Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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News

Chronic diseases drive up Medicare costs, study shows

A new study by Emory University public health researchers finds that outpatient treatment for chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and kidney disease are to blame for the recent rise in Medicare spending. Kenneth Thorpe, PhD, chair, Health Policy and Management, Rollins School of Public Health, presented study findings today at a briefing of the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

The report, “Chronic Conditions Account for Rise in Medicare Spending from 1987 to 2006,” was published Feb. 18 by the journal Health Affairs.

Kenneth E. Thorpe, PhD

Thorpe and colleagues analyzed data about disease prevalence and about level of and change in spending on the 10 most expensive conditions in the Medicare population from 1987, 1997 and 2006.

Among key study findings:

  • Heart disease ranked first in terms of share of growth from 1987 to 1997.  However, from 1997 to 2006, heart disease fell to 10th, while other medical conditions – diabetes the most prevalent – accounted for a significant portion of the rise.
  • Increased spending on diabetes and some other conditions results from rising incidence of these diseases, not increased screening and diagnoses.

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Posted on February 23, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Nanotechnology may help surgeons detect cancer

What a cancer patient wants to know after surgery can be expressed succinctly: “Did you get everything?” Having a confident answer to that question can be difficult, because when they originate or metastasize, tumors are microscopic.

Considerable advances have been made in “targeted therapy” for cancer, but the wealth of information available on the molecular characteristics of cancer cells hasn’t given doctors good tools for detecting cancer during surgery – yet.

Even the much-heralded advent of robotic surgery has not led to clear benefits for prostate cancer patients in the area of long-term cancer control, a recent New York Times article reports.

At Emory and Georgia Tech’s joint department for biomedical engineering, Shuming Nie and his colleagues are developing tools that could help surgeons define tumor margins in human patients.

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Posted on February 18, 2010 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer Leave a comment

Palliative care: Addressing suffering and quality of life

The palliative care program at Emory University is working to improve quality of life and wellness by addressing the physical, psychological, ethical, spiritual and social needs of patients with serious, life-threatening or progressive chronic illnesses, and provides support to their families and caregivers.

Tammie E. Quest, MD

Often mistakenly confused with hospice care, palliative care is appropriately provided to patients in any stage of serious illness – whereas hospice care is primarily used for those approaching the end stage of life, says Tammie Quest, MD, interim director of the Emory Center for Palliative Care.

A typical palliative care “team” consists of physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, mental health professionals, therapists and pharmacists, assisting patients through a wide array of illnesses, including stroke, heart and lung disease, cancer and HIV.

The palliative care teams work closely with primary physicians to control pain, relieve symptoms of illnesses – such as nausea, fatigue and depression. Teams help provide counseling in making difficult medical decisions and provide emotional and spiritual support, coordinate home care referrals and assist with identifying future care needs.

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Posted on February 17, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

NIH at Emory to advance women’s heart health

NIH meets at Emory to discuss women's cardiovascular health and research

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has convened a key meeting at Emory on women’s cardiovascular health and research. The meeting, co-hosted by the Office of Research on Women’s Health and Emory School of Medicine, is focused today and tomorrow on NIH planning of the women’s health research agenda for the next decade.

Vivian Pinn, MD, associate director for research on women’s health, and director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at NIH, opened the meeting with Emory’s conference chair, Nanette Wenger, MD, professor of medicine (cardiology), Emory School of Medicine, and chief of cardiology at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Nanette K. Wenger, MD

In a career that spans more than 50 years, Wenger’s dedication to reducing women’s disability and death from cardiovascular disease has made her one of the country’s most-respected experts on coronary heart disease in women. In 2009, Wenger received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College of Cardiology.

Although Wenger has earned dozens of awards in her celebrated career, she says her greatest professional achievement has been to help change a major paradigm in cardiology: the assumption that heart disease affects only men. A half a century ago heart disease was thought of as a “man’s disease.”

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Posted on February 16, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Stress increases health risks to mother and fetus

At Emory’s fifth annual predictive health symposium Human Health: Molecules to Mankind,Emory GYN/OB Sarah L. Berga, MD, discussed the state of childbirth in the United States and how maternal stress affects pregnant women and their fetuses.

Berga is McCord professor and chair of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Emory School of Medicine. Sadly, Berga has seen maternal mortality rise steadily since the 1980s when she entered her medical residency. Georgia, she says, has the worse maternal mortality in the country. And the United States fares worse than many countries when it comes to maternal mortality.

Despite the unfortunate rise in maternal mortality of late, the good news is physicians have now started to pay more attention to the effect of stress ”both the physical and emotional kind” on women and their fetuses. Recent research shows stress has the same negative effect on the body as do organic diseases, such as thyroid disease. In fact, too much stress reduces thyroxine levels by about 50 percent, says Berga. But because there’s no clinical recognition of this, tests are needed to determine if thyroxine levels are indeed insufficient. The bottom line is, pregnant women should visit a gynecology clinic on a regular basis to ensure their and their babies’ safety.

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Posted on February 12, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

A new class of brain-protecting drugs

Pathologist Keqiang Ye has made a series of discoveries recently, arising from his investigations of substances that can mimic the growth factor BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor).

BDNF is a protein produced by the brain that pushes neurons to withstand stress and make new connections. Some neuroscientists have described BDNF as “Miracle Gro for brain cells.”

“BDNF has been studied extensively for its ability to protect neurons vulnerable to degeneration in several diseases, such as ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease,” Ye says. “The trouble with BDNF is one of delivery. It’s a protein, so it can’t cross the blood-brain barrier and degrades quickly.”

Working with Ye, postdoctoral fellow Sung-Wuk Jang identified a compound called 7,8-dihydroxyflavone that can duplicate BDNF’s effects on neurons and can protect them against damage in animal models of seizure, stroke and Parkinson’s disease. The compound’s selective effects suggest that it could be the founder of a new class of brain-protecting drugs. The results were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Posted on February 2, 2010 by Quinn Eastman in Neuro 1 Comment

Family of Emory nursing graduates helps Haiti’s orphans

Long before a 7.0-magnitude earthquake ravaged Haiti, a mother-daughter-daughter trio of Emory’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing graduates was already working in Haiti to help thousands of orphaned children there.

Cheron Hardy (03MN) joined the staff of the nonprofit Eternal Hope in Haiti (EHIH) shortly after graduating from Emory’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. EHIH was formed in 1993 by nursing alumna Twilla Haynes (80MN) and her daughters, Angela Haynes (91PH, 08N, 09MN) and Hope Haynes Bussewius (93MN).

In 1993, Twilla Haynes (80MN), of Hoschton, Ga. – with the help of her daughters, Angela Haynes (91PH, 08N, 09MN) and Hope Haynes Bussewius (93MN) – founded Eternal Hope in Haiti (EHIH), an organization dedicated to better health care for Haiti’s people. Three years later, they opened the Hope Haven Orphanage in Cap Haitien in the northwest province of Haiti.

Emory Wire, a publication of the Emory Alumni Association, recently sat down to talk with the Haynes about their experiences in Haiti.

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Posted on February 1, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Reducing tobacco consumption through taxes

Jeffrey Koplan, MD, MPH

In many countries, taxes on tobacco have successfully reduced its consumption. As world leaders in countries consider raising the excise tax on tobacco products in the coming year, it is vital they consider all the determinants that effectively promote health through taxation and how using business tax preparation services can be useful, say Emory global health experts Jeffrey Koplan, MD, MPH, and Mohammed Ali, MBChB, MSc.

Koplan and Ali discuss the complex issues of health promotion and tobacco taxation in a commentary in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, “Promoting Health Through Tobacco Taxation.”

Mohammed K. Ali, MBChB, MSc

“Effective and comprehensive tobacco control involves a broad mixture of interventions – scientific, behavioral, educational, legal, regulatory, environmental, and economic,” say Koplan, former Emory vice president for global health and former CDC director, and Ali, assistant professor, Hubert Department of Global Health at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health.

 

Posted on January 28, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Emory volunteers sort medical supplies for Haiti

Over the past few weeks, more than 150 Emory University faculty, staff and students, as well as Emory Healthcare staff, have volunteered with Atlanta-based MedShare, sorting thousands of medical supplies that are being shipped to medical personnel on the ground in Haiti.

Volunteering for Haiti relief

Patricia Guasch, RN, director of Emory University Hospital’s rehabilitation nursing services, is one of the many Emory MedShare volunteers lending a hand in the relief effort. Guasch and several of her colleagues from the Emory Center for Rehabilitation Medicine, along with their children, spent the King Holiday weekend sorting supplies at MedShare.

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Posted on January 27, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

A new trend in medicine: redefining disease

Paul Wolpe, PhD

You may have already heard that last month Emory held its fifth annual predictive health symposium “Human Health: Molecules to Mankind.” Researchers, physicians, health care workers and members of the community from throughout the country met to learn about intriguing research and provocative commentary by health care experts.

One of those experts, Paul Wolpe, director of the Emory Center for Ethics, says health care has changed as more and more aspects of ordinary life or behaviors are being redefined as medical. For example, being drunk and disorderly has become alcoholism. Now, virtually all of life is being redefined in biological terms, he says. And that, says Wolpe, has led to an increase in health care costs. We have an enormous amount of new things that we are calling illness, and we expect our health care system to treat them, he says. “We are creating a new category of disease called pre-symptomatic.”

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Posted on January 21, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment
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