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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Infectious Diseases Society of America

FMT microbial transplant for C diff gaining acceptance

In February, the Infectious Diseases Society of America issued new guidelines for fighting Clostridium difficile, the hardy bacterium that can cause life-threatening diarrhea and whose dominance is sometimes a consequence of antibiotic treatment. The guidelines recommend for the first time that FMT (fecal microbiota transplant) be considered for individuals who have repeatedly failed standard antibiotics.

In a nice coincidence, Emory FMT specialists Colleen Kraft and Tanvi Dhere recently published a look at their clinical outcomes with C diff going back to 2012, in Clinical Infectious Diseases. They report 95 percent of patients (122/128) indicated they would undergo FMT again and 70 percent of the 122 said they would prefer FMT to antibiotics as initial treatment if they were to have a recurrence. Read more

Posted on February 23, 2018 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment