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Using a new gene sequencing method, a team of researchers led by scientists from Johns Hopkins and the National Institutes of Health has discovered a gene that appears to cause some instances of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The finding could lead to novel ways to treat the more common form of this fatal neurodegenerative disease, which kills the vast majority of the nearly 6,000 Americans diagnosed with ALS every year.

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Using buprenorphine instead of methadone — the current standard of care — to treat opioid-dependent pregnant women may result in healthier babies, suggests new findings from an international team led by Johns Hopkins researchers and published in the Dec. 9 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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A collaborative, government-led effort to guide and standardize diagnosis, treatment and management of food allergies has resulted in the release of an official set of recommendations for physicians.

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Shootings like the one in which a gunman shot a doctor and killed a patient at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in September are "exceedingly rare," but the rate of other assaults on workers in U.S. health care settings is four times higher than other workplaces, conclude two Johns Hopkins emergency physicians after reviewing workplace violence in health settings.

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Johns Hopkins scientists have identified a previously unrecognized step in the activation of infection-fighting white blood cells, the main immunity troops in the body’s war on bacteria, viruses and foreign proteins.

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According to the critical care experts at The Johns Hopkins Hospital who treated him, Allen Bagents, 24, of Arlington, Va., is the least likely person anyone ever expects to get sick, let alone suffer a six-week, potentially fatal bout with the swine flu, better known as H1N1 influenza.

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Male mice born with a genetic mutation that’s believed to make humans more susceptible to schizophrenia develop behaviors that mimic other major psychiatric illnesses when their mothers are exposed to an assault to the immune system while pregnant, according to new Johns Hopkins research.

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Using a widely heralded Johns Hopkins checklist and other patient-safety tools, intensive care units across the state of Michigan reduced the rate of potentially lethal bloodstream infections to near zero.

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A prescribed set of hospital-wide patient-safety programs can lead to rapid improvements in the “culture of safety” even in a large, complex, academic medical center, according to a new study by safety experts at Johns Hopkins.

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Johns Hopkins Children’s Center scientists have discovered that high blood levels of a protein commonly found in the central nervous system can predict brain injury and death in critically ill children on a form of life support called extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation or ECMO.

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HIV infected patients whose treatment is delayed not only become sicker than those treated earlier, but also require tens of thousands of dollars more in care over the first several years of their treatment.

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Johns Hopkins scientists report success in significantly lowering levels of both fat mass and blood sugar in mice treated with a chemical compound designed to disrupt production of a hormone known to stimulate weight gain in humans.

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Scientists at Johns Hopkins have identified a compound that could be used to starve cancers of their sugar-based building blocks. The compound, called a glutaminase inhibitor, has been tested on laboratory-cultured, sugar-hungry brain cancer cells and, the scientists say, may have the potential to be used for many types of primary brain tumors.

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By tracking the fate of a group of immature cells that persist in the adult brain and spinal cord, Johns Hopkins researchers discovered in mice that these cells undergo dramatic changes in ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

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Rolling back suggestions from previous studies, a Johns Hopkins study of 950 healthy men and women has shown that taking daily doses of a cholesterol-lowering statin medication to protect coronary arteries and ward off heart attack or stroke may not be needed for everyone.

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Heart imaging specialists at Johns Hopkins have shown that a combination of CT scans that measure how much blood is flowing through the heart and the amount of plaque in surrounding arteries are just as good as tests that are less safe, more complex and more time-consuming to detect coronary artery disease and its severity.

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Surgical items, such as sponges and small instruments, left in the bodies of children who undergo surgery are quite uncommon and rarely fatal but decidedly dangerous and expensive mistakes, according to a Johns Hopkins Children's Center study to be published in the November issue of JAMA-Archives of Surgery.

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Low levels of vitamin D, the essential nutrient obtained from milk, fortified cereals and exposure to sunlight, doubles the risk of stroke in whites, but not in blacks, according to a new report by researchers at Johns Hopkins.

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Heart experts at Johns Hopkins say that physicians might be drawing conclusions too soon about irreversible brain damage in patients surviving cardiac arrest whose bodies were for a day initially chilled into a calming coma.

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High cholesterol levels in middle age do not appear to increase women’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia later in life, new Johns Hopkins-led research finds, despite a body of scientific evidence long suggesting a link between the two.

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Children with hepatitis C fare decidedly better with a supercharged combination of two antiviral drugs than with the usual and standard single-drug regimen, according to research led by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Children Center.

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Physicians, nurses and other health care providers can have some of the most up-to-date information on the growing diabetes epidemic at their fingertips, thanks to the release of a new Johns Hopkins guide to the disease now available on all smart phone devices.

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For the 15th straight year, the National Research Corporation (NRC) has given The Johns Hopkins Hospital its Consumer Choice Award for the Baltimore region. For 2010-2011, Hopkins also was rated as the top choice by consumers in the Bethesda, Md., area. The award is based on ratings from health care consumers, who assessed hospital standings based on four metrics: best overall quality, best image/reputation, best doctors and best nurses.

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By tracking the flow of information in a cell preparing to split, Johns Hopkins scientists have identified a protein mechanism that coordinates and regulates the dynamics of shape change necessary for division of a single cell into two daughter cells.

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Babies born to mothers who eat peanuts during pregnancy appear more prone to peanut allergy, according to research conducted by scientists at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and elsewhere and published online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The research team was led by Scott Sicherer, M.D., of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

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The Johns Hopkins University, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHI), the international arm of Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, USA, and Academic Medical Centre Sdn Bhd, subsidiary of Chase Perdana Sdn Bhd, a Kuala Lumpur-based private development corporation, and an associate company of Turiya Sdn Bhd, have signed an agreement to help Malaysia develop its first fully integrated private four-year graduate medical school and teaching hospital. The agreement was signed on November 2, 2010, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, University of Helsinki and Stanford University have developed a technique to keep normal and cancerous prostate tissue removed during surgery alive and functioning normally in the laboratory for up to a week.

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Scientists at Johns Hopkins have taken a less-is-more approach to designing effective drug treatments that are precisely tailored to disease-causing pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, and cancer cells, any of which can trigger the body’s immune system defenses.

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Just as with everyone else perhaps, the more hours surgeons work, and the more nights they spend on call each week, the more likely they are to face burn-out, depression, dissatisfaction with their careers and serious work-home conflicts, according to a major new study led by Johns Hopkins and Mayo Clinic researchers.

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Pancreatic cancer develops and spreads much more slowly than scientists have thought, according to new research from Johns Hopkins investigators. The finding indicates that there is a potentially broad window for diagnosis and prevention of the disease.