A collaborate research team at Stony Brook University will assess evidence of brain biomarkers similar to those in Alzheimer’s disease in more than 1,000 WTC 911 responders cared for at the WTC Health and Wellness Program at Stony Brook University. The research is supported by a five-year $7.9 million grant thru 2025 from the National Institute of Health’s National Institute on Aging. This is the first and only current cognitive monitoring study of WTC responders.Learn more.

 

Human organoids, tiny organ-like structures grown in the laboratory, can be used to identify potential COVID-19 drugs in an automated, high-throughput fashion, according to a team led by investigators from Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. The study, published Oct. 28 in Nature, used lung and colon organoids made from human pluripotent stem cells, which have the potential to become any cell type, to test about 1,200 drugs for their efficacy in blocking SARS-CoV-2 infection. They identified several that appeared to be effective, one of which is already being tested in a clinical trial for COVID-19. Take a closer look.

 

Without directly invading the brain or nerves, the virus responsible for the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic causes potentially damaging neurological problems in about one in seven infected, a new study shows. These injuries range from temporary confusion due to low body oxygen levels, to stroke and seizures in the most serious cases, say the study authors. Learn more.

 

Children and adults produce different types and amounts of antibodies in response to infection with the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, a new study from researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons has found. The differences in antibodies suggest the course of the infection and immune response is distinct in children and most children easily clear the virus from their bodies. Take a closer look.

 

Researchers from Albany Med, the Morgridge Institute for Research and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have identified more than 200 molecular features that strongly correlate with how severe a patient experiences COVID-19. Their findings were published online this month in the journal Cell Systems. “By examining thousands of molecular signatures, we have gained a clearer picture of the factors that drive the severity of COVID-19 infections,” said Ariel Jaitovich, M.D., a pulmonary and critical care physician at Albany Med and one of the study’s lead investigators. Take a closer look.

 

The virus that causes COVID-19 was present in New York City long before the city’s first case of the disease was confirmed on March 1, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai report. Their study found that more than 1.7 million New Yorkers—about 20 percent of the city’s population—have already been infected with the virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, and that the infection fatality rate of the virus is close to 1 percent, ten times deadlier than the flu. Take a closer look.

 

Fewer New Yorkers are dying from 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) than health experts had anticipated, a new study shows. Regional death rates have dropped from the highs seen at the start of the outbreak, partially due to a shift in the population contracting the disease toward those who are more resilient. Take a closer look.

 

Someday, scientists may be able to prevent cancer by controlling two proteins that operate deep inside the quagmire of epigenetic cell fate transitions, a new paper suggests. Published by Nature Communications, the article describes a dynamic push and pull between the proteins ANP32E and H2AZ. Their relationship is significant because too little of H2AZ promotes cell division and aggressive tumors, while high levels of H2AZ promotes chaos and metastatic cancer — and ANP32E acts as a “chaperone” that directs H2AZ, said the study’s corresponding author, Patrick Murphy, Ph.D. Take a closer look.

 

Bladder cancer, diagnosed in 6,900 New Yorkers in 2016, is the third most commonly diagnosed solid tumor in the state and the fifth most common cause of cancer-related death. Treatments for low stage disease, which make up 80 percent of new cases, are intended to prevent progression to high stage disease and the morbidity and cost of radical treatments. Currently, John Phillips, M.D., professor of urology, and Dazhong Xu, Ph.D., associate professor of pathology, at New York Medical College(NYMC) are conducting research into the use of nanoparticle‐based chemotherapy to treat bladder cancer. Take a closer look.

 

A team of University at Buffalo researchers have published a paper in Nature Communications that is helping to define the best time to give a specific treatment to infants born with Krabbe disease (KD). This treatment has been found to prolong life for these infants, for as long as a few years. The paper was published online Oct. 23 in Nature Communications.  Take a closer look.

 

For children and families, an intellectual and developmental disabilities diagnosis is a life-altering event and, for many, a plunge into the unknown. “I’ve seen the concern for the patients in the eyes of a parent. I’ve seen what it means at the societal level to see what those kids’ lives look like, and I want that to stop. I want to make it better for them,” said John Foxe, Ph.D., director of the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center and the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester. Take a closer look.

 

Overweight individuals and obesity are a growing worldwide public health concerns and pose a significant healthcare burden. A study conducted at New York Medical College (NYMC) this summer demonstrated that combining omega-3 fatty acids with a standardized oil from black cumin (Nigella sativa) may significantly reduce inflammation caused by a high-fat (Western) diet. Take a closer look.

 

A nationwide study funded by the National Institutes of Health will seek to discover the cause of unusual forms of diabetes. Downstate will join with 19 other U.S. research institutions to discover new forms of diabetes, understand what makes them different, and identify their causes. The Downstate site Principal Investigator is MaryAnn Banerji, M.D., FACP, Professor and Chief of Endocrinology, who also directs Downstate’s Diabetic Treatment Program. Dr. Banerji was one of the first physicians to identify “Flatbush Diabetes,” an atypical form of the disease that appears to be relatively common in African American and Caribbean American populations. Take a closer look.

 

In a paper published in the journal Cell, scientists describe unexpected, undesirable outcomes after editing genes in human embryos with CRISPR, a genomic editing system. The study, the most detailed analysis to date of CRISPR in human embryos, shows that applying gene editing technology to repair a blindness-causing gene early in the development of a human embryo often eliminates an entire chromosome or a large section of it. Take a closer look.

 

A rare, debilitating condition in pregnancy that causes nausea and vomiting so severe that some women end up terminating their pregnancies can be effectively treated with the seizure drug gabapentin. That is the finding of a new study of 21 women with the condition led by the University at Buffalo and published on Oct. 29 in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology Maternal Fetal Medicine. Take a closer look.

 

NYU Langone Health announced it would name the Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in honor of internationally renowned scientist and philanthropist Jan T. Vilcek, MD, PhD, whose transformative influence has led to groundbreaking discoveries and vast improvements in human health. The newly named Vilcek Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences will continue its long tradition to prepare graduate students for careers in biomedical research. Take a closer look.

 

Adam Bass, MD, a leading physician-scientist in the field of cancer genomics and gastrointestinal cancer, will join the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) at Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian as the founding director of the Center for Precision Cancer Medicine and director of gastrointestinal oncology. Bass also will serve on the faculty of the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons as professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology. His appointment is effective Jan. 1, 2021. Take a closer look.

 

For more than 40 years, Tatiana Pasternak, Ph.D., has produced highly respected work in her NIH-funded non-human primate research laboratory that earned her numerous honors and awards. She also elevated the profile of neuroscience at the University with her leadership roles in the Vision Science Society, where she served as president, and in the Society for Neuroscience, where she served as secretary. During her years on the faculty, Pasternak was an advocate for the mentorship of young scientists, many of them women. Take a closer look.

 

Dr. Shahin Rafii, director of the Ansary Stem Cell Institute and chief of the Division of Regenerative Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, has received an Outstanding Investigator Award (R35) from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), for an ambitious project to accelerate regenerative medicine technology. The prestigious NIH Outstanding Investigator Awards provide long-term support to researchers with exemplary records that demonstrate their ability to make major contributions to biomedical research. Take a closer look.

 

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, in 2017 approximately 13% of adolescents in the United States, or 3.2 million children aged 12 to 17, had at least one major episode of depression. While many recover from such an episode, a significant portion will develop severe depression or a chronic mood disorder. There is an urgent need to identify adolescents who are at higher risk for serious problems and may benefit from aggressive treatment. Learn more.

 

Drawing on New York’s diverse population, Weill Cornell Medicine scientists have been awarded grants from the New York Genome Center (NYGC) to study how several types of cancer differ in patients with different genetic backgrounds and point to precision treatments for groups that have been historically underrepresented in cancer research. Investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine are leading three of the six projects, which range from $150,000 and $370,000 in funding as part of the NYGC research initiative known as Polyethnic-1000, which was launched in 2018 to support the study of cancer in ethnic minority populations. Take a closer look.

 

Two early-career Einstein neuroscientists have received significant and prestigious grants to support their research into Parkinson’s disease (PD) and opioid use disorder. Frank Soldner, M.D., assistant professor in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience and in the department of genetics at Einstein, will receive $1.6 million over three years as part of an interdisciplinary research team that will share a $6.8 million grant awarded by the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiative. The five-member team is led by Donald Rio, Ph.D., at University of California, Berkeley. Take a closer look.

 

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have received a five-year, $1.6 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to train basic and translational scientists whose research focuses on intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) in children. The grant will enable IDD leaders at Einstein and Montefiore Health System to create a comprehensive training program for postdoctoral fellows that emphasizes collaboration among research scientists, clinicians, and patients with IDDs. Take a closer look.

 

According to a study by Healthgrades, the leading online resource for information about physicians and hospitals, Stony Brook University Hospital (SBUH) has once again earned national recognition for its programs that provide stroke care, cardiac care, and coronary intervention. It’s the seventh year in a row that SBUH was named as one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals™ for Cardiac Care, and for six consecutive years, SBUH has been named one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals™ for Coronary Intervention and Stroke Care. Take a closer look.