http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/index.html News about Johns Hopkins Medicine activities in patient care, research, and education. en-us Johns Hopkins Copyright 2009 Ahead of schedule, officials of Suburban Hospital Healthcare System (SHHS) and The Johns Hopkins Health System Corporation completed and signed documents on June 30, 2009, officially integrating the Montgomery County-based SHHS into the Johns Hopkins Health System (JHHS). http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/07_02_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/07_02_09.html Cancer experts at Johns Hopkins say a study tracking 774 prostate cancer patients for a median of eight years has shown that a three-way combination of measurements has the best chance yet of predicting disease metastasis. http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1086 http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1086 Tuberculosis (TB) experts at Johns Hopkins have evidence from a four-year series of experiments in mice that anti-inflammatory drugs could eventually prove effective in treating the highly contagious lung disease, adding to current antibiotic therapies. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_29_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_29_09.html The same bee and other insect venom shots that doctors use to prevent deadly systemic reactions to insect stings can also tone down large local allergic reactions that, while not dangerous, can be painful and inconvenient, a Johns Hopkins study shows. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_29a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_29a_09.html A dogged review of the medical literature has produced what is believed to be the nation’s first comprehensive estimate of the extent of dozens of endocrine disorders in the United States. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_29b_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_29b_09.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have successfully edited the genome of human- induced pluripotent stem cells, making possible the future development of patient-specific stem cell therapies. Reporting this week in Cell Stem Cell, the team altered a gene responsible for causing the rare blood disease paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, or PNH, establishing for the first time a useful system to learn more about the disease. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_18_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_18_09.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have successfully edited the genome of human- induced pluripotent stem cells, making possible the future development of patient-specific stem cell therapies. Reporting this week in Cell Stem Cell, the team altered a gene responsible for causing the rare blood disease paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, or PNH, establishing for the first time a useful system to learn more about the disease. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_18_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_18_09.html Having partnered last year with an international team that surveyed the genomes of 12,000 individuals to find a genetic cause for gout, Johns Hopkins scientists now have shown that the malfunctioning gene they helped uncover can lead to high concentrations of blood urate that forms crystals in joint tissue, causing inflammation and pain — the hallmark of this disease. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_18a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_18a_09.html A previously healthy teenager shows up at the doctor’s office with a sore throat, fever, aches and general malaise. Routine blood tests are normal, an HIV test comes back negative, and the pediatrician sends the patient home with a diagnosis of acute viral infection. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/HIV-Antibody-Tests-Unreliable-For-Early-Infections-In-Teens.aspx http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/HIV-Antibody-Tests-Unreliable-For-Early-Infections-In-Teens.aspx Johns Hopkins Children’s Center is among the top ten children’s hospitals in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of American children’s hospitals. This year, the 2009 America's Best Children's Hospitals included an “Honor Roll” of 10 pediatric hospitals in no particular order that ranked in all 10 specialties. Hopkins Children’s is among the ten best. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Hopkins_Childrens_On_USNWR_List_of_Best_Childrens_Hospitals.aspx http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Hopkins_Childrens_On_USNWR_List_of_Best_Childrens_Hospitals.aspx The most popular type of gastric bypass surgery appears to nearly double the chance that a patient will develop kidney stones, despite earlier assumptions that it would not, Johns Hopkins doctors report in a new study. The overall risk, however, remains fairly small at about 8 percent. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_17_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_17_09.html Scientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered a potential strategy for cancer therapy by focusing on what’s missing in tumors. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_11_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_11_09.html Our ability to form long-term memories depends on cells in the brain making strong connections with each other. Yet while it’s not well understood how those connections are made, lost or changed, the process is known to involve the movement of the AMPA receptor protein to and from those neuronal connections. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_10_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_10_09.html The Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins will celebrate the end of construction of the new Wilmer building at The Johns Hopkins Hospital with a one-hour ceremony and ribbon cutting, starting at 11 a.m., on Wednesday, June 10. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_08_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_08_09.html Johns Hopkins HealthCare LLC (JHHC), the managed care arm of Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), has signed an agreement with The Winkenwerder Company LLC for strategic consulting services, a move designed to build on and expand Johns Hopkins’ longstanding relationships with government health agencies. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_05_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_05_09.html Johns Hopkins brain scientists have figured out why a faulty protein accumulates in cells everywhere in the bodies of people with Huntington’s disease (HD), but only kills cells in the part of the brain that controls movement, causing negligible damage to tissues elsewhere. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_04_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/06_04_09.html In what is believed to be the first U.S. study designed to prevent anxiety disorders in the children of anxious parents, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center have found that a family-based program reduced symptoms and the risk of developing an anxiety disorder among these children. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Children_of_Adults_with_Anxiety_Disorder_May_Need_Help_Too.aspx http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Children_of_Adults_with_Anxiety_Disorder_May_Need_Help_Too.aspx A documentary history of long-time Johns Hopkins patient Cody Unser, the daughter and granddaughter of Indy 500 car racing greats, will premiere at a benefit June 2 at the Hershey Theater in Hershey, Pa. The event is hosted by Mario Andretti and his wife Dee Ann. Andretti is the only driver to win the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500 and the Formula One World Championship. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_29_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_29_09.html An evening of opera music featuring Metropolitan opera star Denyce Graves was held recently to raise funds to benefit organ transplant surgery research and care at Johns Hopkins. The event, titled “Let the Music Move You,” was attended by 70 guests at Graves’ home in Bethesda, Md. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_27_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_27_09.html The Ethisphere Institute, a New York-based think-tank established to advance best practices in business ethics and corporate social responsibility, has named The Johns Hopkins Hospital to its 2009 list of the business world’s most ethical companies and institutions. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_28_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_28_09.html A TV industry- and celebrity-driven cancer research project has chosen scientists at Johns Hopkins for two of five multi-institutional “dream teams” financed by “Stand Up to Cancer “ grants totaling more than $6 million. http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1073 http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1073 A full third of American adults, 69 million men and women over age 40, are up to 12 times more likely to have a serious fall because they have some form of inner-ear dysfunction that throws them off balance and makes them dizzy, according to Johns Hopkins experts. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_25_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_25_09.html Johns Hopkins Medicine’s patient safety program has earned second place in Healthcare Informatics magazine’s eighth annual Innovator Awards. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_21_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_21_09.html For the second year in a row, volunteer heart disease experts from Johns Hopkins will staff and run Maryland’s only screening program to detect early signs of life-threatening heart abnormalities, including hypertrophic cardiomyopathies, in student athletes. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_20a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_20a_09.html Denton A. Cooley, M.D., an American pioneer in heart surgery, will be the guest speaker at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s 114th convocation on Friday, May 22, 2009 at 10:30 a.m. at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_19_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_19_09.html “Ever Wonder What Gets Your Senses Revving?” http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_20_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_20_09.html Research from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center exposes alarming gaps in training hospital residents in “first response” emergency treatment of staged cardiorespiratory arrests in children, while at the same time offering a potent recipe for fixing the problem. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Mock_CPR_Drills_in_Kids_Show_Many-Residents-Fail-In-Key-Skills.aspx http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Mock_CPR_Drills_in_Kids_Show_Many-Residents-Fail-In-Key-Skills.aspx Approximately 350 million to 500 million cases of malaria are diagnosed each year mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. While medications to prevent and treat malaria do exist, the demand for new treatments is on the rise, in part, because malaria parasites have developed a resistance to existing medications. Now, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered one way to stop malaria parasite growth, and this new finding could guide the development of new malaria treatments. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_15_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_15_09.html Research from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center reveals that the drug most commonly used in type 2 diabetics who don’t need insulin works on a much more basic level than once thought, treating persistently elevated blood sugar — the hallmark of type 2 diabetes — by regulating the genes that control its production. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Old__Diabetes_Drug_Teaches_Experts_New_Tricks.aspx http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Old__Diabetes_Drug_Teaches_Experts_New_Tricks.aspx If two people have the same genetic disease, why would one person go blind in childhood but the other later in life or not at all? For a group of genetic diseases — so-called ciliary diseases that include Bardet-Biedl syndrome, Meckel-Gruber syndrome, and Joubert syndrome — the answer lies in one gene that is already linked to two of these diseases and also seems to increase the risk of progressive blindness in patients with other ciliary diseases. The findings are published online this week at Nature Genetics. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_12_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_12_09.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, along with an international team of collaborators, have identified common genetic changes associated with blood pressure and hypertension. The study, reporting online next week in Nature Genetics, breaks new ground in understanding blood pressure regulation and may lead to advances in hypertension therapy. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_10_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_10_09.html Of dozens of candidates potentially involved in increasing a person’s risk for the most common type of Alzheimer’s disease that affects more than 5 million Americans over the age of 65, one gene that keeps grabbing Johns Hopkins researchers’ attention makes a protein called neuroglobin. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_06_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_06_09.html News Tips from the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_05_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_05_09.html Metal detectors for removing surgical screws, intensive care walkers and radiological markers for locating tumors—what will they think of next? http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_04_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_04_09.html MicroRNAs are single-stranded snippets that, not long ago, were given short shrift as genetic junk. Now that studies have shown they regulate genes involved in normal functioning as well as diseases such as cancer, everyone wants to know: What regulates microRNAs? http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_01a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_01a_09.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have found that a chemical commonly used in the production of such medical plastic devices as intravenous (IV) bags and catheters can impair heart function in rats. Reporting online this week in the American Journal of Physiology, these new findings suggest a possible new reason for some of the common side effects—loss of taste, short term memory loss--of medical procedures that require blood to be circulated through plastic tubing outside the body, such as heart bypass surgery or kidney dialysis. These new findings also have strong implications for the future of medical plastics manufacturing. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_01_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/05_01_09.html Folic acid, or vitamin B9, essential for red blood cell health and long known to reduce the risk of spinal birth defects, may also suppress allergic reactions and lessen the severity of allergy and asthma symptoms, according to new research from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Folic-Acid-May-Help-Treat-Allergies-Asthma.aspx http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Folic-Acid-May-Help-Treat-Allergies-Asthma.aspx As always, Johns Hopkins' first priority is the safety and care of patients, visitors, employees and students. Experts and officials at Johns Hopkins Medicine are working closely with federal, state and local public health offices during this rapidly changing public health problem. The Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR) has plans for emerging infections. These plans are being implemented as needed, and JHM will take all required steps to help assure your safety. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_28_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_28_09.html In a move to build on longstanding ties and to address growing regional interest in more efficient, integrated regional health care services for patients, officials of Suburban Hospital Healthcare System (SHHS) and The Johns Hopkins Health System Corporation have formally agreed to integrate SHHS into the Johns Hopkins Health System (JHHS). http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_24_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_24_09.html Once again, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has retained its top-tier ranking in U.S. News & World Report’s edition on the best graduate schools in the nation. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_23_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_23_09.html Having both lungs replaced instead of just one is the single most important feature determining who lives longest after having a lung transplant, more than doubling an organ recipient’s chances of extending their life by over a decade, a study by a team of transplant surgeons at Johns Hopkins shows. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_22_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_22_09.html It’s a homecoming, of sorts. Elias Zerhouni, M.D., director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 2002 to 2008 and former Johns Hopkins Medicine executive vice dean, returns to Hopkins May 1, 2009, as a senior advisor to Johns Hopkins Medicine. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_20_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_20_09.html New studies in pregnant mice using antibodies against fetal brains made by the mothers of autistic children show that immune cells can cross the placenta and trigger neurobehavioral changes similar to autism in the mouse pups. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Evidence_Grows_That_Maternal_Immune_Response_During_Pregnancy_Key_Factor_In_Some_Autism.aspx http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Evidence_Grows_That_Maternal_Immune_Response_During_Pregnancy_Key_Factor_In_Some_Autism.aspx One cell…one initial set of genetic changes – that’s all it takes to begin a series of events that lead to metastatic cancer. Now, Johns Hopkins experts have tracked how the cancer process began in 33 men with prostate cancer who died of the disease. Culling information from autopsies, their study points to a set of genetic defects in a single cell that are different for each person’s cancer. http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1057 http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1057 TIPS: CHIPPING AWAY AT PROTEINS, THE PROMISE OF CHEMICAL RESCUE, HOW CELLS FOLLOW THEIR "NOSE" http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_18_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_18_09.html Psychiatrists and critical care specialists at Johns Hopkins have begun to tease out what there is about a stay in an intensive care unit (ICU) that leads so many patients to report depression after they go home. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_10_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_10_09.html Johns Hopkins School of Medicine will honor 18 young researchers who have gone above and beyond in their search for answers. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/YID.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/YID.html Lung experts from Johns Hopkins and elsewhere are calling on physicians to suspend the routine use of potent heartburn medications in asthmatics solely to temper recurrent attacks of wheezing, coughing and breathlessness. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_09_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_09_09.html A just-out study suggests that what keeps chronic nervous system diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and ALS going — until they overcome the internal protective mechanisms a body can throw at them — may largely come down to poor conversational skills. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_08_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_08_09.html Johns Hopkins Medicine has adopted a new policy that significantly limits interactions with industry while ensuring effective, principled and appropriate partnerships with drug and medical device makers. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_07_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_07_09.html A cancer scientist from Johns Hopkins has convinced an international group of colleagues to delay their race to find new cancer biomarkers and instead begin a 7,000-hour slog through a compendium of 50,000 scientific articles already published to assemble, decode and analyze the molecules that might herald the furtive presence of pancreatic cancer. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_06a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_06a_09.html A small, pilot study in 50 people in Japan suggests that eating two and a half ounces of broccoli sprouts daily for two months may confer some protection against a rampant stomach bug that causes gastritis, ulcers and even stomach cancer. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_06_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_06_09.html “Hopkins,” the seven-part ABC network news documentary filmed entirely at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and aired in late summer of 2008, is among the 2008 winners of the 68th Annual Peabody Awards for electronic media. Winners, chosen by the Peabody board, were named in a ceremony on April 1 by The University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_03_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_03_09.html A new survey of U.S. physicians commissioned by AARP ranks The Johns Hopkins Hospital among the “most frequently recommended” medical centers for heart disease, cancer, “mystery diagnoses,” neurosurgery and ophthalmology. Results of the survey, conducted by Consumers’ Checkbook, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research organization, are published in AARP magazine’s May/June issue. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_02_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_02_09.html Metal detectors for removing surgical screws, intensive care walkers and radiological markers for locating tumors, what will they think of next? http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_01_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/04_01_09.html In what is believed to be the first comprehensive eye disease study among urban pre-schoolers, Johns Hopkins investigators report that while vision problems are rare, they are more common than once thought. Also, they say, a small group of children with easily treatable visions problems go untreated, while others get treatments they don’t need. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/serious-vision-problems-in-urban-preschoolers-rare.aspx http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/serious-vision-problems-in-urban-preschoolers-rare.aspx Physician-science investigator Edward Kasper, M.D., an expert in chronic heart failure and the heart transplantation that often results from the disease, has been named the new clinical director of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Division of Cardiology and co-director of the School’s Heart and Vascular Institute. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_31_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_31_09.html Three researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have been named early career scientists by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Xinzhong Dong, Ph.D., Joshua Mendell, M.D., Ph.D., and Sinisa Urban, Ph.D., all will remain faculty at Hopkins but also become employees of HHMI, which will provide research funding and salary for the next six years. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_26_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_26_09.html A buildup of chemical bonds on certain cancer-promoting genes, a process known as hypermethylation, is widely known to render cells cancerous by disrupting biological brakes on runaway growth. Now, Johns Hopkins scientists say the reverse process — demethylation — which wipes off those chemical bonds may also trigger more than half of all cancers. http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1048 http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1048 The “are you driving yet?” talk should become part of every pediatrician’s regular physical exam for teenagers, Hopkins Children’s experts say. Pediatrician Letitia Dzirasa, M.D., notes that car accidents kill more 15- to -20-year-olds than any disease, so teenage driving should be considered a risky behavior, in need of as much attention as unprotected sex or underage drinking. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/safe-driving-education-should-be-part-of-routine-teen-physicals.aspx http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/safe-driving-education-should-be-part-of-routine-teen-physicals.aspx Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered a new energy-making biochemical twist in determining the lifespan of yeast cells, one so valuable to longevity that it is likely to also functions in humans. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_24_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_24_09.html That an abnormality in his heart’s electrical system had managed to stay on the Q.T. — until it proved lethal — is characteristic of sudden cardiac death, which annually claims more than a quarter million Americans. A dearth of discernable symptoms and lack of detectable molecules circulating in the blood makes the prediction of sudden cardiac death largely dependent on genetic risk factors. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_22_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_22_09.html Although the majority of the nation’s fourth-year medical students can go online to find out which residencies are theirs, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine class of ’09 will continue the school’s annual ritual of gathering and opening official letters in the presence of classmates, professors and loved ones. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_18a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_18a_09.html Millions more patients could benefit from taking statins, drugs typically used to prevent heart attacks and strokes, than current prescribing guidelines suggest, Johns Hopkins doctors report in a new study. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_18_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_18_09.html Two of the world’s leading experts in cardiac surgery will be in Pavia, Italy, tomorrow to attend the signing ceremony of a three-year collaboration agreement between Johns Hopkins Medicine International and San Matteo Hospital. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_16_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_16_09.html A new variation in kidney paired donation (KPD) — pioneered and developed at Johns Hopkins — could theoretically generate an endless number of transplants, researchers report. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_11a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_11a_09.html Jeremy Nathans, M.D., Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and genetics, neuroscience and ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has been awarded the sixth annual Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience by the McGovern Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Scolnick Prize is awarded each year to recognize an individual who has made outstanding advances in the field of neuroscience http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_11_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_11_09.html Johns Hopkins patient safety experts say it’s high time for diagnostic errors to get the same attention from medical institutions and caregivers as drug-prescribing errors, wrong-site surgeries and hospital-acquired infections. Diagnostic misadventures represent a potentially much larger source of preventable health problems and deaths than many of the more popular targets of safety reform, they say in a commentary in the March 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_10a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_10a_09.html An unlikely brew of seaweed and glow-in-the-dark biochemical agents may hold the key to the safe use of transplanted stem cells to treat patients with severe peripheral arterial disease (PAD), according to a team of veterinarians, basic scientists and interventional radiologists at Johns Hopkins. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_10_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_10_09.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Washington University School of Medicine have identified a key to eye development — a protein that regulates how the light-sensing nerve cells in the retina form. While still far from the clinic, the latest results, published in the Jan. 29 issue of Neuron, could help scientists better understand how nerve cells develop. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_09_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_09_09.html Scientists at the Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have used "personalized genome" sequencing on an individual with a hereditary form of pancreatic cancer to locate a mutation in a gene called PALB2 that is responsible for initiating the disease. The discovery marks their first use of a genome scanning system to uncover suspect mutations in normal inherited genes. http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1042 http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1042 The Clemenceau Medical Center (CMC) in Beirut, Lebanon, has been awarded the official accreditation of the Joint Commission International (JCI). CMC is one of only two medical centers in Lebanon to hold JCI accreditation. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_03_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/03_03_09.html A widely heralded Johns Hopkins safety initiative to reduce bloodstream infections in intensive care units (ICUs) was implemented in 30 states starting Feb. 1 and could save an estimated $3 billion dollars and 30,000 lives annually. In addition, the program has been launched in Spain and will begin in the United Kingdom starting in April. Pilot programs are also under discussion with health care leaders in Peru and Chile. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_25_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_25_09.html Certain men age 75 to 80 are unlikely to benefit from routine prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing, according to a Johns Hopkins study published in the April 2009 issue of The Journal of Urology. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_20_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_20_09.html Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and Duke University Medical Center have linked mutations in two genes, IDH1 and IDH2, to nearly three-quarters of several of the most common types of brain cancers known as gliomas. Among the findings: people with certain tumors that carry these genetic alterations appear to survive at least twice as long as those without them. http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1033 http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpage/item.cfm/itemID/1033 New results from a multicenter study led by Johns Hopkins show that patients who got an experimental clot-busting treatment for a particularly lethal form of stroke were not only dramatically more likely to survive but also continued to shed lingering disabilities six months later. The findings, announced at the International Stroke Conference in San Diego on Feb. 19, are likely to build support for the use of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) in patients with intracranial hemorrhage, a treatment-resistant form of stroke marked by brain bleeding. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_19_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_19_09.html Platelets, tiny and relatively uncharted tenants of the bloodstream known mostly for their role in blood clotting, turn out to also rally sustained immune system inflammatory responses that play a critical role in organ transplant rejection, according to a new report from Johns Hopkins scientists. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_17_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_17_09.html Surgical teams at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis and Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City successfully completed Saturday the first six-way, multihospital, domino kidney transplant. All six donors — one man and five women, and six organ recipients – four men and two woman — are in good condition, according to Robert Montgomery, M.D., Ph.D., chief transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_16_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_16_09.html Cancer cells need a lot of nutrients to multiply and survive. While much is understood about how cancer cells use blood sugar to make energy, not much is known about how they get other nutrients. Now, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered how the Myc cancer-promoting gene uses microRNAs to control the use of glutamine, a major energy source. The results, which shed light on a new angle of cancer that might help scientists figure out a way to stop the disease, appear Feb. 15 online at Nature. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_15_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_15_09.html Transposons — the traveling salesmen of the genome composed of DNA sequences with no fixed address — are the focus of a symposium at the annual meeting of the AAAS led by experts from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_14_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_14_09.html It’s a classic academic mismatch: Researchers aren’t able to make use of seminal improvements in technology—often from colleagues just across the street—either because they don’t know about them or because gaining familiarity makes unrealistic demands on their time. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_09_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_09_09.html A Johns Hopkins study reveals that older black women who spend time with young children in the classroom are not only more active than similar women who don’t volunteer, but seem to stay active. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_09a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_09a_09.html Antiretroviral drug therapy in an HIV-positive man or women can alone help prevent the transmission of HIV to an uninfected partner, regardless of counseling, the patient’s use of condoms or other safe-sex practices, AIDS experts at Johns Hopkins report. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_09b_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_09b_09.html Johns Hopkins and Ugandan scientists say counting the number of HIV viruses in the blood rather than relying solely on counting the number of circulating HIV-fighting CD4 immune system cells is a far better way to uncover early signs that antiretroviral drugs are losing their punch, and to signal the need to get patients on more potent treatments to keep the disease in check. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_08_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_08_09.html A team of Johns Hopkins experts is offering a free, Web-based tool it developed that calculates and predicts in advance the impact on individual hospitals of a flu epidemic, bioterrorist attack, flood or plane crash, accounting for such elements as numbers of victims, germ-carrying wind patterns, available medical resources, bacterial incubation periods and bomb size. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_04_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_04_09.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine are one gene closer to understanding schizophrenia and related disorders. Reporting in the Jan. 9 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, the team describes how a variation in the neuregulin 3 gene influences delusions associated with schizophrenia. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_03_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_03_09.html In what is believed to be a first-ever procedure, surgeons at Johns Hopkins have successfully removed a healthy donor kidney through a small incision in the back of the donor’s vagina. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_02_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_02_09.html Physician-scientist Gordon Tomaselli, M.D., an expert on sudden cardiac death and heart rhythm disturbances, has been named the new director of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Division of Cardiology and co-director of the School’s Heart and Vascular Institute. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_02a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/02_02a_09.html A survey study believed to be one of the first efforts to put hard numbers around long-held beliefs about diversity in medical school faculties has affirmed that awareness and sensitivity to racial and ethnic diversity are believed by most faculty to be poor and even poorer among faculty who are members of underrepresented minorities. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_30a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_30a_09.html A century-old drug that failed in its original intent to treat tuberculosis but has worked well as an antileprosy medicine now holds new promise as a potential therapy for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_30_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_30_09.html Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHI), the international arm of Johns Hopkins Medicine, has appointed Ronald S. Lavater chief executive officer of Al Corniche Hospital (Abu Dhabi, UAE), which handles more than 12,000 births and 216,000 outpatient visits a year. Al Corniche Hospital is a Joint Commission International (JCI)-accredited health care facility owned by the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA). http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_29_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_29_09.html Transplant surgeons at Johns Hopkins have evidence that hospitals performing at least 20 lung transplant procedures a year, on average, have the best overall patient survival rates and lowest number of deaths from the complex surgery. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_27_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_27_09.html Results from a large-scale Johns Hopkins study of more than 40 hospitals and 160,000 patients show that when health information technologies replace paper forms and handwritten notes, both hospitals and patients benefit strongly. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_26_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_26_09.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered how a whole class of commonly used chemotherapy drugs can block cancer growth. Their findings, reported online this week at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition, suggest that a subgroup of cancer patients might particularly benefit from these drugs. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_22_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_22_09.html By tweaking a system in the ear that limits how much sound is heard, a global team of researchers has discovered one alteration that shows that the ability of the ear to turn itself down contributes to protecting against permanent hearing loss. The report appears this week in PLoS Biology. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_20_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_20_09.html A Johns Hopkins study finds that HIV-positive kidney transplant recipients could have the same one-year survival rates for themselves and their donor organs as those without HIV, provided certain risk factors for transplant failure are recognized and tightly managed. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_19_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_19_09.html Experiments at Johns Hopkins have found that the gradual maturing of embryonic cells into cells as varied as brain, liver and immune system cells is apparently due to the shut off of several genes at once rather than in individual smatterings as previous studies have implied. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_18a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_18a_09.html Scientists who study how human chemistry can permanently turn off genes have typically focused on small islands of DNA believed to contain most of the chemical alterations involved in those switches. But after an epic tour of so-called DNA methylation sites across the human genome in normal and cancer cells, Johns Hopkins scientists have found that the vast majority of the sites aren’t grouped in those islands at all, but on nearby regions that they’ve named “shores.” http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_18_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_18_09.html Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHI)—the Baltimore, Maryland, USA-based international arm of Johns Hopkins Medicine—and Hospital Punta Pacífica (HPP) in Panama City, Panama, have entered into a seven-year agreement that gives JHI complete managerial oversight of the 75-bed hospital. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_14_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_14_09.html A Johns Hopkins transplant surgeon has found strong evidence that women over 45 are significantly less likely to be placed on a kidney transplant list than their equivalent male counterparts, even though women who receive a transplant stand an equal chance of survival. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_12_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_12_09.html New cells are born every day in the brain’s hippocampus, but what controls this birth has remained a mystery. Reporting in the January 1 issue of Science, neuroscientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered that the birth of new cells, which depends on brain activity, also depends on a protein that is involved in changing epigenetic marks in the cell’s genetic material. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_08_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_08_09.html The enzyme machine that translates a cell’s DNA code into the proteins of life is nothing if not an editorial perfectionist. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_07_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_07_09.html Pterosaurs have long suffered an identity crisis. Pop culture heedlessly — and wrongly — lumps these extinct flying lizards in with dinosaurs. Even paleontologists assumed that because the creatures flew, they were birdlike in many ways, such as using only two legs to take flight. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_06_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_06_09.html Digitalis-based drugs like digoxin have been used for centuries to treat patients with irregular heart rhythms and heart failure and are still in use today. In the Dec. 16 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine now report that this same class of drugs may hold new promise as a treatment for cancer. This finding emerged through a search for existing drugs that might slow or stop cancer progression. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_05a_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_05a_09.html Johns Hopkins and other researchers report what is believed to be the first direct evidence in lab animals that the erectile dysfunction drug sildenafil amplifies the effects of a heart-protective protein. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_05_09.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2009/01_05_09.html Babies born to HIV-positive mothers and given the antiretroviral drug nevirapine through the first six weeks of life to prevent infection via breast-feeding are at high risk for developing drug-resistant HIV if they get infected anyway, a team of researchers report. But the investigators highlight the proven superiority of the six-week regimen in preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission in breast-fed infants. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Prolonged-Nevirapine-in-Breast-Fed-Babies-Prevents-HIV-Infection-But-Leads-To-Drug-Resistant-HIV.aspx http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/Prolonged-Nevirapine-in-Breast-Fed-Babies-Prevents-HIV-Infection-But-Leads-To-Drug-Resistant-HIV.aspx A team of Johns Hopkins neuroscientists has worked out how some newly discovered light sensors in the eye detect light and communicate with the brain. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_31a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_31a_08.html The hormone deprivation therapy that prostate cancer patients often take gives them only a temporary fix, with tumors usually regaining their hold within a couple of years. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered critical differences in the hormone receptors on prostate cancer cells in patients who no longer respond to this therapy. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_31_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_31_08.html When researchers look inside human cancer cells for the whereabouts of an important tumor-suppressor, they often catch the protein playing hooky, lolling around in cellular broth instead of muscling its way out to the cells’ membranes and foiling cancer growth. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_30_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_30_08.html Despite increased emphasis on patient safety, little progress has been made in making hospitals safer, says Johns Hopkins critical care specialist Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., in an article in the Dec. 24 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_23_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_23_08.html The information on this page is provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine in response to an article on hospitals and uncompensated care published in The Baltimore Sun’s December 21, 2008 edition. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/mediaII/uncompensated_care_info/index.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/mediaII/uncompensated_care_info/index.html Five Johns Hopkins University researchers have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science by their peers. Jonathan Bagger, Ted Dawson, Barbara Landau, Jun Liu and Jeremy Nathans are among 486 new fellows around the world. Election as a fellow honors their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home08/dec08/aaas.html http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home08/dec08/aaas.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have shown that brain damage was reduced by as much as 62.2 percent in mice who inhale low amounts of carbon monoxide after an induced stroke. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_15_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_15_08.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have been awarded a $10.3 million grant—the largest basic immunology grant ever received by Hopkins—from the National Institutes of Health to dissect the human immune system. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_16_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_16_08.html Having discovered how a lowly, single-celled fungus regulates its version of cholesterol, Johns Hopkins researchers are gaining new insight about the target and action of cholesterol-lowering drugs taken daily by millions of people to stave off heart attacks and strokes. Their work appears in the December issue of Cell Metabolism. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_02_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_02_08.html Scientists at Johns Hopkins have determined how the characteristic shedding of fatty substances, or lipids, by ovarian tumors allows the cancer to evade the body’s immune system, leaving the disease to spread unchecked. Ovarian cancer is considered to be one of the most aggressive malignancies, killing more than 70 percent of diagnosed women within five years, including an estimated 15,000 this year. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_01_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/12_01_08.html Johns Hopkins researchers have used fruit flies to gain new insights into a brain-damaging disorder afflicting children. Their work?suggests a possible therapy for the disease, for which there is currently no treatment. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_26_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_26_08.html Faculty, staff and patients at The Johns Hopkins Hospital will mark World AIDS Day with several events designed to highlight the need for continued community leadership in Baltimore to deal with the city’s soaring HIV rate. More than 16,000 Baltimoreans are infected with HIV, earning the city the dubious distinction of having the nation’s second highest rate of infection. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_26a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_26a_08.html In a development that researchers say is likely to quell concerns about the value of costly computed tomography (CT) scans to diagnose coronary artery blockages, an international team led by researchers at Johns Hopkins reports solid evidence that the newer, more powerful 64-CT scans can easily and correctly identify people with major blood vessel disease and is nearly as accurate as invasive coronary angiography. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_26b_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_26b_08.html Lung disease experts at Johns Hopkins are calling for physicians to show much greater caution in prescribing inhaled corticosteroid drugs for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease after finding evidence that the widely used anti-inflammatory medications increase the risk of pneumonia by a full third. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_25_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_25_08.html Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that a drop in blood potassium levels caused by diuretics commonly prescribed for high blood pressure could be the reason why people on those drugs are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes. The drugs helpfully accelerate loss of fluids, but also deplete important chemicals, including potassium, so that those who take them are generally advised to eat bananas and other potassium-rich foods to counteract the effect. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_24_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_24_08.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and four other academic medical centers have been awarded a $9.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health to pin down inherited changes that occur outside a cell’s DNA sequence in people with schizophrenia. Unlike changes or mutations in the DNA sequence itself, epigenetic marks or alterations can be affected by a lifetime of exposure to the environment in which cells operate. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_21_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_21_08.html The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is awarding the Young Investigator Award to co-recipient Hongjun Song, Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, for his work in understanding how adult neural stem cells mature into nerve cells and integrate into the existing neuronal circuitry. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_17_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_17_08.html Heart experts at Johns Hopkins have evidence that life-saving coronary angioplasty at community hospitals is safer when physicians and hospital staff have more experience with the procedure. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_12a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_12a_08.html Taking a cue from the way drugs like Viagra put the biological brakes on a key enzyme involved in heart failure, scientists at Johns Hopkins have mapped out a key chemical step involved in blocking the enzyme. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_11_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_11_08.html Naturally produced sex hormones may influence the risk and progression of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, Johns Hopkins researchers report in a recent study. The findings may help explain the increased risk men have of developing heart disease, which runs about twofold higher than women’s heart disease risk worldwide. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_11a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_11a_08.html A team of Johns Hopkins biochemists has identified a mixed bag of five key proteins out of thousands secreted into blood draining from the heart’s blood vessels that may together or in certain quantities form the basis of a far more accurate early warning test than currently in use of impending heart attack in people with severely reduced blood flow, or ischemia. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_09_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_09_08.html Outstanding researchers in cardiovascular medicine will be honored in The Johns Hopkins Hospital Houck Lobby at 4 p.m., Wednesday, Nov.5, as part of the Johns Hopkins Heart and Vascular Institute’s annual awards ceremony named to commemorate the late Hopkins physician Stanley L. Blumenthal, B.A. ’39 and M.D. ’43. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_05_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/11_05_08.html A study of 113 children and teens physically victimized by peers concludes that one-on-one mentoring about how to safely avoid conflict and diffuse threats makes them far less likely to become victims again if guidance is initiated in the immediate aftermath of the attack. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5554 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5554 A study among Baltimore inner-city teenage girls treated for pelvic inflammatory disease shows they are highly vulnerable to subsequent sexually transmitted infections (STI) — sometimes within a few weeks or months of their treatment. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5552 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5552 Giving children with milk allergies increasingly higher doses of milk over time may ease, and even help them completely overcome, their allergic reactions, according to the results of a study led by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and conducted jointly with Duke University. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/drinking-milk-to-ease-milk-allergy.aspx http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/drinking-milk-to-ease-milk-allergy.aspx Johns Hopkins researchers have found strong evidence supporting the view that the sleeping mind functions the same as the waking mind, a discovery that could significantly alter basic understanding of the normal and abnormal brain. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_28_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_28_08.html Janet Hardy, professor emerita of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins and an eminent pediatric epidemiologist whose pioneering work spanning six decades continues to influence modern-day neonatology and fetal medicine, died Oct. 23 at the age of 92 in Glen Arm, Md. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5544 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5544 A Johns Hopkins medical student was chosen as one of 12 finalists to compete for a sizeable cash award and the prestige of being named the nation’s best collegiate inventor. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_24_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_24_08.html Anyone with a nose knows the rotten-egg odor of hydrogen sulfide, a gas generated by bacteria living in the human colon. Now an international team of scientists has discovered that cells inside the blood vessels of mice — as well as in people, no doubt — naturally make the gassy stuff, and that it controls blood pressure. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_23_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_23_08.html In a 10-year study of more than a thousand kidney failure patients, sudden cardiac death emerged as the number one cause of death for patients on dialysis, according to a Johns Hopkins researcher. The study, already published online and appearing in the Nov. 2 issue of Kidney International, identified systemic inflammatory response and malnutrition as key risk factors for the fatal heart attacks. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_22_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_22_08.html The Johns Hopkins Quality and Safety Research Group (QSRG), led by award-winning patient safety researcher Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., has received gifts worth more than $2 million to expand efforts to further reduce central line-associated bloodstream infections in hospital intensive care units. The philanthropic support comes through a matching fund gift from an anonymous donor and the Sandler Foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_21_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_21_08.html Johns Hopkins scientists were dubious in the early 1980s when they stumbled on small sugar molecules lurking in the centers of cells; not only were they not supposed to be there, but they certainly weren't supposed to be repeatedly attaching to and detaching from proteins, effectively switching them on and off. The conventional wisdom was that the job of turning proteins on and off -- and thus determining their actions -- fell to phosphates, in a common and easy-to-detect chemical step in which phosphates fasten to and unfasten from proteins; a process called phosphorylation. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_20_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_20_08.html In a disease like ALS - one that's always fatal and that has a long history of research-resistant biology - finding a proof of principle in animal models is significant. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_19_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_19_08.html The Department of Medicine will host a forum featuring official surrogates of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama at a special Grand Rounds. The format will include presentations representing each candidate’s position on health care issues and policies, including NIH funding for scientific research and ensuring fairness as it relates to indigent care and access. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_16_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_16_08.html Three Johns Hopkins University researchers have been elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. Harry C. Dietz, M.D., Lisa A. Cooper, M.D., M.P.H., and Nancy Kass, D.S., are among 65 new members nationwide. Election to this prestigious body affirms their remarkable contributions to medical science, health care and public health, as well as to the education of generations of physicians. It is one of the highest honors for those in the biomedical profession. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_15_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_15_08.html An international effort led by physician scientists at Johns Hopkins to control the global spread of HIV-related tuberculosis and treat the dual epidemics in hardest-hit countries has received $32 million in additional funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_14_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_14_08.html The Institute of Medicine has awarded the 2008 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Award in Mental Health to Paul R. McHugh, M.D., the University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and professor of mental health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_13_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_13_08.html Working with genetically engineered mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins have shown that daily doses of a standardized extract from the leaves of the ginkgo tree can prevent or reduce brain damage after an induced stroke. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_09_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_09_08.html Existing recommendations for treating vitamin D deficiency in children with cystic fibrosis (CF) are too low to cover the serious need, leaving most at high risk for bone loss and rickets, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5448 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5448 A critical care specialist at Johns Hopkins who has reviewed recent studies of intensive care unit (ICU) patients and data from The Johns Hopkins Hospital concludes that the routine use of deep sedation and bed rest in ICU patients may be causing unnecessary and long-term physical impairment and poor quality of life after hospital discharge. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_08_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_08_08.html John L. Cameron, M.D., Alfred Blalock Distinguished Service Professor of Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and for 19 years chief of surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, will be installed as the 89th president of the American College of Surgeons on Oct. 12 during its annual meeting in San Francisco. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_07_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_07_08.html In what is believed to be the first formal “census” of neurological diseases and their impact, Johns Hopkins researchers have found that brain and nervous system infections are more difficult to diagnose and treat and have a remarkably higher rate of morbidity and mortality compared to other neurological problems. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_06_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_06_08.html Results of a multicenter study led by Johns Hopkins Children’s Center challenge the longstanding practice of treating premature babies with hydrocortisone, a steroid believed to fight inflammation and prevent lung disease. The researchers found that such treatment offers little or no benefit and that low cortisol levels are not even necessarily harmful. High cortisol levels, on the other hand, appeared to increase the risk of dangerous bleeding in the brain and require that babies be monitored aggressively to ward off life-threatening complications, according to the study published in the October issue of Pediatrics. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5418 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5418 A young child arrives at the emergency room after several days of abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea and is sent home with a diagnosis of viral gastritis and treatment for the symptoms. The child seems better for a while, only to return to the ER with worse symptoms and a ruptured appendix, a life-threatening complication of appendicitis. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5388 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5388 Using computer models and live cell experiments, biomedical engineers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered more than 100 human protein fragments that can slow or stop the growth of cells that make up new blood vessels. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_03_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_03_08.html The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has awarded nearly $3 million for a contract aimed at reducing central line-associated bloodstream infections in hospital intensive care units to a consortium made up of Johns Hopkins and the Michigan Health and Hospital Association. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_01b_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_01b_08.html Carol Greider, Ph.D., Daniel Nathans Professor and director of molecular biology and genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, will share the 100,000 euro 2009 Paul Erlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize with Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco for their “discovery of telomeres and telomerase and the elucidation of their significance for cell division and cell aging.” http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_01a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_01a_08.html Patients' responses to a simple questionnaire can reliably predict whether they will adhere to physical therapy after spine surgery, Johns Hopkins researchers suggest in a new study. The findings could help physicians identify patients who might benefit from additional preoperative preparation to ensure they attend therapy sessions and follow through with prescribed exercise, a factor that can greatly affect their long-term recovery. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_01_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/10_01_08.html Natalia Bolotina, Ph.D., has joined the media relations team within Johns Hopkins Marketing and Communications division as the primary media representative for Johns Hopkins International, the global arm of Johns Hopkins Medicine. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_30_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_30_08.html The Johns Hopkins Health System is pleased to announce that it will receive a national equal opportunity employment award from the U.S. Department of Labor. This “Opportunity Award” will be presented at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, October 16, 2008. It is the first time in the history of the award that a hospital will receive it. http://www.hopkinsbayview.org/news/080930laboraward.html http://www.hopkinsbayview.org/news/080930laboraward.html Some Baltimore traditions just keep getting bigger and better. That's certainly the case with this year's Johns Hopkins Best Dressed Sale and Boutique 2008, now in it’s 41st year. Exclusive designer dresses and shoes, chic contemporary fashions, classic accessories and enduring vintage clothing will be on the racks, waiting for a favored place in the closets of bargain-conscious - but demanding - shoppers. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_28_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_28_08.html Johns Hopkins scientists who have spent decades researching the effects of caffeine report that a slew of caffeinated energy drinks now on the market should carry prominent labels that note caffeine doses and warn of potential health risks for consumers. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_24_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_24_08.html A heart expert at Johns Hopkins is calling for all women with a waistline measuring more than 35 inches to get an annual check-up and detailed risk assessment for heart problems because excess abdominal fat, even in the mildly obese and overweight, leads more than a third of women to underestimate their lifetime risk of having a heart attack, stroke or chest pain (angina.) http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_23_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_23_08.html Two Johns Hopkins University professors — a physician who champions scientifically rigorous, common- sense approaches to improving patient safety and an astrophysicist who was a leader in the discovery of the universe's "dark energy" — were named today as winners of MacArthur Fellowships, the so-called "genius grants." http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/univ08/sep08/macarthur.html http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/univ08/sep08/macarthur.html Two Johns Hopkins researchers—a physician whose squirrel hibernation studies may lead to new treatments for muscle-wasting diseases, and an engineer who is building medical tools smaller than a speck of dust—have received prestigious 2008 New Innovator Awards, the National Institutes of Health announced today. http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home08/sep08/innovators.html http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home08/sep08/innovators.html Johns Hopkins investigators report the discovery of master controllers of a gene critical to human and all mammalian development by trawling, implausibly enough, through anonymous genetic sequences using tiny zebrafish embryos. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_19a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_19a_08.html Weekly bouts of moderate aerobic exercise on a bike or treadmill, or a brisk walk, combined with some weightlifting, may cut down levels of fat in the liver by up to 40 percent in people with type 2 diabetes, a study by physical fitness experts at Johns Hopkins shows. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_19_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_19_08.html Brain scientists studying the molecular mechanisms of memory have earned a $1.5 million grant and the second consecutive designation for the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as a Silvio A. Conte Center for Neuroscience Research by the National Institute of Mental Health. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_17_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_17_08.html Johns Hopkins scientists report success in significantly suppressing levels of the “hunger hormone” ghrelin in pigs using a minimally invasive means of chemically vaporizing the main vessel carrying blood to the top section, or fundus, of the stomach. An estimated 90 percent of the body’s ghrelin originates in the fundus, which can’t make the hormone without a good blood supply. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_16_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_16_08.html Gene activity in prostate cancer is reminiscent of that in the developing fetal prostate, providing further evidence that all cancers are not equal, Johns Hopkins researchers report. The finding could help scientists investigate how to manipulate the genetic program to fight a disease whose biology remains poorly understood despite more than half a century of investigation. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_16a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_16a_08.html Parent-doctor discussions about whether to maintain or withdraw life support from terminally ill or severely premature newborns are so plagued by miscommunication and misunderstanding that they might as well be in different languages, according to a small but potentially instructive new study from Johns Hopkins Children’s Center reported in the September issue of Pediatrics. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5322 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5322 Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine report in the July issue of Neuron how nerve cells in the brain ensure that Arc, a protein critical for memory formation, is made instantly after nerve stimulation. Paradoxically, its manufacture involves two other proteins - including one linked to mental retardation - that typically prevent proteins from being made. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_12_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_12_08.html More than 20 world-renowned scientists and industry leaders presenting the current state of neurobiology research and discussing challenges of speeding drug discovery for brain diseases to an audience of more than 200 research scientists, leaders in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, business development executives, venture capitalists, investment bankers, and consulting and legal service providers. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_11_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_11_08.html Jeremy Nathans, M.D., Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and genetics and ophthalmology, and King-Wai Yau, Ph.D., professor of neuroscience and ophthalmology, have been awarded the 2008 António Champalimaud Vision Award by the Champalimaud Foundation in Portugal for their “ground-breaking discoveries in the laboratory that enhance our knowledge and understanding of vision.” http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_10_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_10_08.html Jeff W.M. Bulte, Ph.D., professor of radiology, biomedical engineering and chemical and biomolecular engineering in the Johns Hopkins Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, is one of 38 U.S. scientists to win one of the National Institutes of Health new EUREKA (for Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration) grants. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_03a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_03a_08.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have been awarded a $10 million "Roadmap" grant by the National Institute of Mental Health branch of the National Institutes of Health to establish the new Ion Channel Center and work with researchers around the country to identify molecular probes that can bind and regulate the tiny protein channels that allow small nutrients into and out of cells. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_03_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_03_08.html With close monitoring and a few standard precautions, nearly all children with known or suspected vaccine allergies can be safely immunized, according to a team of vaccine safety experts led by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. Writing in the September issue of Pediatrics, the multicenter research team offers pediatricians a step-by-step tool for quickly identifying children with allergic reactions to vaccines, and a much-needed guide, they say, to safely immunize those who are allergic. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5262 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5262 Reporting this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have uncovered for the first time molecular circuitry associated with schizophrenia that links three previously known, yet unrelated proteins. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_02_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/09_02_08.html People who walk on a treadmill even years after stroke damage can significantly improve their health and mobility, changes that reflect actual "rewiring" of their brains, according to research spearheaded at Johns Hopkins. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_29a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_29a_08.html A Johns Hopkins research team reports it may have an explanation for at least some of the higher organ rejection rates seen among black - as compared to white - kidney transplant recipients. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_28a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_28a_08.html Steve Cho, M.D., assistant professor in the division of nuclear medicine at the Johns Hopkins Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, is one of 19 scientists to earn a 2008 Young Investigator Award from the Prostate Cancer Foundation. The awards, designed to encourage careers in prostate disease research, carries a stipend of $75,000 a year for three years, with matching amounts from an investigator's institution. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_29_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_29_08.html Johns Hopkins HealthCare LLC (JHHC) has earned accreditation from the Utilization Review Accreditation Commission (URAC), a Washington, D.C.-based organization that establishes standards for the health care industry covering network management, provider credentialing, utilization management, quality improvement and consumer protection. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_28_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_28_08.html Having discovered a genetic trigger for age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss in people over 50, researchers report that an experimental state-of-the-art therapy for treating eye disease could adversely affect the vision of some patients with the "wrong" genetic makeup. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_27_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_27_08.html Elevated cholesterol levels return to normal or near normal levels over time in four out of 10 children with uncontrollable epilepsy treated with the high-fat ketogenic diet, according to results of a Johns Hopkins Children’s Center study reported in the Journal of Child Neurology. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5232 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5232 Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Mexican Society of Neurosurgery co-hosted a day-long conference on brain tumor management in Mexico this month, an unusual joint venture the planners hope will be a model for continuing medical education programs covering a wide range of medical specialties in that country. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_20_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_20_08.html Platelets - those tiny, unassuming cells that cause blood to clot and scabs to form when you cut yourself - play an important early role in promoting cerebral malaria, an often lethal complication that occurs mostly in children. Affecting as many as half a billion people in tropical and subtropical regions, malaria is one of the oldest recorded diseases and the parasite responsible for it, Plasmodium, among the most studied pathogens of all time. Still, cerebral malaria, which results from a combination of blood vessel and immune system dysfunction, is not well understood. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_18_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_18_08.html AIDS experts at Johns Hopkins say they have compelling evidence that some people with HIV who for years and even decades show extremely low levels of the virus in their blood never progress to full-blown AIDS and remain symptom free even without treatment, probably do so because of the strength of their immune systems, not any defects in the strain of HIV that infected them in the first place. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_12_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_12_08.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins are reporting what is believed to be the most conclusive evidence to date that inadequate levels of vitamin D, obtained from milk, fortified cereals and exposure to sunlight, lead to substantially increased risk of death. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_11_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_11_08.html A Johns Hopkins expert in HIV and how the AIDS virus hides in the body says antiretroviral drugs have stopped HIV from replicating, the first of three key steps needed to rid people of the virus. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_06_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/08_06_08.html A blood test currently used as the gold standard for monitoring people already under care for diabetes may have far wider use in identifying millions with undetected diabetes, a team led by a Johns Hopkins physician suggests. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_31_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_31_08.html Cells rely on calcium as a universal means of communication. For example, a sudden rush of calcium can trigger nerve cells to convey thoughts in the brain or cause a heart cell to beat. A longstanding mystery has been how cells and molecules manage to appropriately sense and respond to the variety of calcium fluctuations within cells. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_31a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_31a_08.html Family, friends and neighbors remember Lisa Sandler Spaeth as an active mother of two in Potomac, Md., with a lot on the go, juggling her son’s baseball games and her daughter’s horseback-riding lessons with numerous committee obligations, organizing women’s activities at her local synagogue. Add to this Spaeth’s thriving home business turned wholesale supplier - making custom hair accessories for children - which she founded with her mother. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_29_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_29_08.html Extreme heat or cold is not only uncomfortable, it can be deadly-causing proteins to unravel and malfunction. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_29a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_29a_08.html The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) has reappointed two scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to help lead nationwide research teams focused on the mental and cardiovascular risks associated with long-term spaceflight. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_28_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_28_08.html Contrary to prevailing assumptions, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that kidneys recovered from black donors who died from cardiac death offer the best survival rate for black recipients of a deceased-donor kidney. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_23a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_23a_08.html Victor Almon McKusick, M.D., University Professor of Medical Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, one of the two distinguished Johns Hopkins geneticists for whom the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine was named, and a towering international figure in genetics research, diagnosis and treatment, died Tuesday, July 22 at home. He was 86. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_23_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_23_08.html Mice with inflamed nasal tissue being tested at a Johns Hopkins laboratory may be unable to tell if something smells bad or good, but their sensory deficit is nothing to turn up a nose at. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_22b_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_22b_08.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that the Notch protein helps human embryonic stem cells “decide” their own fate, a finding which may eventually be useful in programming cells for the development of stem cell therapies. Their results are reported in the May 2008 issue of Cell Stem Cell. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_22a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_22a_08.html The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) has awarded The Johns Hopkins Hospital its prestigious Magnet Recognition status for excellence in nursing services. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_22_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_22_08.html A Johns Hopkins study published 63 years ago will make an encore appearance in the July 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) as part of a year-long retrospective celebrating JAMA's 125th anniversary by revisiting papers that changed the course of modern-day medicine. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5030 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5030 The Johns Hopkins Hospital has once again, for the 18th consecutive time, earned the top spot in U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings of American hospitals, placing first in three medical specialties and very high in 12 others. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_11_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_11_08.html A study of how pediatricians prescribe asthma medications suggests that while most would readily increase a child’s medication if needed, many are reluctant to taper off drug use when less might be best. A report on the study, led by Johns Hopkins Children’s Center researchers, appears in the July issue of Pediatrics. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5000 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=5000 In a follow-up to research showing that psilocybin, a substance contained in "sacred mushrooms," produces substantial spiritual effects, a Johns Hopkins team reports that those beneficial effects appear to last more than a year. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_01_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/07_01_08.html A small study in 18 patients assessing the effectiveness of the drug losartan for treating Marfan syndrome in children has yielded encouraging results. Reporting in the June 26 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, Johns Hopkins researchers showed that losartan-a compound used for years to treat high blood pressure-slowed the enlargement of the aorta, the most life-threatening defect associated with Marfan syndrome. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_25_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_25_08.html The state Medical Examiner's Office cited cardiac arrhythmia, or abnormal heart rhythm, as the cause of sudden death of 19 year-old U.S. Naval Academy student Kristen Dickmann. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_27_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_27_08.html Johns Hopkins Children’s Center has received a nearly $5 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to establish a basic and translational research center that will consolidate research, treatment and care of adult and pediatric patients under one roof and speed up the translation of scientific discovery from bench to bedside. In addition, the center will offer counseling and education services to patients and their families. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=4990 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/newsDetail.aspx?id=4990 Researchers have long known that type-2 diabetes and depression often go hand in hand. However, it's been unclear which condition develops first in patients who end up with both. Now, a new study led by Johns Hopkins doctors suggests that this chicken-and-egg problem has a dual answer: Patients with depression have an increased risk of developing type-2 diabetes, and patients with type-2 diabetes have an increased risk of developing depression. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_18_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_18_08.html Uncertainties about proper use and possible long-term effects of hydroxyurea in the treatment of sickle cell anemia may be wrongly influencing doctors to avoid prescribing it to those in serious need, according to results of a literature review by specialists at Johns Hopkins. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_17_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_17_08.html A zebra's stripes, a seashell's spirals, a butterfly's wings: these are all examples of patterns in nature. The formation of patterns is a puzzle for mathematicians and biologists alike. How does the delicate design of a butterfly's wings come from a single fertilized egg? How does pattern emerge out of no pattern? http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_16_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_16_08.html A team of AIDS experts at Johns Hopkins has found a simple mathematical equation that accurately explains how well each of 25 anti-HIV drugs in five commonly used drug groups suppresses the virus and keeps the disease in check. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_15_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_15_08.html Every year, about 500 million people worldwide are infected with the parasite that causes dysentery, a global medical burden that among infectious diseases is second only to malaria. In a new study appearing in the June 15 issue of Genes and Development, Johns Hopkins researchers may have found a way to ease this burden by discovering a new enzyme that http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_14_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_14_08.html Cell biologists at Johns Hopkins have discovered how tiny molecular motors within cells work together with other structural players to coordinate critical cell shape changes that accompany cell division. The work appears in the April 8 issue of Current Biology. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_12_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_12_08.html A short-term, very-high dose regimen of the immune-suppressing drug cyclophosphamide seems to slow progression of multiple sclerosis (MS) in most of a small group of patients studied and may even restore neurological function lost to the disease, Johns Hopkins researchers report. The findings in nine people, most of whom had failed all other treatments, suggest new ways to treat a disease that tends to progress relentlessly. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_10_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/06_10_08.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have established a human cell-based system for studying sickle cell anemia by reprogramming somatic cells to an embryonic stem cell like state. Publishing online in Stem Cells on May 29, the team describes a faster and more efficient method of reprogramming cells that might speed the development of stem cell therapies. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_29_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_29_08.html Heart patients often experience lasting problems with memory, language, and other cognitive skills after bypass surgery. However, these problems aren’t caused by the surgery itself or the pump used to replace heart function during surgery, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. The findings may lead to better approaches to prevent cognitive decline regardless of which treatment heart disease patients receive. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_19_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_19_08.html Volunteer heart experts at Johns Hopkins have embarked on what is believed to be the largest single-day event to date to screen young athletes in the United States for early signs of life-threatening defects in the body’s blood-pumping organ. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_15a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_15a_08.html Progress in patient safety research could slow to a crawl unless regulators work out a host of ethical issues, Johns Hopkins researchers assert in an upcoming opinion piece. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_13a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_13a_08.html A pricy drug used to treat a rare but well-known genetic disorder may hold wider promise as a treatment for millions of Americans with potentially lethal enlarged hearts, due mainly to high blood pressure, a study from Johns Hopkins shows. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_13_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_13_08.html Neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins are a step closer to understanding pain sensitivity - specifically why it’s variable instead of constant - having identified a gene that regulates a heat-activated molecular sensor. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_12_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_12_08.html Neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered that mice lacking an enzyme that contributes to Alzheimer disease exhibit a number of schizophrenia-like behaviors. The finding raises the possibility that this enzyme may participate in the development of schizophrenia and related psychiatric disorders and therefore may provide a new target for developing therapies. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_08_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/05_08_08.html Scientists at Johns Hopkins have outlined a new path for potential therapies to combat inflammation associated with sinusitis and asthma based on a new understanding of the body’s earliest immune response in the nose and sinus cavities. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/04_29_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/04_29_08.html Even when their blood pressure is kept strictly under control with the best available medicine, African-American patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) continue to lose their kidney function over time, research led by a Johns Hopkins team shows. The finding suggests that treating CKD in this population may be vastly more complex than researchers had previously thought, with blood pressure control being only one piece of the therapeutic puzzle. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/04_28_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/04_28_08.html On average, two Marylanders each day are diagnosed with potentially fatal oral cancers that are often curable if identified and treated early. The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Office of Oral Health reports that the state ranks in the country’s top 10 for number of deaths caused by oral cancers. Nationally, statistics show that the death rate from these cancers is higher than those of cervical cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma, testicular cancer, and thyroid and malignant melanoma. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/04_21_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/04_21_08.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have uncovered the molecular underpinnings of one of the earliest steps in human development using human embryonic stem cells. Their identification of a critical signal mediated by the protein BMP-4 that drives the differentiation of stem cells into what will become the placenta, will be published in the April issue of Cell Stem Cell. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/04_09_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/04_09_08.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that blood vessels in the head can guide growing facial nerve cells with blood pressure controlling proteins. The findings, which suggest that blood vessels throughout the body might have the same power of persuasion over many nerves, are published this week in Nature. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/04_10_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/04_10_08.html What is believed to be the largest study of its kind for the genetic roots of inflammatory bowel diseases has suggested new links to Crohn’s Disease as well as further evidence that some people of Jewish descent are more likely to develop it. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_26_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_26_08.html One day last spring, fossil hunter and anatomy professor Kenneth Rose, Ph.D. was displaying the bones of a jackrabbit’s foot as part of a seminar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine when something about the shape of the bones looked oddly familiar. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_19_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_19_08.html Kidney damage often sets off a slew of complications in patients, spreading organ failure like wildfire throughout their bodies. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins say they have evidence in mice that this deadly progression-at least to the lungs-may be due to genetic alterations in kidney-based genes that sabotage inflammation control and send toxic signals to healthy organs. The signals convince these organs to react as if they, too, are damaged. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_13_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_13_08.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have teased out two distinct sets of risk factors for head and neck cancers, suggesting that there are two completely different kinds of the disease. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_11b_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_11b_08.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that two clinically different inherited syndromes are in fact variations of the same disorder. Reporting in the April issue of Nature Genetics, the team suggests that at least for this class of disorders, the total number and “strength” of genetic alterations an individual carries throughout the genome can generate a range of symptoms wide enough to appear like different conditions. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_09_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_09_08.html Using pacemakers to electrically retune a heart damaged by long bouts of a wobbling heartbeat, where one heart muscle wall is beating sooner than the other, leads to fast improvements in the tissue levels of more than a dozen proteins key to the organ’s health, scientists at Johns Hopkins report in experiments in dogs. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_05_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_05_08.html Patients cared for by hospitals with residents in training have a 17 percent less chance of dying after lung cancer surgery compared with patients undergoing surgery at non-teaching hospitals, according to results of a Johns Hopkins study published in the March issue of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_04_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/03_04_08.html A pair of Johns Hopkins and government scientists have discovered that when jazz musicians improvise, their brains turn off areas linked to self-censoring and inhibition, and turn on those that let self-expression flow. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/02_26_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/02_26_08.html Johns Hopkins researchers from the Whiting School of Engineering and the School of Medicine have devised a micro-scale tool - a lab on a chip - designed to mimic the chemical complexities of the brain. The system should help scientists better understand how nerve cells in the brain work together to form the nervous system. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/02_12_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/02_12_08.html Staging mock cardiac and respiratory arrests – “code” situations in hospital parlance – easily expose common failures in rapid response with CPR and other life-saving care for children and also set up powerful incentives to sharpen emergency skills and move fast to use them, suggests a study from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=405 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=405 A researcher at the Johns Hopkins Institute of Genetic Medicine has led the effort to compile to date the largest free resource of experimental information about human proteins. Reporting in the February issue of Nature Biotechnology, the research team describes how all researchers around the world can access this data and speed their own research. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/02_07_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/02_07_08.html An antiretroviral drug already in widespread use in the developing world to prevent the transmission of HIV from infected mothers to their newborns during childbirth has also been found to substantially cut the risk of subsequent HIV transmission during breast-feeding. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/02_04_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/02_04_08.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered the first genetic evidence that secondhand smoke can worsen lung disease. The report in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association describes one gene variation that can weaken lung function as well as shorten the lifespan of those affected by cystic fibrosis and also are exposed to secondhand smoke. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_29b_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_29b_08.html Heart surgeons at Johns Hopkins have evidence to support further tightening rather than easing of standards used to designate hospitals that are best at performing heart transplants. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_29_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_29_08.html An estimated one in 20 patients undergoing a common operation to boost blood supply to the heart and to ward off repeat heart attacks may do better if their surgeons also remold the heart to a near normal size, by cutting and suturing together stretched muscle and scar tissue resulting from the initial attack, according to cardiac surgeons at Johns Hopkins. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_29a_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_29a_08.html A modified version of a popular high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet can significantly cut the number of seizures in adults with epilepsy, a study led by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. The Atkins-like diet, which has shown promise for seizure control in children, may offer a new lifeline for patients when drugs and other treatments fail or cause complications. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_28_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_28_08.html Research by a group of scientists studying the effects of heavy marijuana use suggests that withdrawal from the use of marijuana is similar to what is experienced by people when they quit smoking cigarettes. Abstinence from each of these drugs appears to cause several common symptoms, such as irritability, anger and trouble sleeping - based on self reporting in a recent study of 12 heavy users of both marijuana and cigarettes. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_24_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_24_08.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have identified a common genetic alteration that appears to be associated with autism only when inherited by sons from their mother. The CNTNAP2 gene, also identified by two other groups publishing jointly in the January issue of The American Journal of Human Genetics, is one of the strongest common genetic links to autism susceptibility found to date. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_22_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_22_08.html Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered a previously unsuspected mechanism of cell death that may afford a new way to find and develop stronger yet less-harmful anticancer drugs. Specifically, they have found that a cellular stress-response protein prevents cells from dying by interacting with a particular signaling protein and mediating its response to some conventional anticancer drugs. The results appear in last week’s Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_21_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_21_08.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered a window in kidney growth that affects the onset of polycystic kidney disease and can mean, in mice, the difference between developing severe cystic disease early in adolescence or late in adulthood. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_17_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_17_08.html Findings from what is believed to be the largest comparison of blood samples collected from healthy individuals and people with schizophrenia suggest that infection with the common Toxoplasma gondii parasite, carried by cats and farm animals, may increase the risk of schizophrenia. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=403 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=403 William Stewart Halsted, The Johns Hopkins Hospital’s first surgeon in chief, is widely credited as the first to develop and introduce rubber surgical gloves in the United States. That was in 1894, five years after the institution opened. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_15_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_15_08.html More than three decades after the shutdown of the notorious Tuskegee study, a team of Johns Hopkins physicians has found that Tuskegee’s legacy of blacks’ mistrust of physicians and deep-seated fear of harm from medical research persists and is largely to blame for keeping much-needed African Americans from taking part in clinical trials. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_14_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_14_08.html New ways to make sure people are adequately informed about the risks and benefits of taking part in a clinical trial can be field-tested for effectiveness as rigorously as new medical treatments themselves, a study led by a Johns Hopkins bioethicist suggests. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_11_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_11_08.html One way cancer arises is when tumor suppressor genes that normally keep cell growth in check are mysteriously turned off. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that at least one tumor suppressor gene is in fact turned off by a “noncoding” single stranded RNA nucleic acid similar to its double-stranded DNA cousin. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_09_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_09_08.html They say that a picture can be worth a thousand words. This especially is true for describing the structures of molecules that function to promote cancer. Researchers at Johns Hopkins have built a three-dimensional picture of an enzyme often mutated in many types of cancers. The results, published Dec. 14 in Science, suggest how the most common mutations in this enzyme might lead to cancer progression. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_04_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_04_08.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins and Ohio State University have found that the number of copies of a particular gene can affect the severity of colon cancer in a mouse model. Publishing in the Jan. 3 issue of Nature, the research team describes how trisomy 21, or Down syndrome in humans, can repress tumor growth. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_03_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_03_08.html Activating a protein found on some immune cells seems to halt the cells’ typical job of spewing out substances that launch allergic reactions, a study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. The findings could eventually lead to new treatments for allergic reactions ranging from annoying bouts of hay fever to deadly asthma attacks. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_02_08.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2008/01_02_08.html New research from Johns Hopkins specialists suggests that obese kidney disease patients face not only the usual long odds of a tissue match and organ rejection, but also are significantly less likely than normal-weight people to receive a kidney transplant at all. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_19_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_19_07.html Noncombat-related acute and recurrent chronic pain are the leading causes of soldier attrition in modern war, with the return-to-duty rate as low as 2 percent when these soldiers are treated outside the theaters of operation. However, that rate jumps to 95 percent when troops and officers are treated and managed for pain in the field of instead of being sent elsewhere for therapy, according to a new study from a Johns Hopkins anesthesiologist. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_17_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_17_07.html Considered “transitional” a generation ago, milk and egg allergies now appear to be more persistent and harder to outgrow, according to new research from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=402 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=402 It has no current market, not even a prescription price. Its makers stopped commercial production years ago, because demand was so low. But an antibiotic long abandoned as a weak, low-dose treatment for tuberculosis (TB) may have found renewed purpose, this time as a potent, high-dose fighter against the most common and actively contagious form of the lung disease. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_17a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_17a_07.html Surrounding the small islands of genes within the human genome is a vast sea of mysterious DNA. While most of this non-coding DNA is junk, some of it is used to help genes turn on and off. As reported online this week in Genome Research, Hopkins researchers have now found that this latter portion, which is known as regulatory DNA and contributes to inherited diseases like Parkinson’s or mental disorders, may be more abundant than we realize. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_11_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_11_07.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that cancers arising from epigenetic changes - in this case the inappropriate activation of a normally silent gene - develop by becoming addicted to certain growth factors. Reporting online in next week’s Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, the team shows that blocking this “addiction” can greatly prevent cancer growth. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_10a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_10a_07.html Researchers from Johns Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania have uncovered another reason why one of the most commonly activated proteins in cancer is in fact so dangerous. As reported in Nature Genetics this week, the Myc protein can stop the production of at least 13 microRNAs, small pieces of nucleic acid that help control which genes are turned on and off. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_10_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_10_07.html A team of Johns Hopkins scientists has catalogued chemical tags attached to more than 800 genes from 76 human brain samples and collected the first evidence of how these special, inherited epigenetic “marks” might account for different brain functions. The results appear in the December issue of The American Journal of Human Genetics. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_04_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/12_04_07.html The first 320-slice computed tomography (CT) scanner in North America, the most powerful X-ray imaging machine in its class, has been installed and is in operation at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_26_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_26_07.html The extra blood volume produced in the obese may so dilute levels of a telltale protein produced by prostates that the popular PSA test may be significantly less effective for diagnosing prostate cancer in men carrying extra pounds, a new study in The Journal of the American Medical Association suggests. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_21_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_21_07.html In a bid to clean up misleading institutional safety comparisons and go further to fix safety problems, Johns Hopkins experts are proposing standard guidelines to be used as hospital safety rating tools. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_06a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_06a_07.html Heart surgeons at Johns Hopkins say people who need heart transplants can largely avoid transplant failure due to elevated blood pressure in their lungs with the help of proper drug treatment. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_06_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_06_07.html Alzheimer’s disease (AD) may progress more rapidly in people with high blood pressure or a form of irregular heartbeat, atrial fibrillation, according to results of a Johns Hopkins study published in the Nov. 6, 2007, issue of Neurology. The findings suggest that treating these conditions may also slow memory loss in people with AD. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_05b_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_05b_07.html Heart experts at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have evidence that at least 522 lives can be saved annually in the United States and Canada by the widespread placement of automated external defibrillators, the paddle-fitted, electrical devices used to shock and revive people whose hearts have suddenly stopped beating. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_05a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_05a_07.html A study by an international team of cardiac imaging specialists, led by researchers at Johns Hopkins, concludes that sophisticated computed tomography (CT) scans of the heart and its surrounding arteries are almost as reliable and accurate as more invasive procedures to check for blockages. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_05_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_05_07.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have evidence to explain why the supposedly natural act of aging is by itself a very potent risk factor for life-threatening heart failure. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_04_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_04_07.html Because even mild asthma among young inner-city children appears to be more unpredictable than ever, four or more check-ups a year after diagnosis is a wise move as a hedge against dangerous flare-ups of wheezing and trips to the emergency room, according to a study from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=397 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=397 Emergency departments across the nation are failing to meet national goals in treating many heart attack and pneumonia patients, according to a study by Johns Hopkins researchers published in the October issue of Academic Emergency Medicine. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_31b_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_31b_07.html The Johns Hopkins Heart Institute today announced a $1.5 million gift from the Mirowski Family Foundation for cardiovascular research. The Michel Mirowski, M.D. Discovery Fund, named in honor of Mirowski and his wife, Anna, will support researchers pursuing novel ideas not yet eligible for traditional sources of funding. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_01_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/11_01_07.html The genetic family ties that bind brothers and sisters also link their risk for developing clogged arteries and having potentially fatal heart attacks, scientists at Johns Hopkins report. And according to researchers, brothers bear the brunt of the burden. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_30_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_30_07.html Brain scientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered how cells in the developing ear make their own noise, long before the ear is able to detect sound around them. The finding, reported in this week’s Nature, helps to explain how the developing auditory system generates brain activity in the absence of sound. It also may explain why people sometimes experience tinnitus and hear sounds that seem to come from nowhere. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_31_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_31_07.html The Down Syndrome Research and Treatment Foundation has awarded a $250,000 grant to Roger H. Reeves, Ph.D., a professor of physiology and member of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins. Reeves and his research team will extend their current studies on a potential drug to see if its positive effects can improve brain development in mouse models of Down syndrome. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_31a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_31a_07.html A team of Johns Hopkins scientists reports in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that humans can be protected against the damaging effects of ultraviolet (UV) radiation - the most abundant cancer-causing agent in our environment - by topical application of an extract of broccoli sprouts. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_22b_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_22b_07.html Johns Hopkins researchers and colleagues have found a previously unrecognized role for tiny hair-like cell structures known as cilia: They help form our sense of touch. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_22c_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_22c_07.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins’ McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine today are releasing newly generated genetic data to help speed autism research. The Hopkins data, coordinated with a similar data release from the Autism Consortium, aims to help uncover the underlying hereditary factors and speed the understanding of autism by encouraging scientific collaboration. These data provide the most detailed look to date at the genetic variation patterns in families with autism http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_22a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_22a_07.html Simply informing the poor about government-provided health, educational, and social services they are entitled to could empower them to take greater advantage of free or low-cost public services, a study in India suggests. The finding, reported in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, could be an overlooked, relatively easy way to boost health and well-being in developing countries around the world. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_22_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_22_07.html A five-minute eye exam might prove to be an inexpensive and effective way to gauge and track the debilitating neurological disease multiple sclerosis, potentially complementing costly magnetic resonance imaging to detect brain shrinkage - a characteristic of the disease’s progression. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_15_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_15_07.html One year after completing the first large-scale report sequencing breast and colon cancer genes, Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists have studied the vast majority of protein-coding genes which now suggest a landscape dominated by genes that each are mutated in relatively few cancers. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_11_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_11_07.html Both extensive psychological research and personal experiences confirm that events that happen during heightened states of emotion such as fear, anger and joy are far more memorable than less dramatic occurrences. In a report this week in Cell, Johns Hopkins researchers and their collaborators at Cold Spring Harbor and New York University have identified the likely biological basis for this: a hormone released during emotional arousal “primes” nerve cells to remember events by increasing their chemical sensitivity at sites where nerves rewire to form new memory circuits. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_04_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_04_07.html Johns Hopkins researchers say they have figured out how human and all animal cells tune in to a key signal, one that literally transmits the instructions that shape their final bodies. It turns out the cells assemble their own little radio antenna on their surfaces to help them relay the proper signal to the developmental proteins “listening” on the inside of the cell. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_03a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_03a_07.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that high-normal uric acid (UA) levels may cause barely detectable mini strokes that potentially contribute to mental decline in aging adults. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_01a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_01a_07.html A popular prostate cancer treatment called androgen deprivation therapy may encourage prostate cancer cells to produce a protein that makes them more likely to spread throughout the body, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_01_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/10_01_07.html Johns Hopkins’ McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine is one of two gene-hunting facilities in the nation to win a new $11.7 million four-year federal grant to rigorously sort out how such environmental factors as diet, exercise, stress and addictions interact with people’s individual genetic makeup to affect their risk for disorders as wide-ranging as cancer, diabetes, tooth decay and heart disease. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/09_25a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/09_25a_07.html Scientists at Johns Hopkins have developed a mouse model for schizophrenia in which a mutated gene linked to schizophrenia can be turned on or off at will. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/09_10a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/09_10a_07.html Nearly 30 years after Nobel laureate Linus Pauling famously and controversially suggested that vitamin C supplements can prevent cancer, a team of Johns Hopkins scientists have shown that in mice at least, vitamin C - and potentially other antioxidants - can indeed inhibit the growth of some tumors ? just not in the manner suggested by years of investigation. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/09_10_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/09_10_07.html How the gene that has been pegged as a major risk factor for schizophrenia and other mood disorders that affect millions of Americans contributes to these diseases remains unclear. However, the results of a new study by Hopkins researchers and their colleagues, appearing in Cell this week, provide a big clue by showing what this gene does in normal adult brains. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/09_07_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/09_07_07.html Mandatory classes that aim to improve the quality of medical care seem to successfully teach doctors new concepts but don’t necessarily improve patient outcomes, suggests a thorough review of articles that examine quality improvement (QI) curricula. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/09_05_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/09_05_07.html Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and Cambridge University in England have designed an automated means of continuously tracking potentially dangerous changes in blood flow to the brain in real time, a system that shows promise for preventing brain damage and death in children with head injuries. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=394 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=394 The Johns Hopkins scientist who first showed that the absence of the protein myostatin leads to oversized muscles in mice and men has now found a second protein, follistatin, whose overproduction in mice lacking myostatin doubles the muscle-building effect. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_29_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_29_07.html ---- Some biochemical processes, especially those in bacteria, have been so well studied it’s assumed that no discoveries are left to be made. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_24_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_24_07.html ---- Tests in chinchillas show promise for treating long-term unsteadiness and blurry vision. Hearing and balance experts at Johns Hopkins report successful testing in animals of an electrical device that partly restores a damaged or impaired sense of balance. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_06a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_06a_07.html --Researchers at Johns Hopkins have found a way to overcome a major stumbling block to developing successful insulin-cell transplants for people with type I diabetes. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_06_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_06_07.html --Johns Hopkins researchers have genetically engineered the first mouse that models both the anatomical and behavioral defects of schizophrenia, a complex and debilitating brain disorder that affects over 2 million Americans. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_02a_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_02a_07.html --When quizzed about their knowledge in diagnosing tuberculosis and deciding on the best treatment, medical residents in Baltimore and Philadelphia get almost half the answers wrong, according to a survey by TB disease experts at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_02_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/08_02_07.html --A 5-year-old with abdominal pain, nausea and fever may have appendicitis or any of a number of other problems. But how does the child’s doctor decide whether to schedule an emergency appendectomy to surgically remove a presumably inflamed appendix — a procedure that carries its own risks like any surgery — or wait and observe what could be a ticking time bomb that could rupture and kill the patient in a matter of hours? http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=392 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=392 --Infants and young children living in Baltimore's inner-city homes are at risk for serious perils, including fires, falls and poisoning, according to a small but revealing study from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=391 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=391 --A type 2 diabetes drug taken orally and in widespread use for more than a decade has been found to have distinct advantages over nine other, mostly newer medications used to control the chronic disease, according to a study by researchers at Johns Hopkins. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/07_24_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/07_24_07.html --persistent changes in "slow" nerve currents may also link memory and addiction. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/07_18_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/07_18_07.html -- Johns Hopkins researchers have added to the growing mound of evidence that many of the genetic bits and pieces that drive evolutionary changes do not confer any advantages or disadvantages to humans or other animals. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/07_17_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/07_17_07.html -- Doctors urge caution in diagnosis based on test results http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=389 http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=389 -- Discovery explains why anticancer vaccines mostly fail http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/07_16_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/07_16_07.html Study identified risks for co-infected patients about taking entecavir. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/06_20_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/06_20_07.html Searching for less invasive screening tests for cancer, Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered proteins present in blood that accurately identify colon cancer and precancerous polyps. http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/news/archive_details.cfm?documentid=897 http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/news/archive_details.cfm?documentid=897 Johns Hopkins researchers have found a way to directly observe cell migration -- in real time and in living tissue. In a report in the June 5 issue of Developmental Cell, the scientists say their advance could lead to strategies for controlling both normal growth and the spread of cancer, processes that depend on the programmed, organized movement of cells across space http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/06_08_07.html http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/06_08_07.html Like hobos on a train, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, uses a pre-existing transport system to leave one infected cell and infect new ones, Hopkins scientists have discovered. Their findings, published in the June issue of Plos Biology, counter the prevailing belief that HIV and other retroviruses can only leave and enter cells by virus-specific mechanisms. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/06_04_07.html A team of biomedical engineers has developed a computer model that makes use of more or less predictable “guesstimates” of human muscle movements to explain how the brain draws on both what it recently learned and what it’s known for some time to anticipate what it needs to develop new motor skills. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/06_01_07.html Scientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered one way the p53 gene does what it's known for-stopping the colon cancer cells. Their report will be published in the June 8 issue of Molecular Cell. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/05_31_07.html The simple notion of copying the bodys own natural waste disposal chemistry to mop up potentially toxic nitrogen has saved an estimated 80 percent of patients with urea cycle disorders --- most of them children - according to a report in this weeks New England Journal of Medicine summarizing a quarter century of experience with the treatment. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/05_30_07.html Studying a rare inherited syndrome, researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that cancer cells can reprogram themselves to turn down their own energy-making machinery and use less oxygen, and that these changes might help cancer cells survive and spread. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/05_07a_07.html Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered to their surprise that nerves in the mammalian brain’s white matter do more than just ferry information between different brain regions, but in fact process information the way gray matter cells do. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/05_07_07.html Throughout May — stroke awareness month — Johns Hopkins Children’s Center neurologists are sounding the alarm for parents about a common myth: that children don’t suffer strokes. In fact, nearly 3,200 children have so-called brain attacks each year, and half of them end up with permanent neurological damage, according to Lori Jordan, M.D. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=384 Hopkins researchers have identified a backup supply of stem cells that can repair the most severe damage to the nerves responsible for our sense of smell. These reservists normally lie around and do nothing, but when neighboring cells die, the scientists say, the stem cells jump into action. A report on the discovery will appear online next week in Nature Neuroscience. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_29_07.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered to their surprise that a drug commonly used to treat toenail fungus can also block angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels commonly seen in cancers. The drug, itraconazole, already is FDA approved for human use, which may fast-track its availability as an antiangiogenesis drug. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_26a_07.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that the same ingredient used in dandruff shampoos to fight the burning, itching and flaking on your head also can calm overexcited nerve cells inside your head, making it a potential treatment for seizures. Results of the study can be found online in Nature Chemical Biology. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_26b_07.html New studies of a blood protein recently identified at Johns Hopkins, early prostate cancer antigen-2 (EPCA-2), may change the way men are screened for prostate cancer - a disease that kills tens of thousands of men every year. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_26_07.html A Johns Hopkins team has stopped in its tracks a form of blood cancer in mice by engineering and inactivating an enzyme, telomerase, thereby shortening the ends of chromosomes, called telomeres. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_25_07.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins took advantage of a new technique that reads the makeup of proteins to identify nearly all chemical changes nature makes by adding phosphate to proteins manufactured in human cells. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_23_07.html Infection control and critical care experts at The Johns Hopkins Hospital have ordered testing for the two most common hospital superbugs for every child admitted to its pediatric intensive care unit. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_16_07.html A Johns Hopkins study of adult patients admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital showed that patients who resided in nursing homes or other kinds of long-term care facilities at any time within the last six months were far more likely than other adult patients to carry or be infected with a drug-resistant superbug http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_16a_07.html People with a family history of pancreas cancer now have a way to accurately predict their chance of carrying a gene for hereditary pancreas cancer and their lifetime risk of developing the disease. Developed by Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers, the novel computer software tool is designed to help genetic counselors and physicians decide who would most benefit from early screening. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_16b_07.html Working with fruit flies, scientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered a protein required for two neighboring cells to fuse and become one “super cell.” http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_10_07.html Spring is here, the sky is blue, the grass is green and it’s time to give that lawn a trim. But beware: Lawn mower injuries are a seasonal threat to children and the leading cause of amputations in adolescents, say specialists from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, Maryland’s designated pediatric trauma center where the most severe injuries are treated. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=381 Engineers at the Johns Hopkins Urology Robotics Lab report the invention of a motor without metal or electricity that can safely power remote-controlled robotic medical devices used for cancer biopsies and therapies guided by magnetic resonance imaging. The motor that drives the devices can be so precisely controlled by computer that movements are steadier and more precise than a human hand. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_06_07.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered how cells fine-tune their oxygen use to make do with whatever amount is available at the moment. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_05b_07.html Researchers at Johns Hopkins may have discovered an unintended benefit in the drugs millions of Americans take to lower their cholesterol: The medications, all statins, seem to lower the risk of a potentially lethal blood infection known as sepsis in patients on kidney dialysis. The study is published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/04_05a_07.html Research led by specialists at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center has found that teenage boys who hold some traditional beliefs about what it means to be a “real man” can undermine their sexual health and good preventive care in general. Their report, in the April edition of Pediatrics, is the result of a nationwide study believed to be the first linking teens’ beliefs about manhood to their use of health care services. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=380 Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Donald W. Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center have been awarded $12.6 million in additional funding from its original namesake, the Las Vegas-based Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, to continue studies into the causes of sudden cardiac death. More than 300,000 Americans die each year when the heart suddenly stops pumping blood, triggered by an electrical disturbance in the heart. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/03_28_07.html Generally healthy African Americans may be at higher risk of heart failure because of racial variations in heart muscle’s pumping ability, a Johns Hopkins study suggests. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/03_26c_07.html Diabetes and high blood pressure, two conditions rooted in genetics and environmental surroundings, play a much greater role than race alone in determining who is mostly likely to develop heart failure, according to the latest study from cardiologists at Johns Hopkins. Each year, nearly 300,000 Americans die from heart failure. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/03_27_07.html Johns Hopkins Medicine has installed for three months of initial safety and clinical testing a 256-slice computed tomography (CT) scanner, believed to be the world’s most advanced CT imaging software and machinery. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/03_26b_07.html Contrary to widespread belief, total surgical replacement of arthritic shoulder joints carries no greater risk of complications than replacement of other major joints, a Johns Hopkins study suggests. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/03_26_07.html In a first of its kind study, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have developed a new technique that transports therapeutic stem cells in a multilayer microcapsule that not only protects the cells from being attacked by the body's immune system but also enables them to be seen on X-ray. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/03_25_07.html Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and their colleagues have found that mice simply expressing a human light receptor in addition to their own can acquire new color vision, a sign that the brain can adapt far more rapidly to new sensory information than anticipated. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/03_22_07.html Scientists’ inability to follow the whereabouts of cells injected into the human body has long been a major drawback in developing effective medical therapies. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins have developed a promising new technique for noninvasively tracking where living cells go after they are put into the body. The new technique, which uses genetically encoded cells producing a natural contrast that can be viewed using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), appears much more effective than present methods used to detect injected biomaterials. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/03_20_07.html Johns Hopkins University and a consortium of seven other leading U.S. scientific and medical institutions today warned Congress that persistent flat funding of biomedical research could thwart advances in treatments for such diseases as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, and erode U.S. dominance in science. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/03_19_07.html "Kidney disease occurs more often than we think, but it is also more treatable than we used to think, especially when caught early,” says Barbara Fivush, M.D., director of nephrology at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. “Children and adolescents should be monitored carefully because kidney disease that seems to suddenly strike young adults often has its roots in childhood.” http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=378 Johns Hopkins emergency medicine specialists have developed a tool to help hospitals prepare for disasters with the potential to overwhelm services. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/03_06a_07.html A Johns Hopkins study has proven false established medical practice that an antiretroviral drug widely used to treat hepatitis B liver infections was safe to use on its own in patients co-infected with HIV. Their findings demonstrate that treatment with entecavir leads to cross-resistance to other antiviral drugs used to treat the AIDS virus. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/02_28_07.html In the first genome-wide search for the genetic roots of the most common form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Johns Hopkins scientists have newly identified 34 unique variations in the human genetic code among 276 unrelated subjects with ALS. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/02_20b_07.html A Johns Hopkins-led study has found evidence that a genetic tendency toward suicide has been linked to a particular area of the genome on chromosome 2 that has been implicated in two additional recent studies of attempted suicide. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/02_19_07.html By first probing the way primitive yeast make cholesterol, a team of scientists has discovered a long-sought protein whose human counterpart controls cholesterol production and potentially drug metabolism. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/02_16_07.html Biomedical scientists at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have won a $750,000 NASA grant to design the prototype for a mini mass spectrometer that fits on a Mars Rover and can analyze the chemicals of life as it crawls over the Red Planet’s dust. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/02_14_07.html Johns Hopkins cardiologists are calling for an expansion of the criteria widely used by physicians to detect and assess a postmenopausal woman’s chances of developing cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death among women in the United States. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/02_13a_07.html Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) – the leading cause of death in infants under 1 year of age – can happen at any time. But parents and caregivers should be extra careful during the cold winter months, when the flu and other infections and the urge to bundle up babies extra warmly increase the risk of SIDS, say experts from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/pages/news/pressdetails.cfm?newsid=373 Human nerve stem cells transplanted into rats’ damaged spinal cords have survived, grown and in some cases connected with the rats’ own spinal cord cells in a Johns Hopkins laboratory, overturning the long-held notion that spinal cords won’t allow nerve repair. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/02_13_07.html Johns Hopkins brain scientists have hit on how and why some powerful drugs used for treating mental illnesses cause patients to gain so much weight that they often develop life-threatening complications such as diabetes and heart disease. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/02_12_07.html Millions of middle-aged and older men experience the symptoms of an enlarged prostate multiple times during the day and night. What they may not know is that the disease known as BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia), marked by urgency and frequent urination, is not one but at least a pair of disorders, and that one of the pair ― tied to a newly identified gene ― has far more serious implications. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2007/02_05_07.html PLEASE UPDATE YOUR NEWS AGGREGATORS TO POINT TO: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/RSS/HopkinsRSS.xml http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/RSS/HopkinsRSS.xml