Household net worth is a major and overlooked factor in adherence to hormonal therapy among breast cancer patients and partially explains racial disparities in quality of care.
When making simple decisions, neurons in the brain apply the same statistical trick used by Alan Turing to help break Germany’s Enigma code during World War II, according to a new study in animals by researchers at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Mind Brain and Behavior Institute.
Using advanced DNA sequencing methods, researchers have identified a new gene that is associated with sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Nanometer-sized “drones” that deliver a special type of healing molecule to fat deposits in arteries could become a new way to prevent heart attacks caused by atherosclerosis.
The drug Gleevec (imatinib mesylate) is well known not only for its effectiveness against chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, but also for the story behinds its development. A similar drug might be able to tame some brain cancers, new research from Columbia University Medical Center has shown
Full implementation of new hypertension guidelines could prevent 56,000 cardiovascular disease events (mostly heart attacks and strokes) and 13,000 deaths each year, without increasing overall health care costs, an analysis conducted by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center found. The paper was published today in the online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Neurons that trigger our sense of thirst—and neurons that turn it off—have been identified by Columbia University Medical Center neuroscientists. The paper was published today in the online edition of Nature.
A stem cell capable of regenerating both bone and cartilage has been identified in bone marrow of mice.
Biogen Idec and Columbia University Medical Center have formed a $30 million strategic alliance to conduct genetics discovery research on the underlying causes of disease and to identify new treatment approaches.
People with autism have a wide range of symptoms, with no two people sharing the exact type and severity of behaviors. Now a large-scale analysis of hundreds of patients and nearly 1000 genes has started to uncover how diversity among traits can be traced to differences in patients’ genetic mutations.
Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have found that, in addition to gluten, the immune systems of patients with celiac disease react to specific types of non-gluten protein in wheat.
Malaria drug resistance in Southeast Asia is caused by a single mutated gene in the disease-causing parasite, a Columbia-led study has found.
Researchers have devised a way to replace the knee’s protective lining, called the meniscus, using a personalized 3D-printed implant, or scaffold, infused with human growth factors that prompt the body to regenerate the lining on its own. The therapy, successfully tested in sheep, could provide the first effective and long-lasting repair of damaged menisci, which occur in millions of Americans each year and can lead to debilitating arthritis. The paper was published today in the online edition of Science Translational Medicine.
Richard D. Carvajal, MD, has been named director of the Experimental Therapeutics/Phase I program and melanoma service in medical oncology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, effective Nov. 1, 2014. Dr. Carvajal, a medical oncologist, has extensive clinical expertise in melanomas and leadership experience in early-stage clinical trials for patients with advanced cancers, as well as in the development of novel therapies for rare cancers.
Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) has presented Andrew Hattersley, DM, and Mark McCarthy, MD, with the 16th Naomi Berrie Award for Outstanding Research in Diabetes, for their work on the genetics of the disease. Their research has contributed to the discovery of new forms of the disease, improvements in diagnostic methodology, and the development of more effective treatments. The award, presented annually by CUMC’s Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at its Frontiers in Diabetes Conference, is Columbia’s top honor for excellence in diabetes research.
The most in-dept survey of its kind found that arm pain is common among supposedly healthy young baseball players and nearly half have been encouraged to keep playing despite arm pain. The findings suggest that more detailed and individualized screening is needed to prevent overuse injury in young ballplayers.
Public health’s most prestigious honor, the Frank A. Calderone Prize, was presented this morning to H. Jack Geiger, MD, founding member and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Physicians for Human Rights. Dean Linda P. Fried of the Mailman School of Public Health presented the award at a morning ceremony at the Paley Center for Media in Midtown.
Although oral hormonal therapy is known to substantially reduce breast cancer recurrence in women with hormone receptor–positive tumors, about one-half of patients fail to take their medications as directed. A new study by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers has found that the introduction of generic aromatase inhibitors (the most common type of hormone therapy), which are considerably less expensive than their brand name counterparts, increased treatment adherence by 50 percent.
Dietary cocoa flavanols—naturally occurring bioactives found in cocoa—reversed age-related memory decline in healthy older adults, according to a study led by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) scientists.
Complex biochemical signals that coordinate fast and slow changes in neuronal networks keep the brain in balance during learning, according to an international team of scientists from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan, UC San Francisco (UCSF), and Columbia University in New York.
Columbia University’s imaging software that facilitates 3-D lung tumor segmentation, licensed to Varian Medical Systems, has been incorporated into the Smart Segmentation® module of Varian’s Eclipse™ treatment planning system and has received FDA 510k clearance.
Using an innovative algorithm that analyzes gene regulatory and signaling networks, Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have found that loss of a gene called KLHL9 is the driving force behind the most aggressive form of glioblastoma, the most common form of brain cancer.
For benign gynecologic conditions, robot-assisted surgery involves more complications during surgery and may be significantly more expensive than conventional laparoscopic surgery, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC).
Columbia University will award the 2014 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize to James P. Allison, PhD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, for his work on understanding the process of T-cell activation and for developing therapies that harness the immune system to fight cancer.
David Goldstein, PhD, will join Columbia University as professor of genetics and development in the College of Physicians and Surgeons and director of a new Institute for Genomic Medicine in partnership with NewYork-Presbyterian, effective January 1, 2015. Dr. Goldstein will be responsible for building a program that comprehensively integrates genetics and genomics into research, patient care, and education at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and NewYork-Presbyterian and that develops programs to prepare students for careers in the expanding field of genomic and personalized medicine.
The Columbia University College of Dental Medicine (CDM) has received the 2014 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education. As a recipient of the annual HEED Award—a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion—CDM will be featured along with 82 other recipients in INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine’s November 2014 issue.
Like conventional cigarettes, e-cigarettes may function as a “gateway drug”—a drug that lowers the threshold for addiction to other substances, such as marijuana and cocaine—according to the 120th Shattuck lecture, presented to the Massachusetts Medical Society by Columbia researchers Denise and Eric Kandel and published today in the online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Outstanding basic research, a growing focus on translating discoveries into treatments, and a dedication to patient care have earned the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) of Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital an $18 million, five-year Cancer Center Support Grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Children and adolescents with autism have a surplus of synapses in the brain, and this excess is due to a slowdown in a normal brain “pruning” process during development, according to a study by neuroscientists at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). Because synapses are the points where neurons connect and communicate with each other, the excessive synapses may have profound effects on how the brain functions. The study was published in the August 21 online issue of the journal Neuron.
Research from Columbia University Medical Center shows that nerves may play a critical role in stomach cancer growth and that blocking nerve signals using surgery or Botox® (onabotulinumtoxinA) could be an effective treatment for the disease.
Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have identified the immune cells responsible for destroying hair follicles in people with alopecia areata, a common autoimmune disease that causes hair loss, and have tested an FDA-approved drug that eliminated these immune cells and restored hair growth in a small number of patients. The results appear in today’s online issue of Nature Medicine.
A new study, involving roundworms, shows that starvation induces specific changes in so-called small RNAs and that these changes are inherited through at least three consecutive generations, apparently without any DNA involvement.
Researchers from Columbia University are part of a five-university collaboration receiving a $12.6 million, four-year grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to identify rare genetic variants that may either protect against, or contribute to Alzheimer’s disease risk.
By switching off a single gene, scientists at Columbia University’s Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center have converted human gastrointestinal cells into insulin-producing cells, demonstrating in principle that a drug could retrain cells inside a person’s GI tract to produce insulin. The new research was reported today in the online issue of the journal Nature Communications.
For the first time, a therapy has been found that can delay progression of metastatic uveal melanoma, a rare and deadly form of melanoma of the eye.
Thomas Jessell, PhD, the Claire Tow Professor of Motor Neuron Disorders in the Departments of Neuroscience and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University, is the recipient of the 2014 Neuroscience Prize of The Gruber Foundation. Jessell is being honored with this prestigious international award for his seminal work on the development and wiring of spinal cord neurons involved in the control of movement.
The overall number and nature of mutations—rather than the presence of any single mutation—influences an individual’s risk of developing schizophrenia, as well as its severity, according to a discovery by Columbia University Medical Center researchers. The findings could have important implications for the early detection and treatment of schizophrenia.
Researchers have discovered how a gene commonly linked to obesity—FTO—contributes to weight gain. The study shows that variations in FTO indirectly affect the function of the primary cilium, a little-understood hair-like appendage on brain and other cells. Specific abnormalities of cilium molecules, in turn, increase body weight, in some instances, by affecting the function of receptors for leptin, a hormone that suppresses appetite. The findings, made in mice, suggest that it might be possible to modify obesity through interventions that alter the function of the cilium, according to scientists at Columbia University Medical Center.
Two genes work together to drive the most lethal forms of prostate cancer, according to new research from the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University Medical Center. These findings could lead to a diagnostic test for identifying those tumors likely to become aggressive and to the development of novel combination therapy for the disease.
A study has shown that a long-overlooked form of neuron-to-neuron communication called miniature neurotransmission plays an essential role in the development of synapses, the regions where nerve impulses are transmitted and received. The findings, made in fruit flies, raise the possibility that abnormalities in miniature neurotransmission may contribute to neurodevelopmental diseases. The findings, by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), were published today in the online edition of the journal Neuron.
Researchers have identified two types of neurons that enable the spinal cord to control skilled forelimb movement. The first is a group of excitatory interneurons that are needed to make accurate and precise movements; the second is a group of inhibitory interneurons necessary for achieving smooth movement of the limbs. The findings are important steps toward understanding normal human motor function and potentially treating movement disorders that arise from injury or disease.
A team of researchers from Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), Weill Cornell Medical College, and Brandeis University has devised a wholly new approach to the treatment of Alzheimer's disease involving the so-called retromer protein complex. Retromer plays a vital role in neurons, steering amyloid precursor protein (APP) away from a region of the cell where APP is cleaved, creating the potentially toxic byproduct amyloid-beta, which is thought to contribute to the development of Alzheimer's.
The cause of neuronal death in Parkinson’s disease is still unknown, but a new study proposes that neurons may be mistaken for foreign invaders and killed by the person’s own immune system, similar to the way autoimmune diseases like type I diabetes, celiac disease, and multiple sclerosis attack the body’s cells.
In a study published in the April 6 online edition of the journal Nature, a team of Columbia University Medical Center researchers led by Ellen Lumpkin, PhD, associate professor of somatosensory biology, solve an age-old mystery of touch: how cells just beneath the skin surface enable us to feel fine details and textures.
Researchers have devised a new system for classifying periodontal disease based on the genetic signature of affected tissue, rather than on clinical signs and symptoms. The new classification system, the first of its kind, may allow for earlier detection and more individualized treatment of severe periodontitis, before loss of teeth and supportive bone occurs. The findings were published recently in the online edition of the Journal of Dental Research.
Vitamin D deficiency has been implicated in numerous health conditions in recent years, including depressed mood and major depressive disorder. Recent observational studies provide some support for an association of vitamin D levels with depression, but the data do not indicate whether vitamin D deficiency causes depression or vice versa. These studies also do not examine whether vitamin D supplementation improves depression.
Researchers have found that decision-making accuracy can be improved by postponing the onset of a decision by a mere fraction of a second. The results could further our understanding of neuropsychiatric conditions characterized by abnormalities in cognitive function and lead to new training strategies to improve decision-making in high-stake environments. The study was published in the March 5 online issue of the journal PLoS One.
Researchers have determined that a small region of the hippocampus known as CA2 is essential for social memory, the ability of an animal to recognize another of the same species. A better grasp of the function of CA2 could prove useful in understanding and treating disorders characterized by altered social behaviors, such as autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. The findings, made in mice, were published on February 23, 2014, in the online edition of Nature.
Researchers have found the first direct evidence of a link between prenatal vitamin A deficiency and postnatal airway hyperresponsiveness, a hallmark of asthma. The study, conducted in mice, shows that short-term deficit of this essential vitamin while the lung is forming can cause profound changes in the smooth muscle that surrounds the airways, causing the adult lungs to respond to environmental or pharmacological stimuli with excessive narrowing of airways. The findings were published online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
In most cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a toxin released by cells that normally nurture neurons in the brain and spinal cord can trigger loss of the nerve cells affected in the disease, Columbia researchers reported today in the online edition of the journal Neuron.
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