Focus: Hidden - Maryland

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Johns Hopkins scientist Steven Salzberg, Ph.D., known for his ability to tackle the most difficult projects in genome sequencing, has been elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He joins the group of 213 scientists, scholars, writers, artists and other leaders, including former President Barack Obama and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who make up the class of 2018.

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Scientists have for the first time found direct causal links between the neurotransmitter dopamine and avoidance – behavior related to pain and fear. Researchers have long known that dopamine plays a key role in driving behavior related to pleasurable goals, such as food, sex and social interaction. In general, increasing dopamine boosts the drive toward these stimuli. But dopamine’s role in allowing organisms to avoid negative events has remained mysterious.

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A smartphone app designed to promote proper child car seat use among parents proved effective in a study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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For 28 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been delivering breathtaking views of the universe. The latest offering is this image of the Lagoon Nebula to celebrate the telescope’s anniversary. Hubble shows the roiling heart of this vast stellar nursery in stunning unprecedented detail.

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Chronic bladder pain affects millions with abdominal discomfort that increases as their bladder fills, causing excessive urinary urgency and frequency. Neuroscientists used optogenetics in experiments with mice to switch on and off the neurons that signal bladder pain.

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Soldiers who deploy twice in one year, with six months or less between each deployment, could be at an increased risk for attempted suicide during or after their second deployment, according to a study published April 18.

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Interventions such as speeding enforcement and formal swimming lessons for young children could potentially save more than 250,000 lives a year if they were implemented across populations living in extreme poverty in low- and middle-income countries, according to a new study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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In a new analysis of interviews conducted with children who have asthma, their caregivers and their clinicians, Johns Hopkins researchers found that there was significant lack of agreement about why the kids miss their needed daily anti-inflammatory medication.

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Using computer models and laboratory rats, Johns Hopkins researchers have demonstrated that “direct electrical current” can be delivered to nerves preferentially, blocking pain signals while leaving other sensations undisturbed.

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The Melanoma and Skin Cancer Center at Mercy offers comprehensive care and leading edge treatment options for skin cancers including advanced-stage melanoma.

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This month’s issue of the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics features research using novel proteomics methods to address unanswered questions in cancer research, including protein variation within tumors; the failure of a candidate cancer drug; and how a chemotherapeutic combination acts synergistically.

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The American Physiological Society (APS) has announced the 2018 recipients of its distinguished lecturer awards. APS is pleased to recognize these outstanding honorees, who will present their lectures at the APS annual meeting at Experimental Biology 2018 (April 21–25 in San Diego).

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APS President Dennis Brown, PhD, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, has organized a thought-provoking President’s Symposium Series for the American Physiological Society (APS) annual meeting at Experimental Biology 2018 in San Diego. Three symposia will focus on the theme “Exosomes: The New Frontier.” Top researchers in physiology will discuss the biology and pathophysiology of exosomes—tiny structures secreted from cells and found in many body fluids—as well as the use of exosomes as diagnostic and therapeutic tools. The series concludes on Wednesday with the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Lecture by Nobel Laureate Leland Hartwell, PhD, director of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University.

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Theoretical physicists used simulations to explain the unusual readings collected in 2009 by the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging mission. The origin of energetic electrons detected in Mercury’s magnetic tail has puzzled scientists. This new study, appearing in Physics of Plasmas, provides a possible solution to how these energetic electrons form.

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Machine learning algorithms excel at finding complex patterns within big data, so researchers often use them to make predictions. Researchers are pushing the technology beyond finding correlations to help uncover hidden cause-effect relationships and drive scientific discoveries. At the University of South Florida, researchers are integrating machine learning techniques into their work studying proteins. As they report in The Journal of Chemical Physics, one of their main challenges has been a lack of methods to identify cause-effect relationships in data obtained from molecular dynamics simulations.

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Each year, the effects of corroding materials sap more than $1 trillion from the global economy. As certain alloys are exposed to extreme stress and temperatures, an oxide film begins to form, causing the alloys to break down even more quickly. What precisely makes these conditions so conducive for corrosion, however, remains poorly understood, especially in microelectromechanical devices. Chinese researchers have started to chip away at why these materials corrode under mechanical stress; they describe their work in the Journal of Applied Physics.

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Students develop a blood-clotting “super gel” that can be injected through a catheter but is hyper-absorbent enough to then swell with blood, blocking further bleeding.

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Tune in today for a webcast of the 3rd annual NIGMS Director’s Early-Career Investigator Lecture where Dr. Jeramiah Smith, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, will describe how his research on the sea lamprey is shedding light on cancer biology, tissue regeneration, and vertebrate evolution.

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Taking the road home to Baltimore rewards an HIV researcher and a community-minded caregiver. The city provides fertile ground for their contributions.

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A drug given to early stage lung cancer patients before they undergo surgery showed major tumor responses in the removed tumor and an increase in anti-tumor T-cells that remained after the tumor was removed, which resulted in fewer relapse cases in the patients.

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Advances in nanotechnology have made it possible to control the size, shape, composition, elasticity and chemical properties of laboratory-made nanomaterials. Yet many of these materials do not to function as expected in the body. In a recent issue of Biointerphases, the team homes in on biomembranes -- the gatekeeping bilipid-layers and proteins surrounding cells. They explore the barriers a synthetic nanomaterial must breach to enter a cell and achieve its intended purpose.

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The American Association of Anatomists (AAA) is honored to announce its 2018 award winners. All awards will be presented during the Closing Awards Ceremony at AAA's 2018 annual meeting at Experimental Biology (EB) in San Diego, CA on Tuesday, April 24, 2018, at 7:30pm.

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Dr. Charles N. Serhan is the 2018 recipient of the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP) Rous-Whipple Award. Since 1979, this award has been presented annually to a senior scientist with a distinguished career in research who has advanced the understanding of disease and has continued productivity at the time of the award.

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Dr. Janardan K. Reddy, Professor Emeritus of Pathology at Northwestern University, is this year’s recipient of the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP) Gold-Headed Cane Award.

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The American Association of Anatomists (AAA) is honored to announce its 2018 Young Investigator Award winners. All awards will be presented during the Closing Awards Ceremony at AAA's 2018 annual meeting at Experimental Biology (EB) in San Diego, CA. The ceremony is being held Tuesday, April 24, 2017, at 7:30 pm.

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In a multicenter database study of adults who had undergone surgery for spinal deformities, researchers say that those who had used narcotics daily on average had worse outcomes, such as longer intensive care unit stays and more severe postop disability, compared with those who did not use opioids preoperatively.

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A single foodborne outbreak could cost a restaurant millions of dollars in lost revenue, fines, lawsuits, legal fees, insurance premium increases, inspection costs and staff retraining, a new study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests.

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Omega-3 fatty acid supplements taken orally proved no better than placebo at relieving symptoms or signs of dry eye, according to the findings of a well-controlled trial funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

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A new study finds that social media distraction in the classroom interferes with visual, but not auditory, learning in college students. The paper is published in Advances in Physiology Education.

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This month’s issue of the Journal of Lipid Research features studies examining how fats in the diet affect health, including whether the ketogenic diet is a reasonable cancer therapy; how the type of unsaturated fats in a mouse’s chow affects inflammation; and how cells respond to nutrient signals.

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Genetic archaeologist David Reich discusses how DNA retrieved from inch-long bone in the skull has accelerated our understanding of ancient humans.

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HHMI scientists have deconstructed the brain circuits that control parenting behavior in mice, and identified discrete sets of cells that control actions, motivations, and hormonal changes involved in nurturing young animals.

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Scientists have developed novel ways to study how and why cells move in their search for treatments of bacterial infection and diseases such as cancer.

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Mercy Medical Center has been named the recipient of the 2018 AONE (American Organization of Nurse Executives) Prism Diversity Award. This award recognizes a nurse leader or organization which has advanced diversity efforts within the nursing profession, community or organization.

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There is no permanent cure for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of vision loss in adults ages 50 and older affecting about 10 million Americans.

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When power generators transfer electricity to homes, businesses and the power grid, they lose almost 10 percent of the generated power. To address this problem, scientists are researching new diamond semiconductor circuits to make power conversion systems more efficient. Researchers in Japan successfully fabricated a key circuit in power conversion systems using hydrogenated diamond. These circuits can be used in diamond-based electronic devices that are smaller, lighter and more efficient than silicon-based devices. They report their findings in this week’s Applied Physics Letters.

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Johns Hopkins University researchers have developed a way to study the brain of a bat as it flies, recording for the first time what happens as a roving animal focuses and refocuses its attention.

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Adding the monoclonal antibody drug trastuzumab—already used to treat certain breast cancers—to the chemotherapy regimen of women with a rare form of uterine cancer lengthens the amount of time their tumors are kept from growing, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers conducting a small phase II trial of the regimen, testing its safety and value.

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Renowned scientists and practitioners will address key topics in nutrition in the United States and around the globe at Nutrition 2018, the inaugural flagship meeting of the American Society for Nutrition.

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Former Veterans Affairs Cabinet Secretary and retired Army Lieutenant General (Dr.) James B. Peake will deliver the commencement address for the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences on Saturday, May 19, at the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

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It is most common in people 60 and older, but low vision can affect anyone at any age.

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Many of the “forensic science” methods commonly used in criminal cases and portrayed in popular police TV dramas have never been scientifically validated and may lead to unjust verdicts, according to an editorial in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is pleased to announce the winners of its annual awards, and the times and titles of their talks at ASBMB 2018 in San Diego in late April.

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The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) Annual Meeting is the largest gathering of eye and vision researchers in the world, with over 11,000 attendees from more than 75 countries. The five-day meeting will feature more than 6,000 poster and paper presentations of cutting-edge eye and vision research, offering an early glimpse into the latest advances in potential treatments for eye disease and blindness — often years ahead of their introduction to clinical practice.

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Occasionally—at any given time—a sweet-sounding, classic children’s melody is played over the intercom system at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore for all to hear. It is part of a new tradition at the hospital that acknowledges a joyous time for families: the arrival of their new bundle of joy.

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A new smartphone app allows Parkinson's disease patients and their doctors to better track the progression of symptoms, such as tremors and walking difficulties, that can vary dramatically over days, or even hours.

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Researchers at Harvard Medical School, the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Georgia have described how the protein that allows strep and staph bacteria to stick to human cells is prepared and packaged. The research, which could facilitate the development of new antibiotics, will appear in the April 6 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

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Science promises to sound more exciting than ever at this year's Acoustical Society of America meeting. Presenters will reveal the latest in acoustics research with insight into topics like how new materials could control acoustic waves, improving audio in virtual reality, acoustic levitation, and how certain insects use acoustics to attract a mate, as well as much more.

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A family history of cancer is certainly a common, uncontrollable risk factor. But most cancers aren’t inherited.

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In public-health campaigns to boost support for improvements in the mental health system, messages that link mental illness to violence may be counterproductive, according to a study from researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.