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

respiratory failure

Test of megadose vitamin D in intubated critical care patients

Whether dietary supplementation with vitamin D is beneficial, in terms of preventing disease, has been controversial. However, vitamin D has been reported to increase immune cells’ production of microbe-fighting proteins. That’s why Emory doctors have been testing whether high doses of vitamin D could be helpful for critical care patients, who need to ward off infections.

The results of a small-scale clinical trial, presented in Denver this week at the American Thoracic Society meeting, suggest that high doses of vitamin D could decrease the length of hospital stays in critically ill patients with respiratory failure. Read more

Posted on by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment