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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Rollins School of Public Health

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

Experts review global health care programs for answers

A recent Knowledge@Emory article looks at a new book titled The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, by author and journalist T.R. Reid. The book provides an in-depth look at the health care systems in a number of Western nations, including Germany, France, the U.K, Japan and Canada. The countries he profiles offer a mix of public and semi-public health care options.

In addition to interviewing Reid, experts from Emory Healthcare, Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center and the Rollins School of Public Health Department of Health Policy and Management, weigh in on the problem of U.S. health care reform and what can be learned from the examples abroad.

Joseph Lipscomb, PhD

According to Joseph Lipscomb, PhD, a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar and a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, quality of care, outcomes and cost analysis must be factored into the reform process. Looking abroad, Lipscomb gives generally high marks to the outcome and cost analysis done by the National Health Service and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the U.K. He applauds NICE’s ongoing efforts to estimate the cost-effectiveness of new, expensive technologies by using decision processes that are transparent and solicit input from private citizens, providers and industry.

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Posted on January 19, 2010 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Students and faculty aid CDC for H1N1 response

Last spring, as H1N1 avian influenza spread across the globe, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out a call asking students to assist. Within three days, 85 students from Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH) had volunteered.

RSPH students Nick Schaad (left) and Michael Marrone

RSPH students Nick Schaad (left) and Michael Marrone

Nick Schaad was among the students authorized to help man the CDC’s Emergency Operations Center at the height of the novel H1N1 outbreak. Once the CDC began to identify influenza clusters, students began conducting phone surveys.

Schaad says he was involved in the St. Francis prep school survey in New York. Students and staff member who were sick with any flu-like symptoms were identified. The team called them and asked about the size of their household, what they might have done to protect themselves, and any recent travel. The goal was to learn as much possible about H1N1 in advance of the fall flu season.

Like the students they teach, RSPH faculty became engaged in the H1N1 epidemic. Last spring, Emory physician and microbiologist Keith Klugman, MD, PhD, was recruited to join the CDC’s Team B, which includes experts from outside the CDC to quickly review and inform the agency’s efforts. CDC created Team B in the early 2000s to cope with the growing complexity of public health emergencies.

Keith Klugman, MD, PhD

Keith Klugman, MD, PhD

Klugman says his role included the bacterial complications of influenza. Evidence from 1918, notes Klugman, clearly shows that the great majority of deaths were due to bacterial complications of the flu. In other words, the flu itself could occasionally cause death on itss own. But it caused death mostly by facilitating a synergistic lethality between itself and bacteria.

Although much has changed since 1918, the bacteria that caused so many deaths still exist but are susceptible to antibiotics.

Klugman notes the evolution of the flu. He says so far it’s generally been moderate. However, by mixing with the circulating flu in the Southern Hemisphere, it could mutate and become resistant to the first line of flu drugs. It could also become more severe. Says Klugman, “We must remain ever vigilant.”

Posted on October 27, 2009 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Curiosity about health and a borderless world

Developing effective HIV prevention and intervention programs in the most affected communities is a challenge globally as well as locally. It’s also a challenge that Emory infectious disease specialist Carlos del Rio, MD, is addressing as newly appointed chair of the Rollins School of Public Health’s Hubert Department of Global Health.

Carlos del Rio, MD

Carlos del Rio, MD

Del Rio is uniquely equipped to address HIV prevention and intervention. As the former chief of medicine at Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta’s safety-net hospital, he witnessed firsthand patients affected by the disease. He says there ought to be incentives for people to stay healthy instead of barriers to staying healthy.

More daunting for del Rio is preventing disease on a global scale, much of which rests on changing unhealthy behaviors related to diet, exercise, smoking, and sex. He says we know very little about how to implement population-wide behavior change, and we need to learn more.

Del Rio says growing human capital to strengthen research capacity in resource-constrained countries is also key. Since 1998, the NIH/Fogarty International Center has funded the Emory AIDS Training and Research Program (AITRP) to build capacity in Armenia, the Republic of Georgia, Ethiopia, Mexico, Rwanda, Vietnam and Zambia. Led by del Rio, AITRP brings a select group of young scientists to Emory each year for advanced training. Emory faculty also train and mentor scientists in these countries.

The training program has opened avenues to improving health. In Ethiopia, del Rio helped expand HIV testing among the police force and bring antiretroviral therapy into the community for people living with HIV.

In the Republic of Georgia, the Emory AITRP and the Emory-Georgia Tuberculosis Research Training Program, another NIH/Fogarty program led by RSPH adjunct faculty member and Emory School of Medicine professor  Henry Blumberg, MD, has helped build research capacity in HIV, hepatitis, and tuberculosis research.

Posted on October 23, 2009 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment
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