Month: August 2021

Mayo Clinic, Verily to build advanced clinical decision support to enhance care

sarah JonasAnnouncement

Mayo Clinic and Verily, an Alphabet company founded at the convergence of health care, data science and technology, today announced a strategic two-year collaboration. This collaboration focuses on the development of a digital point-of-care resource of vetted knowledge to support an individualized approach to patient care. This modular, evidence-based decision support solution, will provide contextualized and validated knowledge on disease management, care guidelines and treatment to help clinician’s make decisions.

JNCCN Study Reveals Neuroendocrine Tumor Mortality Patterns to Inform Treatment Decisions

sarah JonasResearch Results

New study in JNCCN finds that among all patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), the risk of dying of cancer was higher than that of dying of other causes, but mortality varies by primary tumor site, in first population-based cohort study on cancer-specific death after a NET diagnosis.

Mount Sinai Receives $2.9 Million to Study First-of-its-kind Brain Implant for Restoring Function in Paralyzed Patients

sarah JonasAnnouncement

Department of Rehabilitation and Human Performance will lead Mount Sinai in national clinical trial

Titan-in-a-glass experiments hint at mineral makeup of Saturn moon

sarah JonasResearch Results

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, has a dense atmosphere and weather cycles like Earth. Now, researchers have recreated the moon’s conditions in small glass cylinders, revealing properties of two molecules believed to exist as minerals on Titan. They will present their results at ACS Fall 2021.

A Game Changer: Virtual Reality Reduces Pain and Anxiety in Children

sarah JonasResearch Results

For nearly two decades, Jeffrey I. Gold, PhD, an investigator at The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, has been investigating the use of virtual reality (VR) as a technique to help children undergoing painful medical procedures. His research shows that the technology can have powerful effects. VR works so well that Children’s Hospital Los Angeles now offers it routinely for blood draws.

Old Habit-Controlling Neurons May Also Help the Brain Learn New Tricks

sarah JonasResearch Results

In a study of rodents, scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai discovered that a part of the brain traditionally thought to control typing the old habits may also play a critical role in learning the new actions. The results, published on August 25th in Nature Communications, suggest that this process involves a delicate balance in the activity of two neighboring neural circuits: one dedicated to new actions and the other to old habits

Diverse DNA signatures linked to heart disease

sarah JonasResearch Results

Risk for heart disease does not look the same on the genetic level for different population groups, report an international team of researchers this month in the journal JAMA Cardiology. The study, led by Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, begins to outline gene activity patterns that could serve as early warning indicators for cardiovascular disease.

Volcanic eruptions may have spurred first ‘whiffs’ of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere

sarah JonasResearch Results

A new analysis of 2.5-billion-year-old rocks from Australia finds that volcanic eruptions may have stimulated population surges of marine microorganisms, creating the first puffs of oxygen into the atmosphere. This would change existing stories of Earth’s early atmosphere, which assumed that most changes in the early atmosphere were controlled by geologic or chemical processes.

MD Anderson Research Highlights for August 25, 2021

sarah JonasResearch Tip Sheet

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights provides a glimpse into recently published studies in basic, translational and clinical cancer research from MD Anderson experts. Current advances include clinical studies to investigate novel treatment strategies, a new understanding of cancer precursor lesions, identifying a calcium signaling receptor, characterizing nodal immune flair after immunotherapy, a community screening tool for BRCA testing and a new method for diagnosing Clostridioides difficile infections.

NeuroVision Imaging Inc. Announces Additional Funding From the ADDF to Accelerate Development of Novel Blood-Based Lab Test to Predict Dementia Before Clinical Onset

sarah JonasAnnouncement

NeuroVision Imaging Inc. has received an additional investment from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation to hasten development of a novel blood-based lab test to provide detection and measurement of biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias before clinical onset.

FSU professor available to provide comment on infrastructure needs as Congress debates bipartisan package

sarah JonasExpert Pitch

By: Bill Wellock | Published: August 25, 2021 | 3:27 pm | SHARE: The federal government is debating billions of dollars of investment in infrastructure that would develop roads, bridges, public transit, high-speed internet and more.Eren Ozguven, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, researches how infrastructure contributes to communities’ abilities to respond to emergencies in his role as the director of the Resilient Infrastructure and Disaster Response (RIDER) Center.

One scientist’s trash is another’s treasure:

sarah JonasFeature

While making materials samples to pursue their own research goals, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory discovered that an unwanted byproduct of their experiments was an extremely high-quality and difficult-to-obtain substance sought after by scientists researching layered materials.

Young Athletes with History of Concussions May Have More Changes to Their Brains

sarah JonasResearch Results

A new study suggests athletes with a history of concussion may show more brain injury from a later concussion, particularly in middle regions of the brain that are more susceptible to damage, when compared to athletes with no history of concussion. The research is published in the August 25, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The athletes participated in sports like football, volleyball and soccer.

Add It Up: Could This Test Equal a Way to Determine Dementia Risk?

sarah JonasResearch Results

People whose scores on a dementia risk test indicated a less brain-healthy lifestyle, including smoking, high blood pressure and a poor diet, may also have the following: lower scores on thinking skills tests, more changes on brain scans and a higher risk of cognitive impairment. That’s according to a new study published in the August 25, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found that in men, the test scores were associated with poor memory function and markers of brain shrinkage.

$1.9M NSF-funded initiative to transform UIC undergraduate chemistry offerings

sarah JonasAnnouncement

Supported by a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the University of Illinois Chicago department of chemistry will launch a project consisting of evidence-based research of teaching and learning practices, course and curriculum revisions and faculty development, all with the intention of enhancing STEM education for undergraduate students.

Experts caution: vaping prevention critical as teens head back to school during ongoing pandemic

sarah JonasFeature Expert

The global COVID-19 pandemic has forced many people to live in relative isolation for more than a year. As adolescents return to school, public health experts caution parents to pay close attention to signs of tobacco use among teens. While there has been a decline in smoking traditional cigarettes among youth as well as adults, e-cigarette use continues to increase.
Experts express concern about rising rates of dual- and poly-tobacco product use, particularly among adolescents and young adults. A new evidence-based research centerThe evidence-based tobacco research program is conducting collaborative research aimed at increasing scientific knowledge to help regulate tobacco products effectively in a way that best serves individual and public health interests.

Pain medicine specialists innovate to tackle America’s ongoing opioid epidemic by reducing misuse after surgery

sarah JonasFeature Expert

CHICAGO – Drug overdose deaths broke records during 2020, and while the pandemic no doubt contributed, surgery plays a significant and often overlooked role in America’s ongoing opioid epidemic because many patients continue to use their prescribed opioids months after their procedures. Pain medicine specialists are leading the way in addressing the opioid epidemic by developing strategies to reduce opioid misuse related to surgery, from helping to ease pain before the procedure to ensuring at-risk patients have access to naloxone to prevent an accidental overdose, according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Mount Sinai Queens Earns Prestigious Thrombectomy-Capable Stroke Certification From Joint Commission

sarah JonasAnnouncement

The hospital achieved this recognition by meeting rigorous standards for performing endovascular thrombectomy and demonstrating continuous compliance with its performance standards.

The Health Implications of Climate Change: Emergency Medicine expert available

sarah JonasExpert Pitch

Caleb Dresser, MD, MPH, attending physician in Emergency Department, recent graduate of Fellowship in Climate and Human Health at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC)  Climate change and the extreme weather it brings, including heatwaves, hurricanes, and wildfires, impact not only land and infrastructure but human health as well. Through his work as an…

Mechanism for Development of Rare Colorectal Cancer Subtype Identified

sarah JonasResearch Results

Researchers from Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the state’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, recently discovered a mechanism to explain what drives the formation of mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma (MAC), a rare subtype of colorectal cancer.

COVID 19: Learning About Nurses’ Moral Distress During Crisis Care

sarah JonasResearch Results

During the pandemic, nurses continue to deliver a crisis standard of care, which requires allocating and using scarce medical resources. This care, in the context of COVID-19, an infectious and potentially fatal illness, requires nurses to balance their duty to care for patients while protecting themselves and their families. Crisis standards of care cause high moral distress for clinicians. The lack of preparedness of U.S. hospitals to initiate crisis care standards is likely amplifying such distress. Could better leadership communication mitigate this distress and consequential poorer mental health?

Rutgers to Expand Entrepreneurship Training Programs for Researchers as Partner in New NSF I-Corps™ Hub: Northeast Region

sarah JonasAnnouncement

As a key player in developing and transforming innovators into entrepreneurs that improve people’s lives, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey will expand its entrepreneurship training programming and further equip faculty and student researchers with the skills and strategy needed to transition their discoveries into technologies and products, as a partner in the newly created NSF I-Corps™ Hub: Northeast Region.