The Nae-Yuh Wang Lab concentrates on a wide range of multicenter studies and randomized controlled trials. Recent studies have focused on pediatric cochlear implantation and longitudinal data analysis. One recent study found that partnering with primary care providers to deliver weight loss programs may promote greater participant satisfaction and weight loss. Another active study is assessing the effectiveness of promising interventions to reduce race disparities in live donor kidney transplantation.

The Nancy Codori Lab is interested in doctors and suicide, depression in medical students and the improvement of health care providers’ history-taking skills.

The Natalie West Lab collaborates with Noah Lechtzin’s lab to study cystic fibrosis, with a particular focus on new resistant bacteria and their effect on the lung function of people with cystic fibrosis.

The Natasha Chida Lab investigates methods for using education and curriculum development to improve patient outcomes worldwide, primarily by optimizing education of physicians-in-training. Most recently, our team has worked to develop and evaluate an assessment tool for evaluating internal medicine residents’ understanding of tuberculosis diagnostics. Previous research includes a retrospective cohort study on the high proportion of extrapulmonary TB in a low-prevalence setting as well as an analysis of ways to define clinical excellence in adult infectious disease practice.

Research in the Nathaniel Comfort Lab looks at the history of biology. Areas of particular interest include heredity and health in 20th century America, genetics, molecular biology, biomedicine, the history of recent science, oral history and interviewing.

The Nauder Faraday Lab investigates topics within perioperative genetic and molecular medicine. We explore thrombotic, bleeding and infectious surgical complications. Our goal is to uncover the molecular determinants of outcome in surgical patients, which will enable surgeons to better personalize a patient’s care in the perioperative period. Our team is funded by the National Institutes of Health to research platelet phenotypes, the pharmacogenomics of antiplatelet agents for preventing cardiovascular disease, and the genotypic determinants of aspirin response in high-risk families.

The mission and interest of the neuroengineering and Biomedical Instrumentation Lab is to develop novel instrumentation and technologies to study the brain at several levels--from single cell to the whole brain--with the goal of translating the work into practical research and clinical applications. Our personnel include diverse, independent-minded and entrepreneurial students, post docs, and research faculty who base their research on modern microfabrication, stem cell biology, electrophysiology, signal processing, image processing, and integrated circuit design technologies.

The neuroimaging and Modulation Laboratory (NIMLAB) investigates neural correlates of cognition and behavior using neuroimaging methods such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and neuromodulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). We are looking in depth at the contributions of the cerebellum and cerebro-cerebellar circuits to cognition; the effects of chronic heavy alcohol consumption on cognition and brain activation underlying cognitive function; how aging in humans affects neural systems that are important for associative learning and stimulus awareness; and the integration of transcranial magnetic stimulation with functional MRI.

The research activities of the Neuroimmunopathology Laboratory focus on studies of immunological and molecular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of neurological disorders. Our main areas of research include studies of neurological complications of HIV infection and AIDS, multiple sclerosis, transverse myelitis, autism and epilepsy. We seek to explore and identify immunopathological mechanisms associated with neurological disease that may be the target of potential therapeutic interventions. The laboratory collaborates with other researchers and laboratories at Johns Hopkins and other institutions in projects related with studies of the interaction between the immune and central nervous systems in pathological processes leading to neurological dysfunction.

We investigate the brain networks and neurotransmitters involved in symptoms of movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, and the mechanisms by which modulating these networks through electrical stimulation affects these symptoms. We are particularly interested in the mechanisms through which neuromodulation therapies like deep brain stimulation affect non-motor brain functions, such as cognitive function and mood. We use imaging of specific neurotransmitters, such as acetylcholine and dopamine, to understand the changes in brain chemistry associated with the clinical effects of deep brain stimulation and to predict which patients are likely to have changes in non-motor symptoms following DBS. Through collaborations with our neurosurgery colleagues, we explore brain function by making recordings during DBS surgery during motor and non-motor tasks. Dr. Mills collaborates with researchers in the Department of Neurosurgery, the Division of Geriatric and Neuropsychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and in the Division of Nuclear Medicine within the Department of Radiology to translate neuroimaging and neurophysiology findings into clinical applications.