Feature Channels: Public Health

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In their quest to replicate themselves, viruses have gotten awfully good at tricking human cells into pumping out viral proteins. That’s why scientists have been working to use viruses as forces for good: to deliver useful genes to human cells and help patients who lack important proteins or enzymes. A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Vijay Reddy at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has now uncovered the structural details that make one virus a better tool for future therapies than its closely related “cousin.”

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New methodology allowed researchers at BIDMC to more easily investigate mechanisms of infection and provide new insight into how pathogens can work together to cause disease. Using the new tool, researchers confirmed a safer model for study of Brucella species, which cause a potentially debilitating infectious disease in humans and cattle.

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New research offers veterinarians a forecasting map that tells them which parts of the country are most at risk of Lyme disease infections in dogs, which could also help track and predict Lyme disease in people.

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Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues in Ecuador and Minnesota, have found altered short-term neurological behaviors in children associated with a peak pesticide spraying season linked to the Mother’s Day flower harvest. This study examined children who did not work in agriculture but who lived in agricultural communities in Ecuador.

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Until now, scientists have only had a murky understanding of how these relationships arise. Now Colin Dale and his colleagues at the University of Utah have an answer. It’s good news and bad news, germophobes: The bad news? Mutualistic bacteria start out by invading animal cells just like malevolent disease-causing bacteria do. The good news? Once they’re in, they calm down and play nice.

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Seattle Cancer Care Alliance experts are available to discuss new U.S. Preventive Services Task Force guidelines related to thyroid cancer screening for adults, risk factors and treatment options.

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Mothers infected with malaria during pregnancy can pass more of their own cells to their baby and change the infant’s risk of later infection, a new study shows.

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Iowa State University biomedical researchers have broken new ground in understanding the genome of a parasitic roundworm that infects 2 million people worldwide. The research could lead to more effective treatments to combat the parasites.

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University of California, Irvine vector biologist Anthony James will lead a multimillion-dollar effort to cultivate new strains of mosquitoes to fight malaria in Africa.

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World-renown hepatologist Dr. Paul J. Thuluvath of Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, MD, encourages the Maryland health care community to raise awareness about the importance of hepatitis C screening in light of recent CDC recommendations about the disease.

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Nationwide, counties with the poorest quality across five domains – air, water, land, the built environment and sociodemographic – had the highest incidence of cancer, according to a new study published in the journal Cancer.

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Anil K. Rustgi, MD, has received the 2017 Julius Friedenwald Medal from the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), the leading national and international society of the field with 17,000 members.

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Dr. Laura Forese, executive vice president and chief operating officer of NewYork-Presbyterian, has been named among the top 25 COOs in the country by Modern Healthcare.

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Over 11,000 top eye and vision researchers and clinicians from around the world will attend the Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), May 7-11, in Baltimore, Md., to explore cutting-edge findings in basic and clinical science. The theme and focus of this year's agenda is on creating stronger global connections and effective collaborations to accelerate vision research.

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For the first time, information about worldwide blindness and vision impairment is being projected onto NASA’s room-sized, global display system during the Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (May 7 – 11 at the Baltimore Convention Center).

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Much is known about flu viruses, but little is understood about how they reproduce inside human host cells, spreading infection. Now, a research team headed by investigators from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is the first to identify a mechanism by which influenza A, a family of pathogens that includes the most deadly strains of flu worldwide, hijacks cellular machinery to replicate.

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Notre Dame Researchers have discovered a way to make influenza visible to the naked eye, by engineering dye molecules to target a specific enzyme of the virus.

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Hulin Wu, Ph.D., has been selected as the new chair of the Department of Biostatistics at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health.

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Southern Research is launching a new biosafety training center as the centerpiece of an advanced program called TrainSafe to teach health care workers and laboratory staff how to protect themselves against pathogens responsible for serious infectious diseases.

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NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital has announced that it will roll out paid parental leave for its employees who are new parents. The new policy is the most comprehensive of its kind among New York City hospitals and healthcare systems, offering new parents two to six weeks of paid time off, extended leave for six months and continuation of benefits, in addition to flex time currently available for new parents.

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In recognition of World Hand Hygiene Day, May 5, the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) offers five hand-hygiene tips every hospital patient and their visitor should follow.

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AACN expects more than 6,000 attendees at its annual National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition (NTI), May 22-25, in Houston. The premier annual event for critical care nursing, the conference offers hundreds of sessions to improve clinical practice, patient outcomes and the hospitals’ bottom line with a comprehensive program that incorporates the best evidence-based education.

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College students and other 18-to-25's aren't getting the attention they need to avoid taking up smoking, says University of Montreal PhD candidate Thierry Gagné, who wrote a paper on the subject.

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Some people who use so-called synthetic marijuana, known by names such as K2 and Spice, may be unable to metabolize the drug, leading them to experience its most harmful effects, a UAMS researcher said today at a national scientific meeting in Chicago.

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Even a relatively mild Zika outbreak in the United States could cost more than $183 million in medical costs and productivity losses, suggests a computational analysis led by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers, while a more severe one could result in $1.2 billion or more in medical costs and productivity losses.

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Social smokers’ risk for high blood pressure and high cholesterol is identical to those who light up every day, new research has found.

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Zebrafish exposed to very low levels of methylmercury as embryos not only passed on toxic effects of the chemical exposure to their offspring, but also to the third generation, according to a new study. If the same effects occur in people, it means the health hazards from exposure to methylmercury, which is present in waterways and fish, are dramatically underestimated.

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Some of the nation’s best and brightest clinical and scientific minds will see their achievements highlighted as part of the annual Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) Research Days taking place throughout the month beginning May 2.

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Wayne State University received notice from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health of the $7.5 million renewal for five years of the Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors (CURES). The previous NIH grant for CURES totaled $2.4 million for three years.

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The Division of Infectious Diseases in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine announces the opening of the John G. Bartlett Specialty Practice at The Johns Hopkins Hospital on Monday, May 8, 2017.

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Bloomberg Philanthropies has awarded the University of Illinois at Chicago $8 million to accelerate the development of effective tobacco tax systems in low- and middle-income countries. UIC will use the funding to engage with policy-makers in countries with the highest and fastest-growing rates of tobacco use, including Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan and others.

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Increasing the percentage of elementary school children in the United States who participate in 25 minutes of physical activity three times a week from 32 percent to 50 percent would avoid $21.9 billion in medical costs and lost wages over the course of their lifetimes, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.

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A Rutgers-led team has invented an inexpensive, effective way to kill bacteria and sanitize surfaces with devices made of paper. In the future, paper-based sanitizers may be suitable for clothing that sterilizes itself, devices that sanitize laboratory equipment and smart bandages to heal wounds, among other uses, according to their study.

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Ten patients at Penn Medicine have been cured of the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) following lifesaving kidney transplants from deceased donors who were infected with the disease. The findings point to new strategies for increasing the supply of organs for the nation’s more than 97,000 patients who are awaiting kidney transplants – often for as many as five or more years.

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Distinction represents commitment to ensuring compassionate care for all patients, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation

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• Potentially preventable hospital acquired complications were associated with increased risks of dying while hospitalized or within 90 days of discharge, as well as with a greater likelihood of staying longer in the hospital and needing to be readmitted. • The magnitude of these associations was larger in patients with chronic kidney disease than in those with normal kidney function.

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A University of California, Irvine study on the impact of environmental changes on malaria in sub-Saharan Africa has been awarded up to $9.6 million over seven years from the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, a part of the National Institutes of Health.

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Cancer patients who speak Spanish have new tools to help them understand treatment options for their disease. The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) today released a series of Spanish-language patient videos on radiation therapy for cancer, including breast, prostate, lung, brain and other common cancer types. The videos complement a set of Spanish-language brochures on radiation therapy that ASTRO released earlier this year.

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Public health researchers from Tufts and colleagues conducted a spatial epidemiology study to identify hotspot clusters of hepatitis C infections in Massachusetts. The information may help to make the best use of funding for education, prevention, testing, and treatment.

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Global health leader and former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H., will deliver the keynote address at the 2017 commencement ceremony for Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Frieden, who also led the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, has worked to combat tuberculosis, Ebola, and Zika, reduce tobacco use, and protect and improve health in the United States and around the world. Einstein’s 59th graduation ceremony will be held Wednesday, May 23 at 3 p.m. at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall.

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BioSNTR researchers are investigating how antibodies recognize their targets, activate immune cells and clear influenza from the body. What they learn will result in technologies that biotechnology companies can use to evaluate the effectiveness of their antibody therapeutics.

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The human body produces about a gallon of mucus per day. By studying and replicating mucus’ natural ability to control pathogenic bacteria, scientists hope to find new methods for combatting infections and antibiotic resistance.

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A new computer modeling study from Los Alamos National Laboratory is aimed at making epidemiological models more accessible and useful for public-health collaborators and improving disease-related decision making.

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Cold weather increases the risk of mortality in Texas residents, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health. The findings were recently published in the journal Environmental Pollution.

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Silver has been used to fight infections since ancient times. Today, researchers are using sophisticated techniques such as the gene-editing platform Crispr-Cas9 to take a closer look at how silver poisons pathogens. The work is yielding new insights on how to create effective antimicrobials and avoid the pitfalls of antimicrobial resistance.

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Scientists and physicians at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, working with colleagues at the U.S. Navy Medical Research Center – Biological Defense Research Directorate (NMRC-BDRD), Texas A&M University, a San Diego-based biotech and elsewhere, have successfully used an experimental therapy involving bacteriophages — viruses that target and consume specific strains of bacteria — to treat a patient near death from a multidrug-resistant bacterium.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers collaborated with an international team of scientists to achieve a significant milestone in the effort to understand pathogens responsible for some of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases.

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A national survey from Columbia University School of Nursing finds that almost 40 percent of nursing students say they feel they need more instruction on preventing and controlling infection, especially in busy healthcare environments, despite believing that their nursing program emphasizes the importance of infection prevention. More than half of respondents also report observing breaches in prevention practices during clinical placements, yet have trouble addressing them because they feel unqualified or fear retaliation from others.

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A new study led by Massachusetts Eye and Ear researchers found that oral promethazine, a drug commonly taken to alleviate motion sickness, temporarily worsened vestibular perception thresholds by 31 percent, lowering one’s ability to perceive sensory information about motion, balance and spatial orientation.