LOUISVILLE, Ky. – University of Louisville researchers have received $11.7 million to study microorganisms throughout the body, including the mouth. What they find could lead to better understanding and treatment of a range of chronic conditions. The five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is an extension of a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant awarded in 2018 to study the connection between those microorganisms — such as bacteria, yeasts, fungi, viruses and protozoans — and disease. The work could lead to discoveries in, among others, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, diabetes, periodontitis ...

North Carolina State University researchers found in a new study that while many tourists visiting a mountain destination in southern Mexico wouldn’t change their near-term plans to visit due to climate change, more than two-thirds said they would or might change their plans by 2060 under more drastically changed conditions. In addition, researchers also found that 70% of those surveyed would change the length of their stay in response to climate change by 2060, and some indicated they’d shift the timing of their visit. The findings, published in a ...

University of Houston, the Energy University, is proud to introduce the inaugural cohort of UH-Chevron Energy Graduate Fellows – eight graduate students who are actively involved in innovative energy-related research across the UH campus. Funded by Chevron, the program supports graduate students’ research efforts through a one-year, $12,000 fellowship which includes mentoring by faculty experts and the opportunity to engage with subject matter experts at Chevron. “We love that Chevron is sponsoring this group of fellows because it’s a fantastic way for us to get involved with the students who are working on some of the biggest problems ...

This study integrates an intersectional framework with data on 15,000 U.S. ninth graders from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to investigate differences in ninth-grade math course placement at the intersection of adolescents’ learning disability status, race, and socioeconomic status (SES). Descriptive results support an increased liability perspective, with the negative relationship between a learning disability and math course placement larger for adolescents more privileged in terms of their ...

HOUSTON (Aug. 25, 2023) — The Texas Heart Institute recently received a five-year, $2 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health to advance the technology supporting development of transplantable bioartificial hearts. The project, funded by a Stephen I. Katz Early Stage Investigator Research Project Grant, will be led by Camila Hochman-Mendez, MSc, PhD, director of Regenerative Medicine Research and the Biorepository and Biospecimen Profiling Core Laboratory. The interdisciplinary research team includes ...

The American Heart Association’s (AHA) Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences has selected Juhyun Lee, assistant professor in the Bioengineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington, as a fellow. “It is an honor to be elected a fellow of the American Heart Association and to have my work to improve basic cardiovascular science through high-resolution imaging system development and biomechanical analysis of heart development recognized as a biomedical engineer,” Lee said. Lee is the fifth AHA fellow in the Bioengineering Department, joining Yi Hong, Jun Liao, Kytai Nguyen and Liping Tang. He received an AHA Early ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced 106 awards totaling $126 million in research and development grants for 90 different small businesses whose projects will address multiple mission areas across the Department, including clean energy and decarbonization, cybersecurity and grid reliability, fusion energy, and nuclear nonproliferation. Small businesses are the backbone of the nation’s economy, employing nearly half of all private-sector workers in the United States, and will play a major role in decarbonizing the ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC – Anxiety remains one of the most diagnosed clinical symptoms in adolescence and is a potent precursor to and exacerbator of substance use disorder. In their new $3.8-million study entitled “Neurobiological Pathways from Anxiety Symptomology in Early Adolescence to Risk for Adverse Patterns of Substance Use” funded through the National Institute on Drug Abuse, UNC School of Medicine and Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill researchers will examine the neural and physiological mechanisms associated with emergence ...

Imagine a computer that is not slowed down by antivirus software. A computer that does not require constant updates that usually includes a subscription cost. What if malicious software and viruses – or malware – detection could simply be built into the hardware of future computers? Dr. Marcus Botacin, a visiting assistant professor in the computer science and engineering department at Texas A&M University, recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop such a concept. “This is my first grant application ever,” Botacin said. “This grant includes funding for two Ph.D. students that will be my first graduate students, and ...

Nansi Boghossian and Melissa Nolan, both associate professors in the Arnold School’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, have been awarded more than $600K each from The Duke Endowment to lead projects that improve access to health care for underserved populations. Their projects align with the Endowment’s goals to provide essential health care services, particularly for children and families, to residents of the Carolinas. “To truly achieve health for all, we must develop and test innovative yet practical ...

Ohio residents who vote against tax renewals for parks and recreation spending could be costing themselves a significant amount of wealth in the form of their homes' value, a University of Cincinnati economist found. David Brasington, PhD, the James C. and Caroline Kautz Chair in Political Economy and professor of economics in UC's Carl H. Lindner College of Business, studied the effect of cutting funding for the maintenance of local parks and recreational areas on housing values for a research article that was published in Journal ...

August 25, 2023 – Potentially modifiable comorbid conditions and complications have a major impact on the risks of total hip arthroplasty (THA) for people in their nineties, reports a study in The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio in partnership with Wolters Kluwer. Patients ³90 years old have higher complication and mortality rates following THA, as compared with younger patients. But while age is a significant factor, the risks associated with THA in nonagenarians ...

ST. LOUIS — Erectile dysfunction (ED) is more common in older individuals with long-term Type 2 diabetes. However, emerging research at Saint Louis University School of Medicine has found that ED indicates undiagnosed prediabetes and type 2 diabetes in young men under 40.  Although the prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes declined in the United States from 1988 to 2020, 2.5% of the population has persistent undiagnosed diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate 8.5 million adults have undiagnosed diabetes, and a quarter of these cases are among young persons 18 to 44. In a recent study published ...

Pupils with special educational needs and disabilities should be given equal opportunities to learn languages, a new report argues. Anecdotal evidence suggests that children with SEND are often removed from language lessons, because the subject is perceived as “difficult”, an assumption that is further exacerbated by trends with GCSE subject choices. Instead of withdrawing children with additional needs from the foreign languages classroom, opportunities should be provided for them to thrive within it. Evidence shows learning new languages can be possible and hugely beneficial for many children with ...

CHICAGO, Aug. 25, 2023 – Acetaminophen or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen are recommended as first-line treatments for managing short-term dental pain in children under age 12, according to a new clinical practice guideline developed by the American Dental Association Science & Research Institute (ADASRI), the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine and the Center for Integrative Global Oral Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. The guideline has been endorsed by the American Dental Association. A guideline panel determined that, when used as directed, acetaminophen alone, ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – In 2012, University of Alabama at Birmingham researcher Anath Shalev, M.D., reported that a decades-old blood pressure medication called verapamil completely reversed diabetes in animal models. In 2018, the team had translated these findings into a randomized, controlled, clinical trial, demonstrating significantly improved beta cell function for one year in human subjects with recent onset Type 1 diabetes. By last year, in a small follow-up study, Shalev and colleagues had found that adult Type 1 diabetes patients taking oral verapamil required less daily insulin ...

A new study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has examined how T cells of the immune system are affected by weightlessness. The results, which are published in the journal Science Advances, could explain why astronauts’ T cells become less active and less effective at fighting infection. The next steps in the exploration of space are human missions to the moon and to Mars. Space is an extremely hostile environment that poses threats to human health. One such threat is changes to the immune system that occur in astronauts while in space and ...

Ever since the Jerry Lewis telethons began in the 1960s, millions of people have become familiar with an otherwise rare disease called muscular dystrophy (MD). The medical world has learned much over the ensuing years, including that more than 30 closely related disorders exist that can produce the gradual muscle degeneration that steals a child’s ability to walk and eventually disrupts other organ functions. An estimated 250,000 people in the U.S. are living with a muscular dystrophy. While many are living longer lives thanks to improved treatments, no cure has been found. Now an eye-opening study ...

Cilia are thin, eyelash-like extensions on the surface of cells. They perform a wide variety of functions, acting as mechanosensors or chemosensors, and play a crucial role in many signaling pathways. In the last few decades, the organelle has undergone a remarkable, but at the same time sinister, career transformation. It evolved from an organelle whose relevance was unclear to becoming a central player in the pathogenesis of a large group of diseases. These so-called ciliopathies are associated with a wide range of symptoms, including hearing loss, visual impairment, obesity, kidney disease, and mental disability. Different gene mutations impair cilia formation, ...

Researchers at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering looked to origami to create new sensors that could someday be employed to detect deformations in organs and also for use in wearables and soft robotics. Their paper, “High-Stretchability and Low-Hysteresis Strain Sensors Using Origami-Inspired 3D Mesostructures,” featured in Science Advances explains how USC researchers Hangbo Zhao, Xinghao Huang, Liangshu Liu, Yung Hsin Lin, Rui Feng, Yiyang Shen, and Yuanning Chang developed “stretchable strain sensors,” ...

Amsterdam, Netherlands – 25 Aug 2023: Semaglutide improves heart failure-related symptoms and physical function and results in greater weight loss compared with placebo in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and obesity, according to late breaking research presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2023.1 Approximately half of patients with heart failure in the community have HFpEF.2 Most patients with HFpEF are overweight or obese, and growing evidence suggests that obesity and excess adiposity are not simply comorbidities, ...

Amsterdam, Netherlands – 25 Aug 2023: Blood thinners (anticoagulants) cause bleeding without preventing stroke in patients with atrial high rate episodes (AHRE),  but without electrocardiogram (ECG)-diagnosed atrial fibrillation, according to late breaking research presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2023 and simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine.1 Anticoagulants prevent strokes in patients with atrial fibrillation but are not effective in those without atrial fibrillation, for example in patients with ...

Amsterdam, Netherlands – 25 Aug 2023: Colchicine does not significantly reduce perioperative atrial fibrillation (AF) or myocardial injury after non-cardiac surgery (MINS) in patients undergoing major non-cardiac thoracic surgery, according to late breaking research presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2023.1 Perioperative AF occurs in approximately 10% of patients after major thoracic surgery, while MINS has an incidence of about 20% in the same patient population.2 Patients with perioperative AF and MINS have a poor prognosis.3,4 High levels ...

Amsterdam, Netherlands – 25 Aug 2023:  The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Guidelines on acute coronary syndromes are published online today in European Heart Journal.1 The document covers the management of unstable angina and all types of acute myocardial infarction. “Time is critical in acute coronary syndromes. When an artery supplying the heart with blood becomes blocked, the quicker we open the artery and restore flow, the less damage occurs to the heart muscle,” said Guidelines task force ...

Amsterdam, Netherlands – 25 Aug 2023:  The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Guidelines on cardiomyopathies are published online today in European Heart Journal.1 This is the first international guideline document to include all cardiomyopathy subtypes, and the first time that specific recommendations are made for cardiomyopathies other than hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. “This pioneering document reflects the advances in genetics and cardiac imaging and the advent of new treatments that target specific causes of disease,” said Guidelines task force chairperson Dr. Elena Arbelo of the Hospital Clinic, University of Barcelona, Spain. “At the ...