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Researchers have found a new vaccine that both prevents and treats ear infections - minus the needle jab. The vaccine - which targets the bacteria responsible for half of all ear infections - would be delivered through the skin via a small, dime-sized patch. The non-needle vaccine appears to pack a one-two punch against nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHI), attacking key parts of the bacteria’s defenses and kick-starting the body’s own immune system to help clear out the infection.

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Researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center are testing Dance Dance Revolution’s ability to help MS patients.

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Bioinformatic experts are creating a new model based on digital images and genomics to help improve survival rates in people with lung cancer, which is the leading cancer killer among men and women in the United States. The model - which will help clinicians select the treatment most likely to be successful - will base some of its data on a repository of 4,000 lung cancer samples from the Appalachian region, an area that has higher rates of lung cancer than anywhere else in the nation.

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Researchers at The Ohio State University are developing a new glaucoma test that would catch the blindness-causing disease earlier and more accurately than current tests that rely on human input.

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Anthracyclines, a class of chemotherapy drugs commonly used to treat breast and childhood cancers are effective, but can cause heart damage that doesn't appear until long after treatment is over. By analyzing cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and heart health biomarkers in breast cancer patients, researchers were able to identify slight changes in heart function that could help identify which cancer patients are more likely to suffer cardiac issues later in life.

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With more than a half million burns requiring medical intervention each year, scientists at Ohio State think they may have found a way to reduce the severity of burns by as much as fifty percent by applying a form of vitamin E within the first few hours after an injury.

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Restaurant dishes and silverware may be an overlooked place where people can catch stomach viruses. While the current industry guidelines for cleaning dishware used in public settings are effective at neutralizing bacteria, researchers at The Ohio State University found that they appear to fall short of eliminating norovirus - the leading cause of epidemic gastroenteritis and the major cause of foodborne illness worldwide, responsible for at least 50% of all gastroenteritis outbreaks in the United States.

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As the nearly 8 million U.S. high school students who participate in sports every year suit up this season, scientists are encouraging them to focus on something more valuable than winning – their health. New research from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (OSUWMC) shows fracture and ACL prevention programs are essential in ensuring injuries don’t sideline players.

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A study by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) has discovered how tamoxifen-resistant breast-cancer cells grow and proliferate. It also suggests that an experimental agent might offer a novel targeted therapy for tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer.

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Researchers at The Ohio State University have discovered a new class of treatment against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as well as evidence of a growing need to quickly genotype individual strains of the organism most commonly referred to as the “superbug.”

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Scientists may be one step closer to predicting the uncertain course of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease that can lay dormant for months or years, thanks to the discovery of a unique genetic marker. The marker, detailed by researchers in the August edition of The Journal of Immunology, is the first of its kind to be directly linked to MS.

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Convincing people to reduce sugared drink consumption may not need the type of ban recently proposed in New York City. Rather, peer pressure may work better. A new study shows that a peer- and community-driven education approach successfully encouraged Appalachian high school students to reduce their intake of sugared drinks.

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Clinicians and researchers gathered at Ohio State’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) Third Annual Scientific Meeting to showcase how they are deciphering the Human Genome Projects code using genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and other ‘omics’ to make predictive, preventative and precision medicine a reality in the 21st century.

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A diet high in saturated fat might make arguments with your spouse more stressful. That's what researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center are theorizing in their recently launched study of married couples. Conducted by the husband and wife team of Ron Glaser, director of The Ohio State University College of Medicine’s Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research; and Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, the study will evaluate the change in couples' blood cholesterol and stress hormone levels following discussions of stressful topics such as finances, relatives, or annoying habits.

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An international consortium of researchers have identified a group of genes associated with the development of osteoporosis, a debilitating bone disease that cripples more than 10 million Americans a year and costs the U.S. healthcare system an estimated $17 billion annually. The study identified 56 genes associated with bone-mineral density (BMD), the measurement used to diagnose osteoporosis.

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New research from The Ohio State University utilizes two different methods to visualize circulating tumor cells (CTCs) as well as other unusual circulating cells with both epithelial and hematopoietic characteristics in metastatic breast cancer (mBC). Results of the data were presented during a poster session at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2012 in Chicago, Ill. The research is supported by pilot funding from the Ohio State Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS).

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Even though World Autism Day is over, researchers at The Ohio State University push forward an ongoing study, trying to determine which is more effective for helping children with autism disorder: training parents or taking medication typically given to kids with ADHD. The study will enable researchers to establish the greatest possible impact on children with autism. Plus, a new research registry looks to connect families in the autism community with autism researchers around the nation.

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It sounds like a straightforward solution that everyone on all sides of the healthcare debate can get behind: treat patients based on evidence that shows the best outcome for a given cost. The reality is that the simple promise of evidence based medicine - first introduced by healthcare industry leaders and the federal government in the 1970s – has been mired in a stew of issues ranging from political to financial to philosophical for the past three decades. But researchers supported by The Ohio State University Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) have just launched a training program to teach today’s clinicians Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) - the art and science of utilizing new and existing data to help improve decision making and outcomes.

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Dr. Susan Mallery, a professor in the College of Dentistry at The Ohio State University and Oral Pathology Consultant at the Ohio State University and James Cancer hospitals, has dedicated her nearly 30-year career to studying new strategies to preventing oral cancer. Her efforts have helped create a cancer-fighting mouthwash derived from black raspberries and an adhesive patch that delivers targeted therapy to pre-cancerous lesions in the mouth - possibly sparing patients from repeat surgeries.

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Community food banks may soon be able to improve how the estimated millions of people living with Type 2 diabetes and food insecurity manage their disease. Researchers and community groups have come together to develop a model that ensures food banks can contribute to successful, long-term diabetes management.

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Nutrition expert and oncologist at The Ohio State University join forces to study the efficacy of omega-3 fatty acids to mediate side effects of common breast cancer therapies. Inlcudes a review of in progress research, plus simple cooking and dietary tips for increasing omega-3 intake, plus omega-3 rich recipes for the holidays.

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A recent study gauging the impact of consuming more fish oil showed a marked reduction both in inflammation and, surprisingly, in anxiety among a cohort of healthy young people. The research, supported by the Ohio State University Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS), was conducted by a team of scientists that has spent more than three decades investigating links between psychological stress and immunity.

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When multiple family members are diagnosed with various types of cancer, a dietitian decides to transition from clinical professional and educator to research scientist. On a quest for answers that included the exploration of her own genome, Dr. Spees is currently working on a study of the relationship between diet and mutated p53 genes in men with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.

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Drs. Savita Khanna and Cameron Rink, both Assistant Professors of Surgery in the College of Medicine at The Ohio State University Medical Center are part of a research team that has been working for more than a decade to identify ways to reduce brain injury during stroke. Two key pieces of their research have recently revealed that the future of stroke treatment may lie in the form of supplementation – either with prophylactic use of a form of vitamin E, or administration of oxygen during a stroke.

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Investigators at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital are studying a potential new treatment strategy for dominant forms of muscular dystrophy, using RNA interference to silence genes connected with the disease.

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About half of Medicaid-covered children and adolescents in Ohio who are in treatment for depression complete their first three months of prescribed antidepressants, and only one-fifth complete the recommended minimum six-month course of drugs to treat depression, new research suggests.

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As NIH Director Francis Collins noted in his recent editorial on the creation of a national center for translational research, the current process for identifying new therapies is often slow, expensive and unsuccessful. He further called on scientists to “think differently,” noting that some abandoned therapies deserve to be “rescued and repurposed.” That’s exactly what some researchers at The Ohio State University are doing as they apply a translational approach to discarded data, uncovering future treatments for major health conditions such as oral cancer and stroke.

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Dr. Philip Payne, associate professor and Chair in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at The Ohio State University, is an internationally recognized leader in the fields of clinical research informatics and translational bioinformatics. In addition to his duties as Chair he is also Director of Data Management Services within the Ohio State Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Biomedical Informatics Shared Resource and Co-Executive Director for the Ohio State Center for IT Innovation in Healthcare (CITIH). The author of over 90 publications, Payne’s research has served to define a new sub-domain of biomedical informatics theory and practice focused on clinical research applications.

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As cloud computing becomes the next big consumer techo –trend, it’s also on the verge of revolutionizing the way research is done. Using the cloud model as inspiration, biomedical informatics scientists at The Ohio State University have created the Translational Research Informatics and Data management grid (TRIAD), a system which is helping researchers around the world access and analyze biomedical data at an unprecedented pace. Importantly, TRIAD enables researchers to anonymously match tissue samples with de-identified clinical data from medical records, maintaining the patient’s privacy rights while eliminating the time-intensive process of seeking additional approval for each individual study that does not require access to patient identifiers such as names, addresses, and medical record numbers.

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Dr. Cheryl London, an associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Ohio State, is among a small group of veterinary oncologists in the United States who are funded to conduct research with dogs in order to advance and accelerate cancer research in humans. Dogs share many of the same types of cancer as humans, and treatment advances in one species can often translate to the other. Pet owners may not be aware that many human cancer treatments are also available for dogs. Dr. London offers simple tips to dog owners about watching for signs of cancer, and what to do if your dog is diagnosed with cancer.

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Preventive supplementation with a natural form of vitamin E called tocotrienol could help reduce brain damage caused by strokes, researchers reported today at the 2nd International Conference on Tocotrienols and Chronic Diseases. The scientists also found evidence that tocotrienol may trigger genes that alter blood vessel structure to help bypass a blockage, and may help prevent a repeat stroke, which occurs in about 200,000 people each year.

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Dr. Melvin Pascall, an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at The Ohio State University, has spent the past 15 years working to improve food safety in areas ranging from packaging to food service cleaning practices. His research has been cited by the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and he has helped create national food industry dishware cleaning guidelines. He is currently conducting research to determine if the existing guidelines are enough to keep the public safe from cross contamination. With 20 million cases of acute gastroenteritis and 128,000 hospitalizations a year attributed to food-borne illness, Pascall is looking more closely at viruses as a potential culprit - and has quick tips for consumers about keeping their own kitchenware germ-free.

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People living in Appalachia are three times more likely to die from diabetes than someone living in most other parts of the United States. Now seven academic centers and community organizations have created the Appalachian Translational Research Network to tackle diabetes, obesity and other health problems using translational science - an approach that uses collaborations to help accelerate the time it takes basic research to become usable health solutions.