Research Extras

Attend Healthcare Innovation Symposium IX: Teaching Hospitals and Health Services Research, featuring Steven H. Lipstein, Thursday, Feb. 6.

RSVP for the 1st Annual Symposium of the Georgia ImmunoEngineering Consortium on Feb. 28, bringing together faculty, students and fellows from Emory, Georgia Tech, and other partners to discuss the latest research in the field.

Read about the dedicated efforts of animal research staff in Emory's Division of Animal Resources and Yerkes National Primate Research Center during the January snow event.

Attend the Suddath Symposium, Feb. 20-21 on DNA Repair & Human Disease.

Explore the agenda of the India Summit Feb. 17-18, including esteemed faculty from throughout Emory, along with Salman Rushdie, the Indian Ambassador to the U.S., and the Future Group.

Read about Georgia Bio's recognition of several Emory bioscientists with its annual Industry Growth Awards.

Get information about a new NIH-funded summer program in pediatric bioengineering for undergraduates.

Learn how Emory is teaming up with Georgia Tech to launch a new high performance computing cluster for use by Emory researchers.

Watch a video with Bernie Marcus describing JScreen, a new tool to screen for inherited diseases in the Jewish-Ashkenazi population.

Attend an event presenting core facilities across the Emory campus, March 18, 3-6 p.m. in the School of Medicine lobby.

Kindergarten Weight Strong Indicator of Childhood Obesity
Overweight kindergartners are four times as likely as normal-weight children to become obese by the 8th grade, and more than 14 percent of children enter kindergarten overweight. Data were from a study representing virtually all U.S children enrolled in kindergarten during 1998-1999 (about 3.8 million). Prevention efforts during the first five years may help children at risk of becoming obese. Read more...

DDT Exposure is Potential Risk Factor for Alzheimer's Disease
People with Alzheimer's disease had almost four times more DDE (the long-lasting metabolite of the pesticide DDT) in their blood than healthy elderly people in a clinical study. The effect compared in size to the most common genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer's. A possible explanation: exposure of neural cells to DDT or DDE in the lab increases levels of a precursor protein to beta-amyloid— the main component of brain plaques in Alzheimer's. Read more..

Parkinson's Drugs Could Provide New Ways to Treat Vision Problems in Diabetes
Dopamine-restoring drugs used to treat Parkinson's disease could also help treat diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of blindness. When injected into mice, L-DOPA (part of the most common drug treatment for Parkinson's) led to delayed visual probems in the retina and less severe visual defects. Neurons and retinal cells have several molecules that enable them to respond to dopamine. Read more...

Nanoparticles Could Become Powerful Tool to Prevent Cancer
A new way of delivering an antioxidant into the bloodstream could help inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Naturally found in certain green vegetables, luteolin is known for its anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties, but dietary quantities are too small to be effective. When microscopic amounts, encapsulated in a water-soluble polymer, were injected into mice, the nano-luteolin inhibited growth of lung and head and neck cancer cells, showing potential for human chemoprevention studies. Read more...

Oxytocin Gene Plays Role in Ability to Remember Faces
The hormone oxytocin is known to influence mother-infant bonding and monogamy in certain species. Oxytocin also plays an important role in humans' ability to recognize each other. In families with an autistic child, a single change in the DNA of the oxytocin receptor made a big difference in how parents and non-autistic and autistic children could recognize faces. This implies oxytocin is important in social information processing, which is disrupted in disorders such as autism. Read more...