Getting New Medical Treatments to Patients Can be Harder Than Landing on Mars

It takes about 10 years and $100 million to get a new medical device to market – $1 billion for a new drug. Most new solutions fail. The biggest foils are not the science or pre-clinical trials but the lack of finances, market miscalculation, bad business models, and regulatory snags. They can all be overcome.

Back to School in the Era of Gun Violence

Do bulletproof backpacks, lobbies, metal detectors, cameras, guards and other beefed up security measures in response to previous school shootings protect our students from school violence? We spoke with Matthew Mayer, associate professor with the Rutgers-New Brunswick Graduate School of Education, whose research focuses on school violence prevention and promoting safe and productive schools, to find out.

Tiny Toxins: How Algal Blooms Affect Coastal Systems Through a Complex Web of Interactions

A Q&A with scientist Michelle Newcomer on looking for unexpected causes of harmful algal blooms. Harmful and nuisance algal blooms are thought to have a number of contributing causal factors, including a build-up of nutrients, unusually high water temperatures, and extreme weather events such as floods and drought. But an understanding of the connectivity between these triggers is missing, as is an ability to predict the onset of the blooms.

Knowledgebase is power for nuclear reactor developers

Six new nuclear reactor technologies are planned to commercially deploy between 2030 and 2040. ORNL’s Weiju Ren heads a project managing structural materials information. This conversation explores challenges and opportunities in sharing nuclear materials knowledge internationally.

Back-to-school tips from Rowan Medicine Pediatrics

Heading back to school after the long summer causes jubilation in many parents but the adjustment and the anxiety for children can make the transition very difficult. To help ease that transition, Rowan Medicine pediatrician Dr. Tanya Kadrmas-Iannuzzi offers these tips and advice for parents to follow: Easing back-to-school nerves Some kids are nervous or anxious about starting or going back to school – they are uncertain about leaving the home or separating from their parents.

Unraveling complicated issues of inequality in workplaces, communities

African American health care workers are there for a reason.A new book by a Washington University in St. Louis social scientist shows how hospitals, clinics and other institutions participate in “racial outsourcing,” relying heavily on black doctors, nurses, technicians and physician assistants to do “equity work” — extra labor that makes organizations and their services more accessible to communities of color.

Four in 10 Chicago Parents Live in a Community with Limited Grocery Access, Linked to More Challenges in Healthy Eating for Kids

Four in 10 parents live in a Chicago community area with limited grocery access, and they report more challenges to healthy eating for their children, such as time for sit-down family meals, cost of healthy foods, and convenience of fast food, according to results of a new survey released by Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH).