Each year, the ACMG Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine grants its Next Generation fellowship awards to promising early career professionals in a range of medical genetics and genomics specialties including Biochemical Genetics and Laboratory Genetics and Genomics. Support for this year’s class of Fellows was generously provided by Bionano Genomics, and Sanofi. The ACMG Foundation depends on corporate donations to support these and many other critical programs and thanks all the members of our Corporate Partners Program. “I am ...

The ACMG Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine is proud to present the ACMG Foundation/David L. Rimoin Inspiring Excellence Award to Isabelle B. Cooperstein, BS for her featured platform presentation at the 2023 ACMG Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting, “Discovery and therapeutic implications of pathogenic retroelements in neurodegenerative diseases.” Isabelle B. Cooperstein, BS, is a third-year PhD candidate in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology ...

AMES, IA – Since 1970, the number of people living outside their countries of birth has tripled. Most migrants are looking for work or better economic opportunities. But millions seek to escape violence, persecution or natural disasters. Their integration into a new society often depends on non-governmental organizations that provide services and advocate on their behalf. A recently published study highlights how the specific political and cultural context of a country affects the NGOs’ communication with the public. Co-author and Iowa State Professor Daniela Dimitrova specializes in international journalism and global media coverage. ...

Nara Lygia de Macena Sobreira, MD, PhD is the recipient of the ACMG Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine’s 2023 Dr. Michael S. Watson Genetic and Genomic Medicine Innovation Award—the “Watson Award”—named for the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics first and longstanding executive director, Michael S. Watson, MS, PhD, FACMG. “I am honored and grateful for receiving the 2023 Dr. Michael S. Watson Genetic and Genomic Medicine Innovation Award. Since the beginning of my medical genetics residency in Brazil, I have been blessed to work with amazing mentors and colleagues in innovative ...

March 15, 2023 – In response to an article published in the February issue of The Hearing Journal, the audiology and hearing solutions company ReSound donated nearly 120 rechargeable hearing aids to address the hearing health care crisis among Ukrainian refugees in Poland. The Hearing Journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. The hearing aids were given to the Heart of Hearing team, which is led by King Chung, PhD, CCC-A, professor of audiology at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL and the director of the audiology ...

SPOKANE, Wash.—People living in the United States must travel significantly farther to access methadone treatment for opioid addiction than Canadians, suggests a new study led by Washington State University researchers. Published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, the researchers’ analysis showed that the average driving distance to the closest methadone clinic accepting new patients was more than three times greater in the U.S. compared to Canada. When limiting their analysis to clinics that could provide treatment within 48 hours the difference was even larger, with those in the U.S. having to travel more than five times farther than their ...

Researchers from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of Amsterdam published a new Journal of Marketing study that examines how sugar reduction strategies affect new product sales. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “A War on Sugar? Effects of Reduced Sugar Content and Package Size in The Soda Category” and is authored by Kristopher O. Keller and Jonne Y. Guyt. The United States has a sugar problem. Excessive ...

Alexander M. Holtz, MD, PhD is the recipient of the 2023 Richard King Trainee Award. This award was instituted by the ACMG Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine to encourage American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ABMGG), international equivalents, or genetic counseling trainees in their careers and to foster the publication of the highest quality research in Genetics in Medicine (GIM), an official journal of the ACMG. Each year the editorial board reviews all articles published in GIM by eligible trainees ...

Sarah Jurgensmeyer, MS, CGC is the recipient of the 2023 ACMG Foundation Carolyn Mills Lovell Genetic Counselor Award. Ms. Jurgensmeyer received the Lovell award for her platform presentation at the 2023 ACMG Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting, “Genetic Counselor-Led Exome Sequencing Clinic Pilot Program to Increase Access to Pediatric Genetic Services.” ACMG Foundation President Bruce R. Korf, MD, PhD, FACMG said, “Congratulations to Sarah Jurgensmeyer, recipient of this year’s ACMG ...

WHAT:                ATS 2023 Conference Program is Live! Register Now WHO:                  Scientific Sessions in Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine WHERE:              Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC WHEN:                May 21-24*   The ATS 2023 International Conference Program is now live! Get ready for a series of dynamic scientific ...

COVID-19 has caused significant global panic after its rapid emergence more than 3 years ago. Although we now have highly effective vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, scientists continue to study emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants in order to safeguard public health and devise global preventive strategies against emerging variants. A team led by Japanese researchers has recently discovered that the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron XBB.1.5 variant, prevalent in the Western hemisphere, has high transmissibility and infectivity.   Severe acute respiratory ...

Immunotherapy is an effective form of therapy for different types of cancer. However, for pancreatic cancer, its effect is limited and differs between men and women. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now found a possible explanation for this sex difference. The study, which is published in Cancer Research, reveals the presence of an immune cell in women with pancreatic cancer that obstructs the body’s immune response. The results can pave the way for a more sex-specific treatment. “More and more evidence is coming in that male and female hormones affect ...

A new paper in The Review of Economic Studies, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that carbon taxes will be less effective at reducing carbon emissions than previously thought. It also finds that tax interventions needed to achieve goals agreed upon in the Paris Climate Agreement of 2016 will need to be larger than previously thought. There is growing interest among researchers and policymakers in using economic policy to reduce or eliminate carbon dioxide emissions. Policy can reduce carbon emissions in several ways, including pushing the economy towards cleaner sources of energy and decreasing overall energy use. The researchers ...

Mass fungus infections that drive populations worldwide to near-collapse don’t just occur in science fiction. Chytridiomycosis, the worst vertebrate disease in recorded history, has already wiped out hundreds of species of amphibians around the world. Due to a large part to this fungal disease, 41% of amphibians are currently threatened with extinction. Only species living in Africa seemed to have been relatively spared from the scourge of chytridiomycosis – at least so far. Now, a study in Frontiers in Conservation Science ...

Oxides of tin (SnxOy) are found in many of modern technologies due to their versatile nature. The multivalent oxidation states of tin—Sn2+ and Sn4+—impart tin oxides with electroconductivity, photocatalysis, and various functional properties. For the photocatalysis application of tin oxides, a narrow bandgap for visible-light absorption is indispensable to utilize a wide range of solar energy. Hence, the discovery of new SnxOy could help improve the efficiency of many environmentally significant photocatalytic reactions like water splitting and CO2 reduction. ...

Glenview, Illinois – The American College of Chest Physicians® (CHEST) recently released a new clinical guideline on respiratory management of patients with neuromuscular weakness. Published in the journal CHEST®, the guideline contains 15 evidence-based recommendations, a good practice statement and an ungraded consensus-based statement. Endorsed by the American Association for Respiratory Care, the American Thoracic Society, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Canadian Thoracic Society, the guideline recommendations include mouthpiece ventilation, transition to home mechanical ventilation, salivary secretion management and airway clearance ...

To understand how driverless vehicles can navigate the complexities of the road, researchers often use game theory — mathematical models representing the way rational agents behave strategically to meet their goals.  Dejan Milutinovic, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Santa Cruz, has long worked with colleagues on the complex subset of game theory called differential games, which have to do with game players in motion. One of these games is called the wall pursuit game, a relatively simple model for a situation in which a faster pursuer ...

Sticking closely to a Mediterranean diet cuts a woman’s risks of cardiovascular disease and death by nearly 25%, finds a pooled data analysis of the available evidence—the first of its kind—published online in the journal Heart. The findings prompt the researchers to call for more sex specific research to guide clinical practice in heart health. Cardiovascular disease accounts for more than a third of all deaths in women around the world. While a healthy diet is a key plank of prevention, most relevant clinical trials have included relatively few women or haven’t reported the results by sex, say the researchers. And current guidelines ...

A high blood caffeine level might curb the amount of body fat a person carries and their risk of type 2 diabetes, suggests research published in the open access journal BMJ Medicine. In light of their findings, the potential role of calorie free caffeinated drinks for lowering the risks of obesity and type 2 diabetes is probably now worth exploring, say the researchers. Previously published research indicates that drinking 3-5 daily cups of coffee, a rich source of caffeine, is associated with a lower risk ...

Health information on M(onkey)pox, posted on the social media platform TikTok, is often inaccurate, incomplete, and of poor quality, finds a recent analysis of relevant videos, published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health. The findings highlight the potential risks of using social media for health information, particularly during public health emergencies, warn the researchers. Mpox, formerly called monkeypox, usually describes fever, swollen lymph glands (lymphadenopathy), and painful skin pustules all over the body ...

New research by the Human Brain Project has found that in the brains of patients with epilepsy, changes in large scale neuronal activations can be detected in the brain’s resting state activity, even when no seizure is ongoing. The non-invasive approach could lead to a new method to aid epilepsy diagnostics. Diagnosing epilepsy can be problematic for patients, who sometimes have to wear helmets and electrodes for prolonged periods of time waiting for an epileptic episode to happen, so that the clinicians can document it with EEG. Alternatively, the seizure is artificially induced, causing discomfort. The new ...

A new study has found evidence of cheesemaking, using milk from multiple animals in Late Neolithic Poland. The research suggests that early farmers reduced the lactose content in milk by making it into cheese or other dairy products like yoghurt, and used dairy products from a number of different animals, such as cows, sheep or goats. Lactose intolerance was a common condition in almost everyone in Europe during the Neolithic and until the Late Bronze Age when the genetic mutation became widespread, enabling adults to produce lactase, the enzyme which breaks down lactose in the body. Researchers looked at the practice of dairy processing ...

Community health workers can make a great difference in increasing the number of pregnant women who receive life-saving preventive antimalarial treatment, according to a study conducted in four sub-Saharan African countries and led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by “la Caixa” Foundation. The findings, published in The Lancet Global Health, will help to guide malaria control strategies in pregnant women and improve maternal and infant health in malaria-endemic ...

Robots can be useful as mental wellbeing coaches in the workplace – but perception of their effectiveness depends in large part on what the robot looks like. Researchers from the University of Cambridge carried out a study in a tech consultancy firm using two different robot wellbeing coaches, where 26 employees participated in weekly robot-led wellbeing sessions for four weeks. Although the robots had identical voices, facial expressions, and scripts for the sessions, the robots’ physical appearance affected how participants interacted with it. Participants who did their wellbeing exercises with a toy-like robot said that they felt more of a connection ...

Wildlife documentaries miss an opportunity to highlight the diversity of nature by focusing too much on mammals and birds, according to a new study. In a new study published in People and Nature, researchers from the University of Cambridge have shown that while the production of wildlife documentaries has exploded over recent decades, they portray a biased view of the natural world around us. Our natural world is under threat, from habitat and biodiversity loss, to high extinction rates. At the same time, there is a growing disconnect between people and nature, with children’s opportunities to experience the natural world diminishing. Now more ...