft tissue substitute that is well tolerated and encourages the growth of soft tissue and blood vessels. This new material retains its shape without being too dense, overcoming challenges with current tissue fillers that tend to be either too soft or not porous enough to let cells move in and start regrowing tissue. A report on this work appears today in Science Translational Medicine.

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In experiments in mice, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have developed a technique that facilitates the precise placement of cancer drugs at their intended targets in the brain. This approach pairs a technique that guides a catheter through the brain’s arteries with positron emission technology (PET) scans to precisely place cancer drugs at their intended targets in the brain. If future studies show this image-guided drug delivery method is safe and effective in humans, the researchers say it could improve outcomes for historically difficult-to-treat and often lethal brain cancers, such as glioblastoma.

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A study in mice shows that selectively removing cells that are no longer dividing from the brains of mice with a form of Alzheimer’s disease can reduce brain damage and inflammation, and slow the pace of cognitive decline. These findings, say researchers, add to evidence that such senescent cells contribute to the damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease in people.

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Cynthia Wolberger, Ph.D., a structural biologist who unravels how cells use chemical tags to turn genes on and off, is among 125 scientists newly elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

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Alcohol Relapse Rate Among Liver Transplant Recipients Identical Whether or Not There is A 6-Month Wait Before Transplant 04/25/2019 AddThis Sharing Buttons Share to Facebook Share to TwitterShare to EmailShare to PrintShare to More Credit: Getty Images For decades, patients with liver disease related to alcohol use have been told they must be sober for six months before they can get a liver transplant. Many die before that six-month wait period is up. Now, a growing number of researchers are questioning that six-month waiting period.

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Using data from the 2016 National Health Interview Survey, Johns Hopkins researchers report that few American adults eligible for diabetes prevention programs are being referred to, or participating in, these programs.

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Using human cancer cells, tumor and blood samples from cancer patients, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have uncovered the role of a neurotransmitter in the spread of aggressive cancers. Neurotransmitters are chemical “messengers” that transmit impulses from neurons to other target cells.

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What: Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2019 Meeting When: April 27-30, 2019 Where: Baltimore Convention Center (1 W. Pratt St, Baltimore, Maryland 21201)

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People over the millennia have reported having deeply moving religious experiences either spontaneously or while under the influence of psychedelic substances such as psilocybin-containing mushrooms or the Amazonian brew ayahuasca, and a portion of those experiences have been encounters with what the person regards as “God” or “ultimate reality.” In a survey of thousands of people who reported having experienced personal encounters with God, Johns Hopkins researchers report that more than two-thirds of self-identified atheists shed that label after their encounter, regardless of whether it was spontaneous or while taking a psychedelic.

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Using data from a national survey representing more than 19 million U.S. women with established cardiovascular disease, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say that more than half of women with the condition do not do enough physical activity and those numbers have grown over the last decade. These results imply that targeted counseling to exercise more could reduce risk of cardiovascular disease as well as associated health care costs over their lifetimes.

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A new Johns Hopkins Medicine study looking at medical records of more than 43,000 U.S. adults with hip-joint damaging osteoarthritis suggests that those who cannot perform daily activities independently before total hip replacement surgery are more likely to have poorer outcomes after surgery.

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In a small study of patients referred to the Johns Hopkins Early Psychosis Intervention Clinic (EPIC), Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report that about half the people referred to the clinic with a schizophrenia diagnosis didn’t actually have schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe and disabling disorder marked by disordered thinking, feelings and behavior. People who reported hearing voices or having anxiety were the ones more likely to be misdiagnosed.

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In 2015, about half of the world’s 28 million human deaths were the result of medical emergencies, with the bulk of the burden borne by poorer nations, according to a statistical analysis of information from nearly 200 countries by a Johns Hopkins Medicine researcher. The analysis, described in April in the journal BMJ Global Health, offered what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind look at the lethal impact of medical emergencies worldwide.

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In a proof-of-principle study in mice, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine report the creation of a specialized gel that acts like a lymph node to successfully activate and multiply cancer-fighting immune system T-cells. The work puts scientists a step closer, they say, to injecting such artificial lymph nodes into people and sparking T-cells to fight disease.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine announced yesterday the appointment of Suzanne Sawyer as senior vice president, chief marketing and communications officer for Johns Hopkins Medicine. She will begin her new role on June 24.

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Working with human colon cancer cells and mice, researchers led by experts at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center say they have successfully blocked the activity of portions of a protein known as UHRF1 and restored the function of hundreds of cancer-fighting genes that became “misregulated” by the disease.

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In a landmark study, a group of U.S. scientists from Johns Hopkins, Stanford University and other institutions has found no long-lasting, major differences between the epigenomes of astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a year in space aboard the International Space Station, and his twin brother, Mark, who remained on Earth.

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Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers say a new study of clusters of mouse cells known as “organoids” has significantly strengthened evidence that epigenetic changes, common to aging, play a essential role in colon cancer initiation. The findings show that epigenetic changes are the spark that pushes colon-cancer driving gene mutations into action, the researchers say.

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For decades, articles in research journals and the popular press alike have reported that being a family caregiver takes a toll on a person’s health, boosting levels of inflammation and weakening the function of the immune system. Now, after analyzing 30 papers on the levels of immune and inflammatory molecules in caregivers, Johns Hopkins researchers say the link has been overstated and the association is extremely small. Caregiver stress explains less than 1 percent of the variability in immune and inflammation biomarkers, they report. Their new meta-analysis was published March 10 in The Gerontologist.

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In studies with lab-grown human cells and in mice, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have found that an experimental drug may be twice as good at fighting vision loss as previously thought.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that how training is organized for doctors-in-training might impact their decision to go into primary care. The study, appearing online today in the Journal of General Internal Medicine suggests that a significant number of primary care internal medicine residents pursue careers in primary care, but perhaps could be more positively influenced if institutions paid more attention to how training is structured.

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Using information from two national surveys, researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Guttmacher Institute have found that in some metropolitan areas, more than a quarter of young, African American men reported having sexual intercourse before age 13, and for about 45 percent of them, the sex was either unwanted or experienced with “mixed feelings.”

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Johns Hopkins neuroscientists have found that the psychedelic drug MDMA reopens a kind of window, called a “critical period,” when the brain is sensitive to learning the reward value of social behaviors. The findings, reported April 3 in Nature, may explain why MDMA may be helpful in treating people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

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Due to advances in treatment, an ever-increasing number of patients are living longer as metastatic cancer survivors. They and their doctors face a host of new challenges that require immediate attention.

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A six-month study of children from Baltimore City by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers has added to evidence that having more omega-3 fatty acids in the diet results in fewer asthma symptoms triggered by indoor air pollution. The same study suggests that higher amounts of dietary omega-6 fatty acids may have the opposite effect, and be associated with more severe asthma.

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For the first time, a person living with HIV has donated a kidney to a transplant recipient also living with HIV. A multidisciplinary team from Johns Hopkins Medicine completed the living donor HIV-to-HIV kidney transplant on Mar. 25. The doctors say both the donor and the recipient are doing well.

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Experimenting with mice, Johns Hopkins researchers report they have successfully used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to calculate in real time how much of an immunotherapy drug reaches a tumor and what parts of a cancer remain unaffected.

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Working with mice, a team of Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers has developed a relatively inexpensive, portable mini microscope that could improve scientists’ ability to image the effects of cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions in the brains of living and active mice over time. The device, which measures less than 5 cubic centimeters, is docked onto animals’ heads and gathers real-time images from the active brains of mice moving naturally around their environments.

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Combining a wealth of information derived from previous studies with data from more than 500 patients, an international team led by researchers from Johns Hopkins has developed a computer-based set of rules that more accurately predicts when patients with a rare heart condition might benefit—or not—from lifesaving implanted defibrillators.

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Scientists at Johns Hopkins say they have found that people born with abnormally short chromosome endcaps, or telomeres, have immune system cells that age and die prematurely. Their short-lived immune system cells also share some of the same characteristics of immune cells in much older people without the telomere disorder.

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Two Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers received grants from Swim Across America to fund work for more effective ways to fight colorectal cancer and find out what role the immune system plays in non-small cell lung cancer.

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In what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind systematic look at pregnancy frequency and outcomes among imprisoned U.S. women, researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine say almost 1,400 pregnant women were admitted to 22 U.S. state and all federal prisons in a recent year. They also found that most of the prison pregnancies — over 90 percent — ended in live births with no maternal deaths.

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A telebriefing will be held to discuss findings from a first-of-its-kind report on pregnancy statistics of incarcerated women.

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A new combination treatment aimed at resistant and recurrent low-grade gliomas slowed tumor growth and killed tumor cells in laboratory and mouse models.

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Your cells are on the move. Immune cells rove your body hunting for pathogens; cells organize to assemble complex organs; skin cells pull together to heal wounds; and rogue cancer cells migrate and metastasize. Without this remarkable ability to coordinate movement, cells could not divide or reach their proper place in the body. This leads to diseases, such as cardiovascular disorders, Parkinson's disease and cancer.

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Scot Kuo, Ph.D., makes the super small visible. He tracks how cells—often smaller than the width of a human hair—move and interact with other cells. He uses high-resolution microscopes to zoom in on individual parts and proteins within cells, down to the molecular level. Kuo’s pioneering work to improve the field of microscopy has helped hundreds of scientists at Johns Hopkins look far more closely at cells and the structures within them.

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Using strong and targeted but noninvasive magnets at specific sites in the brains of people with and without mild learning and memory problems, Johns Hopkins researchers report they were able to detect differences in the concentrations of brain chemicals that transmit messages between neurons. The strength of these magnetic fields allows the researchers to measure tiny amounts and compare multiple brain metabolite levels at the same time. These studies may ultimately help to reveal what initiates memory decline and may, perhaps, even predict dementia risk. The researchers believe that measuring such data over time will allow them to more accurately detect and describe changes in metabolism in the brain as a person progresses from healthy to mild cognitive impairment and to dementia.

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Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that use of the synthetic psychedelic 5-methocy-N,-N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT) appears to be associated with unintended improvements in self-reported depression and anxiety when given in a ceremonial group setting. 5-MeO-DMT is a psychedelic that is found in the venom of Bufo Alvarius toads, in a variety of plants species, and can be produced synthetically.

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A working group including Johns Hopkins Medicine cardiologists and American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology (ACC) colleagues released updated guidelines for clinicians and patients on the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Primary prevention means the person doesn’t have any clinical symptoms yet, but the guidelines are designed to prevent a future first heart attack, stroke, heart failure and atrial fibrillation.

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American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons 2019 Annual Meeting

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The wait is almost over for students who will soon graduate from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: At noon on Friday, March 15, they will come together and open the envelopes that let them know where they will spend the next chapter of their lives as they train for careers in the medical field of their choosing. The annual Match Day event is a rite of passage for graduating medical students- who will advance to a three- to seven-year residency program, getting hands-on experience in a specific discipline.

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Doubling the low amount of total body radiation delivered to patients undergoing bone marrow transplants with donor cells that are only “half-matched” increased the rate of engraftment from only about 50 percent to nearly 100 percent, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers. The findings, published online Mar. 13 in The Lancet Haematology, could offer a significantly higher chance of a cure for patients with severe and deadly inherited blood disorders including sickle cell anemia and beta thalassemia.

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Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death and the third most common cancer diagnosed in the United States, but it is preventable. While more than 90 percent of new cases occur in people 50 or older, more cases are being diagnosed at increasing rates in younger and middle-aged adults, according to a recent study.

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In a study of 142 patients preparing for cancer surgery, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they have evidence that psychological or social risk factors such as depression, limited resilience and lack of emergency resources along with standard medical risk factors such as high blood pressure or diabetes are linked with higher risks of surgical complications.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers are attending the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), where they are sharing their latest findings in the ongoing battle against HIV/AIDS and related infectious diseases with other top basic, translational and clinical researchers from around the world. This year’s conference is being held March 4 to 7 at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle.

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By sequencing the entire genomes of tumor cells from six people with a rare cancer of the nose and sinus cavity, Johns Hopkins researchers report they unexpectedly found the same genetic changeone in a gene involved in muscle formationin five of the tumors.

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Precision medicine is a focus of ongoing debate. In an environment of limited research funds, there are those who believe that precision medicine should be funded because it will improve population health, and those who feel that it shouldn’t, because it won’t. In a viewpoint published Jan. 28 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, experts at Johns Hopkins call for a redefinition of precision medicine to ensure its success, and propose a new approach.

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A small, retrospective study has found that, in patients with particular pancreatic duct lesions, the presence of an inherited mutation in a pancreatic cancer susceptibility gene may increase the patients’ risk of developing pancreatic cancer. To verify these results and learn more about the development of this deadly cancer, the researchers recommend more genetic studies. Their hope—in line with the goals of precision medicine—is to eventually find a better way to guide patient care, dividing patients, for example, into those who need regular screening versus immediate surgery or other early interventions.

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In a study of older people with no clinical diagnosis or signs of dementia when hospitalized to repair hip fractures, Johns Hopkins researchers say they found biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease in most of the patients’ spinal fluid samples. The researchers say results of their study add to evidence that brain alterations that lead to poor balance in older people may underpin both increased risk of hip-fracturing falls and Alzheimer’s disease, and that hip fracture itself may therefore serve as a first sign of undiagnosed disease.