St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® and ALSAC, its fundraising and awareness organization, announced new leaders of the St. Jude Board of Governors and ALSAC Board of Directors today. The announcement comes at a time when St. Jude is advancing the largest strategic investment in its 61-year history, designed to profoundly impact children around the world who face cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Those elected to lead the Boards include: St. Jude Chair Judy A. Habib is an experienced business leader and brand strategist with roots in healthcare and lab sciences. Having ...

SAN ANTONIO — October 16, 2023 —Southwest Research Institute’s aerospace acoustic test chamber can now simulate the complex and harsh acoustic environment associated with the thunderous noise of a rocket launch to ensure that space systems can endure blastoff conditions. The test chamber is the newest addition to SwRI’s 74,000-square-foot Space System Spacecraft and Payload Processing Facility, created to rapidly respond to customers needing to design, assemble and test spacecraft, ...

Osaka, Japan – Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the deadliest cancers worldwide, with a 5-year survival rate of less than 10%. Many PDAC tumors in early stage go undetected because they are not found using conventional imaging methods, including fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (PET) scans. To more efficiently combat this pancreatic cancer, a team led by researchers at Osaka University is combining diagnostic and therapeutic procedures into a single integrated process: ‘theranostics’. In an article recently published in Journal of Nuclear Medicine, the team has developed a ‘radio-theranostics’ strategy that uses a new ...

Lerrel Pinto, an assistant professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, has been named a recipient of a 2023 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. Pinto was one of 20 scientific researchers to receive a fellowship.  Pinto, named to MIT Technology Review’s “35 Innovators under 35” list earlier this year, is seeking ways to train robots that can perform a variety of tasks—or, as the magazine put it, create robots that “do a lot more than vacuum.”  “Think of a seemingly easy task of opening an unlocked door—something humans can do effortlessly by adapting their approach to ...

DALLAS, October 16, 2023 — The National Football League (NFL) Foundation and the American Heart Association are helping kids and their families be confident and capable when faced with a cardiac emergency, adding more people to the Association’s Nation of Lifesavers™ movement. Students who participate in the Association’s in-school program, Kids Heart Challenge™, receive free Hands-Only CPR instruction so they can be confident and capable to respond in a cardiac emergency. More than 350,000 out-of-hospital ...

Live vaccinations provided to children who previously received liver or kidney transplants were found to be safe and prompted an immune response to guard against several life-threatening conditions, according to a new study published Oct. 12, 2023, in JAMA Network Open. The study, based on data from 18 organ transplant centers, was co-authored by Lara Danziger-Isakov, MD, MPH, interim director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Cincinnati Children’s, and Amy Feldman, MD, MSCS, medical director of the Liver Transplant Program at Children’s Hospital Colorado.  The results are important because the ...

Bats have acquired remarkable traits throughout their evolution. They’re the only mammals that can fly, and they live much longer than other animals their size. But perhaps most impressive is their robust immune system. It protects bats from viruses that wreak havoc in humans, like COVID-19 or Ebola. It also keeps bats relatively cancer-free. How? According to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists, it’s all in the genes. Using samples collected in Belize with Nancy Simmons from the American Museum of Natural History, CSHL Professors W. Richard McCombie and Adam ...

Gram-negative bacteria cause a variety of infectious diseases in plants and animals alike. Outbreaks of Salmonella and E. coli infections often make headlines due to their severity, and people have to resort to allopathic as well as natural remedies, increasing the burden on the healthcare system. While antibiotics offer an effective solution against bacterial infections, the increasing incidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria have prompted researchers to identify other possible treatments against these infections. With technological advances and modern medicine, researchers are looking into the possibility of disrupting the pathogenicity of the bacteria ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. –  As they grow, children start doing certain activities without their parents watching over them, including trick-or-treating with friends, staying home alone or biking to a friend’s house. And while most parents agree that kids benefit from opportunities to be independent, they may be engaging in more “helicopter parenting” than they realize, suggests a new University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. “There’s a sizable gap between parent attitudes about promoting children’s independence and what they actually allow or encourage ...

PISCATAWAY, NJ—Given the increasing trend toward legalizing marijuana in many states, there is growing concern that underage youth may find the drug easier to access. In fact, a recent study reported in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs suggests that in areas with local retail availability of legalized marijuana, high school students are more likely to use marijuana and alcohol together, as well as alcohol alone. “Greater retail availability may ‘normalize’ marijuana use for young people, even if they are unable to purchase marijuana directly from retail businesses, and retail sales may introduce greater access through social ...

Philadelphia, October 16, 2023 – New research published today by the journal Pediatrics found that driving skills measured at the time of licensure on a virtual driving assessment (VDA), which exposes drivers to common serious crash scenarios, helps predict crash risk in newly licensed young drivers. This study, conducted by the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) with colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan, brings the research community one step closer to identifying which skill deficits put young new drivers at higher risk for crashes. With this cutting-edge information, ...

A new Canadian guideline for treating high-risk drinking and alcohol use disorder (AUD) with 15 evidence-based recommendations to reduce harms associated with high-risk drinking and to support people’s treatment and recovery from AUD is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.230715. High-risk drinking, AUD and alcohol-related harms are common in Canada. Nearly 18% of people aged 15 years or older in Canada will meet the clinical criteria for an AUD in their lifetime, and over 50% of people in Canada aged 15 years or older currently ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- An overwhelming majority of adults (93%) recognize a lump as a symptom of breast cancer, but less than half recognize other common symptoms associated with the disease, according to a consumer survey commissioned by The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James).  Experts say this is very concerning, since most breast cancers do not present with a lump that can be detected by touch – and if they do, it often an ...

An international team of interdisciplinary researchers has successfully created a method for better 3D modelling of complex cancers.  The University of Waterloo-based team combined cutting-edge bioprinting techniques with synthetic structures or microfluidic chips. The method will help lab researchers more accurately understand heterogeneous tumours: tumours with more than one kind of cancer cell, often dispersed in unpredictable patterns.  Traditionally, medical practitioners would biopsy a patient’s tumour, extract cells, and then ...

UK will struggle to build new AI models that compete with ChatGPT and big US tech firms, despite the government's “Frontier AI Taskforce”, say researchers. To boost the economy, UK should focus on developing products that apply “generative AI” to daily life, including tax breaks for businesses investing in AI skills. Legislation regulating AI safety and transparency is needed, so British industry and education can confidently put time and resource into AI development. The British government should offer tax breaks for businesses developing AI-powered products and services, or applying AI ...

Antarctic fur seals that were hunted to near extinction have recovered but now face dangerous decline because of a lack of food, new research suggests. The study of fur seals, almost all of which live on the sub-Antarctic islands of South Georgia, shows that the modern-day population peaked in 2009 at about 3.5 million – a healthy number, although significantly less than previously estimated. But a more detailed count of animals living on a particular South Georgia island called Bird Island also shows the seals are ...

Researchers have gained new insights into the lives and losses of Eurasian otters in Hong Kong, as detailed in a paper published by Oryx—The International Journal of Conservation, published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of international wildlife conservation charity Fauna & Flora. Hong Kong is one of the world’s busiest metropolises, and the Eurasian otter Lutra lutra is among its most threatened wildlife. Dependence on lowland wetlands makes it particularly susceptible to human disturbance. Moreover, the low-lying region within Hong Kong where most otters can be found has been earmarked for a government-led mega ...

SAN FRANCISCO — Although people with opioid use disorder (OUD) are significantly more likely to overdose or have a complication after major surgery than those without the disorder, using medications for the treatment of OUD before surgery may eliminate that extra risk, suggests a large, first-of-its-kind study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2023 annual meeting.   Patients with OUD who didn’t use an OUD medication (such as buprenorphine or methadone) were over four times more likely to overdose after having surgery, yet those who used evidence-based OUD medication ...

(16 October 2023, Copenhagen, Denmark) A groundbreaking new study, presented today at UEG Week 2023, has discovered a significant connection between birthweight and the onset of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease*, now known as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), in young people.1 Most notably, babies with a low birthweight were found to be four times more likely to develop MASLD in childhood, adolescence or young adulthood.1 To investigate this link, a team of researchers from Sweden used the nationwide ESPRESSO cohort and conducted a population-based case-control study of all ...

(Monday, 16 October 2023, Copenhagen, Denmark) New research has identified significant variations in the gut microbiome of individuals who developed pre-cancerous colonic lesions, suggesting a potential connection between gut bacteria and the onset of colorectal lesions and cancers.1 These findings, presented today at UEG Week 2023, open promising new avenues for enhancing the detection and prevention of colorectal cancer.1 The large-scale prospective study, involving 8208 participants, linked data from the Dutch Microbiome ...

SAN FRANCISCO — About 12,000 Black and Hispanic patients who died after surgery the past two decades may have lived if there were no racial and ethnic disparities among Americans having surgery, suggests a study of more than 1.5 million inpatient procedures presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2023 annual meeting. This estimate draws attention to the human toll of disparities in surgical outcomes, with Black patients being 42% more likely and Hispanic patients 21% more likely to die after surgery compared to white patients. Unless efforts to narrow the racial and ethnic gap in surgical outcomes intensify, ...

ROCKVILLE, Md.— After 12 initial weeks of weight loss with intensive lifestyle intervention alone, participants in the SURMOUNT-3 study who were randomly assigned to tirzepatide for 72 weeks achieved a total mean reduction in baseline body weight of 24.3% at week 84. Results of the study, conducted by Eli Lilly & Company, will be presented during the 41st Annual Meeting of The Obesity Society (TOS) at ObesityWeek® 2023 scheduled for Oct. 14–17, in Dallas, Texas. The study will be published in the journal Nature Medicine and publication will coincide with the presentation at the conference. "These are extraordinary findings, ...

SAN FRANCISCO — Blood management programs that reduced or avoided transfusions saved a health system millions of dollars annually, with a return on investment of more than $7 for every dollar spent, while achieving the same or better outcomes, suggests research presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2023 annual meeting. Over the past 10 years, the Johns Hopkins Health System established a comprehensive blood management program with two primary goals: 1) to reduce unnecessary transfusions across the five-hospital health system, and 2) to ...

SAN FRANCISCO — Two simple solutions could help prevent severe bleeding (postpartum hemorrhage) after cesarean delivery, suggests research presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2023 annual meeting. As the leading cause of maternal mortality in the U.S. at the time of birth, postpartum hemorrhage is more common after cesarean deliveries than vaginal births. Both solutions help address uterine atony, which causes up to 80% of postpartum hemorrhage. Uterine atony is when, after delivery, the uterus remains soft and weak instead of contracting to compress the blood vessels that had been attached to the placenta. One solution involves infusing a medication to help the ...

SAN FRANCISCO — An automated pain recognition system using artificial intelligence (AI) holds promise as an unbiased method to detect pain in patients before, during and after surgery, according to research presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2023 annual meeting. Currently, subjective methods are used to assess pain, including the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) — where patients rate their own pain — and the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT) — where health care professionals rate the patient’s pain based on facial expression, ...