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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Band posts salivary gland cancer news on web

In the news this week are reports that a member of the Beastie Boys hip-hop band announced on YouTube that he has salivary gland cancer – specifically of the parotid gland.

Dong Shin, MD, examines a patient at Emory

Dong Shin, MD, examines a patient at Emory

The public does not hear much about this type of cancer, and according to the American Cancer Society salivary gland cancers account for less than 1 percent of all cancers in the United States. About two out of three salivary gland cancers are found in people who are 55 or older. The average age at the time this cancer is found is 64.

The salivary gland is important because it Ray Ban outlet produces saliva, which contains enzymes that begin the process of breaking down food. It also contains substances to help prevent infections of the mouth and throat.

According to Emory Winship Cancer Institute expert Dong Shin, MD, the parotid glands are found in front of and just below each ear and most major salivary gland tumors begin in these glands.

Shin says that salivary gland tumors exhibit two major growth patterns: low grade, which is slow growing and more easily treatable, and high grade, which is usually a faster growing, more aggressive cancer that can also invade the lymph nodes. Certain types of salivary gland tumors can recur or have distant metastasis, particularly to the lungs.

Although the causes of this cancer are not definitively identified, Shin notes, there are some risk factors, including a history of radiation therapy to the head and neck area and a history being exposed to certain chemical substances, most often in the workplace.

Treatment usually includes surgery with radiation therapy afterward. Certain aggressive cell types require chemotherapy as well as radiation. However, explains Shin, at this time there are no specific chemotherapy agents that work well in attacking salivary gland tumors. Recent http://www.gafasraybanoutletes.com/ clinical trials have shown evidence of a fair response to certain molecular targeted chemotherapy, but more research is needed on these targeted therapies. wxjy6rbm4s

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Healthy lifestyle can lower blood pressure

A new study says that maintaining normal weight, daily vigorous exercise, eating a diet high in fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products and low in sodium, and taking a folic acid supplement is linked with lowering hypertension in women.

A healthy lifestyle helps your heart
A healthy lifestyle helps your heart

Reporting in the July 22/29 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, scientists say that hypertension, or high blood pressure, contributes to more excess deaths in women than any other preventable factor. The researchers looked at the link between combinations of low-risk lifestyle factors and the risk of developing hypertension.

Allen Dollar, MD, preventive cardiologist with Emory Heart & Vascular Center, says the study by Harvard Medical School researchers points to the real benefit to women of deploying a healthy lifestyle to prevent hypertension or to control hypertension.

Essentially, this new report helps to confirm what preventive cardiologists share with women everyday, says Dollar, that they can help prevent or manage hypertension through a healthy approach to diet and exercise. If you follow a vegetarian, vegan, or other restrictive diet, it may be challenging to obtain sufficient protein from plant-based sources alone. Plant-based protein powder can help bridge the gap. Learn more about vegan stuff at The Vegan Travel Guide.

Generally, blood pressure above 140/90 is considered to be high for adults. Although hypertension can produce symptoms including fatigue, confusion, nausea, vision http://www.agfluide.com problems and excessive sweating, Dollar points out that the majority of women with mild to moderate hypertension have no symptoms that indicate their blood pressure is too high.

A blood pressure reading can reveal hypertension in the early stages when a strategy of diet changes, exercise and weight control and medication, if needed, can help prevent a host of high blood pressure related ills including heart attacks, heart failure, kidney disease and stroke, says Dollar. If a woman does not know her blood pressure, she needs to find out. If a woman learns she has high blood pressure, she can use this news as an opportunity to take control of her health.

Learn more medical advances at Emory.

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Health care reform: Wise allocation of resources key

Emory’s Chief Quality Officer William Bornstein, MD, PhD, says there are many issues that need to be tackled in order to achieve meaningful health care reform. He points out that one of the most fundamental questions that must be addressed is who decides about a treatment or diagnostic test that may be a little bit better than an alternative option but is much more expensive? If the patient has no “skin in the game,” he will almost certainly want the better/more expensive option.

William Bornstein, MD, PhD

William Bornstein, MD, PhD

The doctor has taken an oath to act in the best interests of the patient and this obligation takes precedence over any charge that society would like to impose to cast the Ray Ban Baratas physician in a fiduciary role for the national healthcare budget, says Bornstein, who also serves as chief medical officer for Emory Hospitals. And, the payer’s role is obviously conflicted, he says. If the patient does have skin in the that decision, Bornstein asks, are we prepared as a society to explicitly endorse the notion that “better” care that exceeds a certain cost threshold will only be available to those who can afford the additional cost?

There has been much talk about better care and preventative care being less expensive, but there are little data that support this as being a universal truth. Health care information ray ban outlet technology will also not solve this problem, he says. At some point in the near future, we need to have a national conversation about this challenge. In the past attempts to have such conversations have raised the specter of “rationing,” However, the time has come to confront the truth that our resources are finite and we need to allocate them wisely.

Bornstein is a recognized leader in quality, safety and the use of information technology in improving healthcare delivery. He has serves on national committees and advisory bodies in these areas including the University HealthSystem Consortium Clinical Evaluative Sciences Council Steering Committee, which he now chairs. He serves on the Professional and Technical Advisory Committee for the hospital accreditation process of The Joint Commission as vice-chair, and on the Information Architecture Steering Committee of the University HealthSystem Consortium staff leadership group of the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Evidence Based Medicine.

Listen to podcasts with Bornstein on quality.

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Michael J. Fox Foundation supports Emory research

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research just announced plans to fund Emory pharmacology researcher Zixu Mao in his work to validate therapeutic targets for Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Zixu Mao, PhD

Zixu Mao, PhD

The two-year, $250,000 grant will fund research in Mao’s lab in the departments of neurology and pharmacology. He and his team hope to verify whether a particular protein – MEF2D – may be a good drug target in models of PD. If it is, his efforts will provide the basis for further research to identify ways to manipulate the activity of this protein as a way to treat PD.

Mao says this type of study is very important Maglie Calcio to allow the transition from findings made by basic research to more clinically relevant discoveries and is generally difficult to get funded by other major funding sources.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease through an aggressively funded research agenda and to ensuring the development of improved therapies for those living with Parkinson’s today. Learn more about Mao’s research.

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U.S. News ranks Emory University Hospital

America's Best HospitalsToday, U.S. News and World Report issued the 2009-10 America’s Best Hospitals.

Emory University Hospital ranked among the nation’s best hospitals in 11 specialties. Overall, Emory is one of only 170 hospitals, out of more than 5,400 medical centers in the country to be named in even one of the magazine’s top 50 specialty rankings.

Emory is recognized in this year’s comprehensive report for excellence in:

Specialty and Rank
Ophthalmology – 9
Psychiatry – 10
Geriatrics – 13
Heart and Heart Surgery – 13
Neurology and Neurosurgery – 14
Ear, Nose and Throat – 22
Kidney Disease – 25
Diabetes/Endocrinology – 31
Gynecology – 44
Urology – 44
Cancer – 46

U.S. News says it looks at, “how well these institutions do in complex and demanding situations—replacing an 85-year-old’s heart valve, diagnosing and treating a spinal tumor, and dealing with inflammatory bowel disease, to name three examples. High-stakes medicine calls for more than the usual brand of doctoring.”

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Small, single incision for surgery helps young patients

Emory University and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta pediatric physician Dr. Mark Wulkan is among the first surgeons in Georgia to perform single-site incision surgery on pediatric patients for routine surgeries.

Dr. Mark Wulkan

Dr. Mark Wulkan

Dr. Wulkan is using this method for multiple procedures, including appendectomy, removal of the spleen, and stomach surgery.

“Single-site surgery takes minimally invasive surgery (laparoscopic surgery) to the next level,” said Dr. Wulkan, is an associate professor of surgery and pediatrics in the Emory University School of Medicine and who performs surgery at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. “Children leave the operating room with virtually no scars.”

Traditional laparoscopic surgical incisions are made in different locations on the abdominal wall, resulting in several small scars. The single-site method, however, is considered scarless because only one incision is made in the belly button and is typically difficult to see. Pediatric patients who undergo single-site procedures enjoy all the benefits of laparoscopic surgery, such as rapid recovery and less pain than that associated with traditional open surgery.

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Dr. Sanjay Gupta: CNN correspondent & Emory doctor

Millions of TV viewers know Dr. Sanjay Gupta as CNN’s chief medical correspondent. But did you know that off the air, Dr. Gupta is a practicing trauma neurosurgeon at nearby Grady Memorial Hospital? Gupta, like most of the doctors at the hospital, is an Emory physician. CNN medical producer Danielle Dellorto put together this video showing what his life as a surgeon is like.


 

 

Gupta works with Emory doctors on CNN as well. Two of the four members on Gupta’s CNNHealth.com medical advisory team are Emory doctors.

You can see correspondent Gupta on “Paging Dr. Gupta” on CNN 6-10 a.m., Monday-Friday or read the Paging Dr. Gupta Blog.

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Translating research into life-saving

You or a loved one is suffering severe brain trauma in the wake of an accident. Imagine if doctors told you there was a treatment available that could up your chances of survival and even your chances at recovery. This isn’t just theoretical, because that’s an option some Emory patients have had, thanks to the availability of PROTECT, a progesterone-based treatment developed at Emory University and being administered by Emory trauma doctors.

Dr. Donald Stein, whose research led to the development of PROTECT, has just been honored by the Association for Psychological Science for his research and commitment to finding treatments and cures for traumatic brain injured patients.

Watch the video below to learn the real-life story of an accident victim who benefited from Stein’s work and the work of Emory’s doctors.

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Emory and the CDC

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Headquarters

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Headquarters

Today, as Dr. Thomas Frieden takes the helm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Emory’s own Dr. Kenneth Thorpe is providing expert commentary on President Barack Obama’s decision to name the former New York City health commissioner to the position and discussing what type of impact Frieden could make in the cheap oakley future.

The CDC, located adjacent to the Emory University campus, has strong ties to the university, including former CDC director, Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, who now heads Emory’s Global Health Institute. Many within the Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health have strong connections to the CDC.

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Emory docs make “House Calls”

If you watch the 8 a.m. hour of Fox 5 Atlanta’s “Good Day Atlanta,” you can see Grady Hospital-based internal medicine physicians Neil Winawer and Kimberly Manning. The doctors dispense medical information on Mondays and Wednesdays each week from the set of Fox 5’s “Good Day Housecall.” Following a crash course in broadcast journalism, the doctors research and write their own segments. Recent topics include swine flu, emergency contraception, brain trauma, and fitness in your 40s.

Manning joined the Emory faculty in 2001 and is program  director for maglie calcio poco prezzo Transitional Year Residency Program. Winawer, who is Manning’s faculty mentor, has been at Emory for 13 years Both doctors work at Grady Memorial Hospital in Downtown Atlanta. Read more about “Housecalls” on the Emory-Grady web site.

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