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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Research

Tobacco free cities project aims to curb smoking in China

Jeffrey Koplan, MD, MPH

Jeffrey Koplan, MD, MPH, director of the Emory Global Health Institute and vice president for Global Health at Emory University, is leading the second phase of the Tobacco Free Cities project in China, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The project, which launched in 10 Chinese cities this week, is a partnership with the ThinkTank Research Center for Health Development in Beijing.

Vice mayors of each of the 10 cities signed an official pledge to strive to create tobacco-free cities for residents. China has more than 300 million smokers, the most of any country, and more than 500 million people in China are exposed to secondhand smoke.

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The two-year project aims to enhance the overall capacity in smoking-tobacco control of the cities and help ease the burden caused by tobacco to public health, the environment and the economy, Koplan says in an article in China Daily.

The project launch was covered by other major Chinese news outlets, including Xinhua News Agency.

The first phase of the Tobacco Free Cities project launched in June 2009 in seven Chinese cities. The project is part of the Emory Global Health Institute-China Tobacco Partnership. In January 2009 Emory University received a $14 million, five-year grant from the Gates Foundation to establish the partnership.

Posted on January 14, 2011 by admin in Uncategorized 2 Comments

H1N1 2009 virus may point way to universal flu vaccine

Emory MedicalHorizon

Scientists at Emory and the University of Chicago have discovered that the 2009 H1N1 flu virus provides excellent antibody protection. This may be a milestone discovery in the search for a universal flu vaccine.

Researchers took blood samples from patients infected with the 2009 H1N1 strain and developed antibodies in cell culture. Some of the antibodies were broadly protective and could provide protection from the H1N1 viruses that circulated over the past 10 years in addition to the 1918 pandemic flu virus and even avian influenza or bird flu (H5N1).

The antibodies protected mice from a lethal viral dose, even 60 hours post-infection.

The research is published online in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Some of the antibodies stuck to the “stalk” region, or hemagglutinin (H in H1N1) protein part of the virus. Because this part of the virus doesn’t change as much as other regions, scientists have proposed to make it the basis for a vaccine that could provide broader protection. The antibodies could guide researchers in designing a vaccine that gives people long-lasting protection against a wide spectrum of flu viruses.

The paper’s first author, Emory School of Medicine’s Jens Wrammert, PhD, says “Our data shows that infection with the 2009 pandemic influenza strain could induce broadly protective antibodies that are very rarely seen after seasonal flu infections or flu shots. These findings show that these types of antibodies can be induced in humans, if the immune system has the right stimulation, and suggest that a pan-influenza vaccine might be feasible.”

Rafi Ahmed, PhD, director of the Emory Vaccine Center, and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, is co-senior author of the publication, along with Patrick Wilson at University of Chicago.

Multimedia

Video

  • See YouTube for video commentary by Dr. Ahmed
  • For access to raw video for media purposes, contact Kathi Baker, kobaker@emory.edu, 404-727-9371 Office, 404-686-5500 Pager (ID 14455), 404-227-1871 Mobile.

Audio

Posted on January 10, 2011 by admin in Immunology 2 Comments

Transplant nursing pioneer revisits Emory Transplant Center, 45 years later

Millie Elliott

Nearly 45 years after she cared for Georgia’s first organ transplant recipient, Millie Elliott, 84, visited the Emory Transplant Center outpatient transplant clinic to see how things have changed since her time at Emory. Elliott, who was Millie Burns at the time, worked at Emory University Hospital first as an obstetrics nurse, then as head nurse of an NIH-sponsored clinical research unit at Emory from 1961 to 1967. She served as a dialysis nurse on that unit and may have been the Southeast’s first renal transplant coordinator.

During her recent visit to Emory, this former Cadet Nurse Corps nurse and World War II veteran regaled the transplant center staff and kidney transplant program director Thomas Pearson, MD, PhD, with her stories about the first transplant at Emory. Elliott recalled spending a lot of time researching medical sources to prepare herself and her nurses for that remarkable day. The first transplant patient was a 16-year -old boy with renal failure who received a donor kidney from his father.

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

Reassuring news on viral immunity + HIV vaccine

A recent paper in Journal of Immunology suggests that a platform for an HIV vaccine developed by Yerkes National Primate Research Center scientists won’t run into the same problems as another HIV vaccine. Postdoc Sunil Kannanganat is the first author of the JI paper, with Emory Vaccine Center researcher Rama Amara as senior author.

Harriet Robinson, MD and Rama Rao Amara, PhD

Many HIV vaccines have been built by putting genes from HIV into the backbone of another virus. Some have used a modified cold virus (adenovirus 5). The vaccine developed at Yerkes uses modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA), a relative of smallpox and chicken pox.

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Posted on December 17, 2010 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

The science behind the Mediterranean diet

The diet calls for lots of fruits and vegetables.

Researchers, physicians, and health care providers from across the United States and Italy met recently at the Rollins School of Public Health for the first Emory Conference on Mediterranean Diet and Health. Participants focused on the diet’s relation to cardiovascular disease, cancer, neuropsychiatric disorders, and vascular health.

The Mediterranean diet is characterized by a high consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes, complex carbohydrates, and nuts; moderate consumption of fish and red wine; low consumption of cheese and red meat; and olive oil as the chief source of fat, explains Viola Vaccarino, MD, PhD, one of the conference chairs.

When topped with exercise, the Mediterranean diet really a pattern of eating habits traditionally followed by people in the Mediterranean regions in the early 1960shas proven beneficial for many throughout the years. But why this is so isnt clear.
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Posted on December 10, 2010 by admin in Heart Leave a comment

Challenges in islet transplantation

Two recent research papers from the Emory Transplant Center describe research on pancreatic islet transplantation, an experimental procedure that could help people with type I diabetes live without daily insulin injections.

Islet transplantation may offer people with type I diabetes the ability to produce their own insulin again

As with other types of transplantation, the challenge with islet transplantation is to avoid rejection of the donated organ and to balance that goal against side effects from the drugs needed to control the immune system. These papers illustrate how that balancing act is especially complex.

In the last decade, transplant specialists developed a method for islet transplantation named the “Edmonton protocol” after pioneers at the University of Alberta. While the emergence of this method was a major step forward, there are limitations:

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Posted on December 9, 2010 by Quinn Eastman in Uncategorized 3 Comments

Detecting Lung Cancer at a Higher Rate

The findings from a recent study show the risk of dying from lung cancer could be reduced by 20 percent by use of a low-dose helical computed tomography (CT) scan.  With 160,000 deaths each year related to cigarette smoking, this type of screening could save up to 32,000 lives each year.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched the multicenter National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) in 2002,  led at Emory by radiologist and researcher Dr. Kay Vydareny.  This trial compared two ways of detecting lung cancer: low-dose helical (spiral) computed tomography (CT) and standard chest X-ray, for their effects on lung cancer death rates in a high-risk population.

Both chest X-rays and helical CT scans have been used as a means to find lung cancer early, but the effects of these screening techniques on lung cancer mortality rates had not been determined. Over a 20-month period, more than 53,000 current or former heavy smokers ages 55 to 74 joined NLST at 33 study sites across the United States. In November 2010, the initial findings from NLST were released. Participants who received low-dose helical CT scans had a 20 percent lower risk of dying from lung cancer than participants who received standard chest X-rays.

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Posted on November 18, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Scientists still searching for HIV’s lethal ways

Guido Silvestri, MD

It’s a knotty, complex question, and one that’s nearly 30 years old: how does HIV cause AIDS? That is, how does the virus slowly destroy the immune system?

Emory immunologist and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Guido Silvestri, MD, and his colleagues are using a method called comparative AIDS research to try and answer that question. In other words, the scientists compare humans infected with HIV who develop AIDS and nonhuman primates from Africa who are infected with SIV, or simian immunodeficiency virus.

Silvestri is chief of the Division of Microbiology and Immunology at Yerkes National Primate Research Center.

Although SIV is very similar to HIV in terms of genetic and molecular structure, once infected with this virus, the Old World Monkey, the sooty mangabey, does not get sick.

“It’s a major mystery in AIDS research because these animals have virus replication that remains active in their body as long as they’re alive,” says Silvestri. “So, it’s not just the infection and the virus replicating that kills people. There’s something more that happens.”

Silvestri describes this research in Emory University’s Sound Science.

Posted on November 15, 2010 by admin in Immunology Leave a comment

Internationally Recognized Violinist Raises Money for Alzheimer’s Research

Virtuoso Robert McDuffie Performs at the Schwartz Center November 19

On November 19, world famous virtuoso Robert McDuffie will dedicate the Atlanta premiere performance of Philip Glass’ “The American Four Seasons” to the Emory Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) and to his late father-in-law, Mack Taylor, who was a talented musician and business leader in the Atlanta community.

The event,  “A Family Affair” Dinner and Concert at Emory University, will honor Dr. Allan Levey, Director of the Emory ADRC and chair of the Neurology Department, and Dr. Stuart Zola, Associate Director of the ADRC and director of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. Dinner guests will gather at the Carlos Museum and proceed to the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts for the concert featuring McDuffie.

The Taylor family, including Gretchen and Andrew Taylor, Camille and Robert McDuffie and Mary Rose Taylor, are serving as chairs of this inaugural event to acknowledge Alzheimer’s toll on the entire family.

Honorary Chairs Stuart Zola and Allan Levey, Directors of Emory ADRC

“I’m incredibly honored to dedicate my performance to Dr. Levey and his team of scientists at Emory’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center,” says McDuffie. “For 15 years, they took great care of my wonderful father-in-law Mack Taylor, who suffered from this dreadful disease.”

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia among older adults, affects parts of the brain that control thinking, remembering and making decisions.

The incidence of Alzheimer’s is growing at an alarming rate. According to the CDC, it recently surpassed diabetes as the 6th leading cause of death among American adults. Funds raised will go toward education and collaboration so that others may learn and benefit from the work of Emory’s ADRC.

“Since millions of baby boomers are entering late adulthood, we expect the number of patients with Alzheimer’s disease to increase drastically over the next several decades,” says Levey. “We have an opportunity to build on the momentum of much exciting research progress in early identification of disease and development of many new treatment strategies that offer promise to slow its progression and lead to prevention.”

Emory’s ADRC is a National Institute on Aging funded center focused on clinical trials and research for Alzheimer’s disease. The only comprehensive program in Georgia and one of only 32 nationwide, the Emory ADRC is seeking cures through basic laboratory research, bringing new diagnostic methods and treatments into the clinic, and providing patients and their families with state-of-the-art care and access to cutting-edge advances.

The $150 tickets ($100 is tax deductible) are available at www.alumni.emory.edu/ADRC-AFamilyAffair or by calling 404-727-5713.

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