SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University (Downstate), Weill Cornell Medicine, and Columbia University—in a collaborative effort—were among five entities nationwide to receive funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to create new research Centers to advance critical priorities of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Cancer Moonshot—reducing inequities in the structural drivers of cancer in specifically identified communities, and preventing more cancers before they can start. Learn more.

 

Striving to improve organ transplant survival rates, internationally renowned researchers in immunology and bioengineering at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have received $15.1 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to lead a novel, five-year multi-center research program that will explore trained immunity—the innate immune system’s ability to remember infections and other insults—as a target for preventing organ transplant rejection. Learn more.

 

Lung transplantation was found to be a safe and effective therapeutic option for select patients with end-stage lung disease due to a prior COVID-19 diagnosis, with similar short- and long-term outcomes as lung transplant recipients with non-COVID-19 etiology, in a recent study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases that was conducted by New York Medical College researchers in collaboration with researchers at the University of Alabama and University of Texas at Houston. Learn more.

 

Immunizations delivered intranasally (IN) were found to offer stronger and more durable protection against pulmonary infectious diseases, including COVID-19, in a new study published in Frontiers of Microbiology that was conducted by Chandra Shekhar Bakshi, D.V.M., Ph.D., professor of pathology, microbiology and immunology; Alan Kadish, M.D., president of New York Medical College (NYMC) and Touro University (TU) and professor of medicine; and Salomon Amar, Ph.D., D.D.S., vice president for research at NYMC, senior vice president for biomedical research at TU and professor of pharmacology and of pathology, microbiology and immunology—in collaboration with researchers from Lovelace Research Institute in New Mexico. Learn more.

 

An atlas that catalogues gene activity and the levels of small molecules called metabolites in tumor samples offers a new way of identifying the deep mechanisms of cancer, according to researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The researchers, who published their work June 19 in Nature Metabolism, created the Cancer Atlas of Metabolic Profiles (CAMP) by combining new and existing datasets on metabolites and gene activity. Learn more.

 

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are closely intertwined diseases with poor survival rates that primarily affect older adults. The current treatment regimens are often associated with significant side effects: elderly patients often require transfusions and repeated hospitalizations for monitoring low blood counts and treating infections that arise from weakened immune systems. As a result, a substantial number of patients are unable to complete their treatment. Learn more.

 

At Albany Medical College, scientists are studying diseases like heart failure and atherosclerosis at the molecular level, with the goal of identifying innovative new ways to treat them. In the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology (MCP), a team led by Professor Yun-Min Zheng, MD and Professor Yong-Xiao Wang, MD, PhD is researching how the molecule ryanodine receptor type 1 (RyR1) regulates cardiac function, and its impact on heart failure and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Learn more.

 

Electrocardiograms (ECGs) are often used by health providers to diagnose heart disease. At times, irregularities in the recordings are too subtle to be detected by human eyes but can be identified by artificial intelligence (AI). However, most AI models for ECG analysis use a particular deep learning method called convolutional neural networks (CNNs). CNNs require large training datasets to make diagnoses, which spell limitations when it comes to rare heart diseases that do not have a wealth of data. Learn more.

 

Scientists have created one of the most detailed 3D images of the synapse, the important juncture where neurons communicate with each other through an exchange of chemical signals. These nanometer scale models will help scientists better understand and study neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington’s disease and schizophrenia. Learn more.

 

Despite increased awareness and ongoing multinational efforts, diabetes is pervasive, exponentially growing in prevalence, and outpacing most diseases globally, according to a new series published in The Lancet and The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journals. Worse still, structural racism experienced by minority ethnic groups and geographic inequity experienced by low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) are accelerating soaring rates of diabetes disease, illness, and death around the world. Learn more.

 

Beneath and beyond the reddish, flaky lesions that form in the skin of those with psoriasis, mild and severe forms of the disease can be told apart by the activity of key cells and signaling pathways, a new study shows. Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the study mapped hidden features of inflammation and how they compared in cases of increasing severity of psoriatic disease. Learn more.

 

Prescribed aerobic exercise after a sport-related concussion speeds recovery, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis led by University at Buffalo researchers and published online on June 14 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Learn more.

 

An international team of researchers has developed a new method to deliver drugs into the inner ear. The discovery was possible by harnessing the natural flow of fluids in the brain and employing a little understood backdoor into the cochlea. When combined to deliver a gene therapy that repairs inner ear hair cells, the researchers were able to restore hearing in deaf mice. Learn more.

 

The cause of a common kidney disease likely lies outside the kidney, according to a new study led by Columbia University researchers. The study, which uncovered 16 new locations in the genome linked to immunoglobulin A (IgA) nephropathy, confirms an earlier hypothesis that the immune system has an important role in driving the disease and points toward new strategies for detecting and treating it. Learn more.

 

Obesity runs in families. That fact is at the root of an intensive, behavioral, family-based treatment developed by University at Buffalo researchers and targeted to children who are obese or overweight and their parents. Previously available only in specialty clinics, this evidence-based treatment has now, for the first time, been implemented in a multicenter study carried out in four U.S. cities in children ages 6-12 in the primary care setting, where the vast majority of children receive care. Learn more.

 

Eating more of one’s daily calories earlier in the day may counter weight gain, improve blood sugar fluctuations, and reduce the time that blood sugar is above normal levels, a new study suggests. “This type of feeding, through its effect on blood sugar, may prevent those with prediabetes or obesity from progressing to type 2 diabetes,” said study lead author Joanne Bruno, MD, PhD, an endocrinology fellow at NYU Langone. Learn more.

 

Professor Anthony (Martin) Gerdes, Ph.D., chair of biomedical sciences at the College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM), has achieved the distinction of being named New York Institute of Technology’s first university professor, effective in the new academic year. The title of university professor is often found at many top research universities to recognize select full-time faculty who have accomplished an extraordinary scope of scholarly research and are highly regarded in their fields. Learn more.

 

Benjamin Martin, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University, and member of the Stony Brook University Cancer Center, has received a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) to conduct research to understand the molecular and cell biology of neuromesodermal progenitors. The grant term, effective June 1, 2023, is five year. Learn more.

 

A new three-year, $2.5 million grant from Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C)(link is external and opens in a new window) has been awarded to a multi-institutional team of gastroesophageal cancer experts, led by Anil K. Rustgi, MD, director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The SU2C-Torrey Coast Foundation Gastroesophageal Cancer Research Team, with collaborators at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center and Case Comprehensive Cancer Center (Case CCC), will focus on investigating innovative and effective immunotherapies for esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC). Learn more.

 

Upstate Medical University Professor Wei-Dong Yao, PhD, will use a three-year $2.3 million dollar NIH grant, the first part of a 5-year project, from the National Institute of Aging to investigate the role of specific gene mutations in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). He’ll be working with co-investigator Fen-Biao Gao, PhD of the UMass Chan Medical School on the project that aims to shed light on the underlying mechanisms of the disease, which could help develop new therapeutic strategies for those with dementia. Learn more.

 

Dr. Iliyan D. Iliev, an associate professor of immunology in medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, co-director of the Microbiome Core and a member of the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) at Weill Cornell Medicine, is the lead investigator on a grant to Weill Cornell Medicine from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to target pathogenic fungi in patients with Crohn’s disease. Learn more.

 

Stony Brook University announced a philanthropic gift to develop Neuroblox, a software platform developed by biomedical engineer and neuroscientist Lilianne “Lily” Mujica-Parodi that will model brain circuits to treat brain disorders. The gift was made possible by David Baszucki, founder and chief executive officer of Roblox, and his wife, bestselling author Jan Ellison Baszucki. Learn more.