In 2015, about half of the world’s 28 million human deaths were the result of medical emergencies, with the bulk of the burden borne by poorer nations, according to a statistical analysis of information from nearly 200 countries by a Johns Hopkins Medicine researcher. The analysis, describe in April in the journal BMJ Global Health,…
Dangerous airborne viruses are; rendered harmless on-the-fly when exposed to energetic; charged fragments of air molecules; University of Michigan researchers have shown. They hope to one day harness this capability to replace a century-old device: the surgical mask. The U-M engineers have measured the virus-killing speed; and effectiveness of nonthermal plasmas — the ionized, or…
Parental engagement is one of the most important factors in a child’s development, yet it varies dramatically based on socioeconomic advantage. Kalil recently sat down with the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy to discuss; the science behind parental decision-making; talk about her innovative work as co-director of the Behavioral Insights and Parenting…
Steroid injections, nerve stimulators and spinal fusions were no match for the chronic pain in Tammy Durfee’s left side never mind the “searing-hot poker” sensation that would jab her leg without warning. After a decade searching for relief, a four-hour procedure in Baltimore put her pain to rest. Durfee, of Higginsville, Mo., was the first…
Many individuals forced to fight an exceptionally aggressive form of the blood cancer acute myeloid leukemia (AML) don’t survive more than five years. The only cure — a bone marrow transplant — often isn’t suitable for these very sick patients. Now, an international team of scientists report in Nature Cell Biology on a long-overlooked part of…
On April, Sepsis Alliance launched Pediatric Sepsis Week to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of sepsis in children, and to honor the 75,000 children in the United States who develop sepsis each year. Sepsis is the body’s life-threatening reaction to an infection and it takes the lives of more children every year than…
Standing up from a chair, climbing stairs, brushing one’s hair – all can be a struggle for people with a rare form of muscular dystrophy that causes progressive weakness in the shoulders and hips. Over time, many such people lose the ability to walk or to lift their arms above their heads. This form of…
A team of researchers from Vanderbilt University’s schools of Law, Medicine and Management has received a five-year research grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality of the Department of Health and Human Services to develop and test “safe harbor” standards of care base on scientific evidence. A goal of the project is to…
Routine use of positron emission tomography/computed tomography prior to radical cystectomy is unlikely to benefit clinically node-negative patients;L results of a recent investigation suggest. Instead, the primary role of PET/CT appears to be further evaluation of enlarged nodes identified by CT; according to the study authors, who looked at the diagnostic properties of PET/CT in…
In a proof-of-principle study in mice, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine; report the creation of a specialized gel that acts like a lymph node to successfully activate; and multiply cancer-fighting immune system T-cells. The work puts scientists a step closer, they say; to injecting such artificial lymph nodes into people; and sparking T-cells to fight…
Older adults with end-stage kidney disease who start dialysis–a treatment that keeps their blood free of toxins–appear to die at higher rates than previously thought; according to findings of a new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai,…
Scientists from Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) in cooperation with colleagues from Blokhin Russian Cancer Research Center (Moscow), Switzerland, and Sweden for the first time studied proteins, which constitute WNT signaling pathway of the cancer stem cells of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM CD133+ CSCs), one of the most aggressive brain tumors. Researchers revealed a number of…