The Stony Brook World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program has received new federal funding to expand and build upon its multiple healthcare services for WTC responders. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has awarded the WTC Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence (CCE) at Stony Brook, under the direction of Dr. Benjamin Luft, $147 million over the next eight years, effective September 29, 2022. Learn more.

 

In the first nationally representative study of cognitive impairment prevalence in more than 20 years, Columbia University researchers have found almost 10% of U.S. adults ages 65 and older have dementia, while another 22% have mild cognitive impairment. People with dementia and mild cognitive impairment are more likely to be older, have lower levels of education, and to be racialized as Black or Hispanic. Men and women have similar rates of dementia and mild cognitive impairment. Learn more.

 

In April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread through New York City, Louise Malle, an MD/PhD candidate at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, turned her focus to the disturbing statistics coming out on disease severity. She thought the data might inform her research to better understand immunity in people with Down syndrome. Ms. Malle, who works in the lab of Dusan Bogunovic, PhD, surveyed thousands of patients diagnosed with COVID-19, and essentially found that individuals with the syndrome have about 10 times the likelihood of having extremely severe disease. Learn more.

 

COVID-19 patients placed on ventilators can take a long time to regain consciousness. New research from Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian, MIT, and Massachusetts General Hospital is now illustrating that these delays may serve a purpose: protecting the brain from oxygen deprivation. The existence of such a brain-preserving state could explain why some patients wake up days or even weeks after they stop receiving ventilation, and it suggests that physicians should take these lengthy recovery times into account when determining a patient’s prognosis. Learn more.

 

Almost all liver cancers develop after decades of chronic liver disease, but a new discovery by Columbia researchers may lead to treatments that could break the link. The new research shows that during chronic liver disease a shift in the balance of quiescent and activated stellate liver cells not only promotes fibrosis but also sets the stage for the most common type of primary liver cancer, called hepatocellular carcinoma. Learn more.

 

Targeted therapies specifically attach to and hinder cancer-causing proteins, but cancer cells can quickly evolve to thwart their action. A second drug class, immunotherapies, harnesses the immune system to attack cancer cells, but these agents often cannot detect the disease-causing changes happening inside cancer cells, which look normal from the outside. Learn more.

 

Barriers to breast cancer screening remain despite Medicaid expansion for preventive screening tests and implementation of patient navigation programs under the Affordable Care Act, with women from underserved communities experiencing disproportionately low rates of screening mammography, according to a study that was conducted by New York Medical College (NYMC) School of Medicine (SOM) faculty and students and recently published in BMC Women’s Health. Learn more.

 

Rates of one type of stroke called subarachnoid hemorrhage have increased in older people and men in recent years, and such strokes occur in Black people at a disproportionately higher rate compared to people of other races and ethnicities, according to a study published in the Oct. 26 online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Learn more.

 

The psychedelic drugs LSD and psilocybin activate serotonin receptors on brain cells in a way that reduces the energy needed for the brain to switch between different activity states, according to a study led by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers. The study, which appeared Oct. 3 in Nature Communications, offers insight into the mechanism of these drugs’ effects—effects that many hope can someday be harnessed therapeutically. The research also represents a new approach to the evaluation of drugs that act on the brain. Learn more.

 

Dr. Diaz-Griffero studies the early events of HIV infection. A native of Chile, he earned a master’s in plant virology by pursuing a combined program between the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the Max Planck Institute for Plant Molecular Physiology in Germany, followed by a Ph.D. in retrovirology at Einstein. He later completed postdoctoral fellowships at NYU School of Medicine and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School. Learn more.

 

A new study by University of Rochester Medical Center researchers found that a majority of infant formula sold in the United States is lactose-reduced despite not being medically-neccessary for most families. The sugars found in lactose-reduced infant formula are associated with higher risks of obesity, changes in the microbiome, and formulation of biofilms on teeth. Learn more.

 

With the return of autumn and the shift in daylight, many people experience reduced energy, sleep disturbances, and depressed mood. Called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), or more commonly known as “winter blues”, this subtype of depression is relatively common among those in their 20s, including busy medical students who are already facing the rigors of academic and professional obligations. Learn more.

 

Immigrant pregnant people faced persistent inequities in obtaining timely prenatal care as compared with native-born pregnant people in the United States over an eight-year period, a factor that could be contributing to longstanding health disadvantages, according to an analysis published in JAMA Network Open on October 28. Learn more.

 

A new study may have solved a mystery surrounding Crohn’s disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease in which immune defenses meant to attack invading microbes instead mistakenly target the body’s own digestive tract. Norovirus, a common infection that causes vomiting and diarrhea, is one of several viruses and bacteria thought to trigger disease onset in people with Crohn’s disease, but the field does not know why.. Learn more.

 

Scientists discovered an important molecular link between lung tumor growth and disrupted circadian rhythms, according to a new paper co-authored by a Wilmot Cancer Institute investigator and led by the Scripps Research Institute in California. Circadian rhythms, sometimes called the “biological clock,” is the cellular process that rules sleep-wake cycles. Jet lag, nighttime snacking, lack of sleep, or irregular work schedules can wreck circadian rhythms. Learn more.

 

Researchers at Upstate Medical University in collaboration with the U.S. Army have advanced the development of an experimental Dengue Human Infection Model (DHIM) that is expected to be used widely by drug makers to advance the development of safe and effective vaccines against the dengue viruses. Details of a recent study performed at Upstate describing how dengue virus infects humans and drives immune responses are contained in a paper published Oct. 26 in the high-impact journal Science Translational Medicine. Learn more.

 

New York Institute of Technology’s Center for Esports Medicine announced a research collaboration with GE Healthcare that will seek to analyze the lean body mass of competitive esport athletes and help establish the sport’s first body composition benchmarks. While sport-specific body composition benchmarks have been developed for traditional athletes, they have yet to be established for competitive gamers, who practice up to 10 hours per day and perform upwards of 600 action moves per minute. Learn more.

 

The Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell virtually hosted its eleventh annual Medical Student Research Day Symposium on November 2, 2022, highlighting the summer research of over ninety Zucker School of Medicine students. “This research helps our students attain the necessary skills to thrive in all fields of medicine and biomedical sciences,” said Joel N.H. Stern, PhD, professor of neurology, science education, urology, and molecular medicine and director of the Office of Medical Student Research at the Zucker School of Medicine. Learn more.

 

“Your baby has a genetic disease.” It’s one of the most terrifying things that new parents can hear. Yet it frequently turns out not to be true because, while newborn screening is extremely accurate for many common conditions, screening accuracy rates for rare, even fatal conditions can be abysmal, according to genetics specialists. The extraordinarily high false positive rate can subject newborns to unnecessary, often painful, interventions, and parents to unnecessary anxiety. Learn more.

 

More than 25 million Americans play soccer, the world’s most popular sport. Soccer significantly benefits brain health by boosting aerobic capacity and oxygen and blood flow to the brain, but it also has a downside: Recent studies show that highly repetitive heading of the ball is associated with structural brain changes and worse cognitive performance similar to brain damage caused by concussion. Learn more.

 

On March 20 & 21, 2023, AMSNY will present Science Forward: Towards Inclusive Excellence in Academia, a two-day symposium to increase diversity, expand inclusion and uphold equity in basic science research at New York State’s academic research institutions. Planning is being facilitated by AMSNY’s Biosciences Advisory Council – comprising the deans of research at the 17 medical schools, as well as Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and The Rockefeller University – which advises AMSNY on its bioscience initiatives. If you would like to stay up to date on the symposium as we announce registration information, additional speakers, panelists, and professional development sessions, please enter your contact information here.

 

Even before she had made up her mind about which career path to choose, emergency medicine has been at the center of E. Brooke Lerner’s professional life. So when her life took an extremely unexpected turn earlier this year, (which she discusses in this video), it made sense that in reconfiguring her priorities, emergency medicine would still be one of them. Learn more.

 

The Interstate Environmental Commission (IEC) announced the opening of its new laboratory headquarters and office with a ribbon-cutting event held at BioBAT, located in the Brooklyn Army Terminal. The newly built facility 2800 square-foot space will allow IEC to expand and advance its laboratory capabilities, technology, and analytical parameters, house all of IEC’s operational activities, including its environmental laboratory, which analyzes water samples collected throughout the tri-state area to assess the ecological and recreational quality of the region’s waterbodies. Learn more.