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

women’s health

Cervical Cancer – Can Be Hard to Detect

MedicalHorizon

The Pap smear – also called Pap test – is part of the standard annual wellness exam for women’s health and used as a first step in detecting cervical cancer.  But according to a recent article published in the International Journal of Cancer,  the Pap test may not provide reliable results for certain types of cancer that are harder to detect.

Kevin Ault, MD, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Emory University School of Medicine and investigator at the Emory Vaccine Center conducted a post-hoc analysis of the FUTURE I and FUTURE II (Gardasil) vaccine trials.  Based on that analysis Ault, a leading expert and pioneer in the field of human papilloma virus (HPV), says a regular Pap test is not always effective in diagnosing adenocarcinoma, because it starts high up in the cervical canal and may not be sampled by the Pap smear.

“There are a number of reasons the Pap smear could lead to inaccurate results. For example, the pathologist examining the cells could make an error, the gynecologist may not sample the cervix adequately or an infection could obscure the results,” says Ault.

According to Ault, andenocarcinoma is the second most common type of cervical cancer, accounting for about 20 percent of all cervical cancer cases. While the overall incident of cervical cancer is on the decline, Ault reports the proportion of cervical cancers that are andenocarcinoma is rising.

Cervical cancer is the eighth most common type of cancer in American women. More than 12,000 new cases of invasive cervical cancer are diagnosed each year, and more than 4,200 women in the U.S. die from of this disease annually* according to the American Cancer Society.  Scientists believe that pre-invasive cervical cancer may develop over a period of months or years after the cervix is infected with the sexually transmitted HPV.

“The take-away from this recent paper is the HPV test would be a better test for the harder to detect adenocarcinoma cervical cancer, if not all cervical cancer,” says Ault.

* 2010 data

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New Biological Pathway Identified for PTSD

Emory MedicalHorizon

High blood levels of a hormone produced in response to stress are linked to post-traumatic stress disorder in women but not men, a study from researchers at Emory University and the University of Vermont has found.

The results were published in the Feb. 24 issue of Nature.

The hormone, called PACAP (pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide), is known to act throughout the body and the brain, modulating central nervous system activity, metabolism, blood pressure, pain sensitivity and immune function. The identification of PACAP as an indicator of PTSD may lead to new diagnostic tools and eventually, to new treatments for anxiety disorders.


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“Few biological markers have been available for PTSD or for psychiatric diseases in general,” says first author Kerry Ressler, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine and a researcher at Yerkes National Primate Research Center. “These results give us a new window into the biology of PTSD.”

Read more @ emoryhealthsciences.org.

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Survivors of intimate partner violence find safety, hope and purpose

Nadine Kaslow, PhD

Nadine Kaslow, PhD, Emory psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory, has learned a lot about Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) over the last two decades. In the 1990’s, Kaslow began the development of a program that was eventually named the Nia Project.

Nia is a counseling program for abused and suicidal African American women, funded by grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Mental Health. The name comes from the Kwanzaa term that means “purpose.”

Nia serves countless numbers of abused (click site for information on domestic abuse) and suicidal women who come through Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital’s emergency department each year. The women come in with black eyes, broken bones, and broken spirits, often inflicted by the people who are supposed to love them the most: their husbands, boyfriends and partners. There are many cases that link divorce and domestic violence together and it is crucial for the victims to have access to legal resources to protect their rights.

According to the CDC, Intimate Partner violence resulted in more than 1,500 deaths in the United States in 2005.  Statistics from the Commission on Domestic Violence show that African American females experienced intimate partner violence at a rate 35 percent higher than that of white females, and about 22 times the rate of women of other races. The number one killer of African American women ages 15 to 34 is homicide at the hands of a current or former intimate partner.

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Heart disease pioneer named ‘Georgia Woman of the Year’

Many people know that heart disease is currently the number one killer of women in the United States. But a little more than a half a century ago it was widely believed that cardiovascular disease only affected men. Renowned cardiologist, Nanette K. Wenger, MD, challenged this theory and thanks to her pioneering efforts over the last 50 years women today know better.

2010 Georgia Woman of the Year, Nanette K. Wenger, MD

Wenger, a professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine and former chief of cardiology at Grady Memorial Hospital, is being honored as the 2010 Georgia Woman of the Year for her lifetime commitment to reducing women’s disability and death from cardiovascular disease.

She joins the ranks of other distinguished Georgia women including First Lady Rosalynn Carter who was named the first Georgia Woman of the Year in 1996 by the Georgia Commission on Women. In addition to this prestigious accolade, Wenger has accumulated dozens of awards throughout her celebrated career including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College of Cardiology in 2009. She is a sought after lecturer for issues related to heart disease in women, heart disease in the elderly, cardiac rehabilitation, coronary prevention and contemporary cardiac care.

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HER2-positive breast cancer treatment options studied

Emory oncologist Ruth O’Regan, MD, is leading a trial testing whether Afinitor can reverse resistance to Herceptin in metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer patients. As part of the trial, some patients been receiving a drug called Afinitor (everolimus) along with chemotherapy and Herceptin (trastuzumab).

Ruth O'Regan, MD

About 25 percent to 30 percent of breast cancers are HER2 -positive, which means they test positive for a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2). This protein promotes the growth of cancer cells, making HER2 -positive breast cancers more aggressive than other types.

They also tend to be less responsive to hormone treatment. That’s the bad news. The good news is that this type of cancer responds extremely well to Herceptin.

Herceptin specifically targets HER2 cells, killing them while sparing healthy cells, so side effects are minimal. Its effectiveness has made Herceptin the gold standard of treatment for HER2 -positive breast cancer.

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NIH at Emory to advance women’s heart health

NIH meets at Emory to discuss women's cardiovascular health and research

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has convened a key meeting at Emory on women’s cardiovascular health and research. The meeting, co-hosted by the Office of Research on Women’s Health and Emory School of Medicine, is focused today and tomorrow on NIH planning of the women’s health research agenda for the next decade.

Vivian Pinn, MD, associate director for research on women’s health, and director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at NIH, opened the meeting with Emory’s conference chair, Nanette Wenger, MD, professor of medicine (cardiology), Emory School of Medicine, and chief of cardiology at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Nanette K. Wenger, MD

In a career that spans more than 50 years, Wenger’s dedication to reducing women’s disability and death from cardiovascular disease has made her one of the country’s most-respected experts on coronary heart disease in women. In 2009, Wenger received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College of Cardiology.

Although Wenger has earned dozens of awards in her celebrated career, she says her greatest professional achievement has been to help change a major paradigm in cardiology: the assumption that heart disease affects only men. A half a century ago heart disease was thought of as a “man’s disease.”

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Stress increases health risks to mother and fetus

At Emory’s fifth annual predictive health symposium Human Health: Molecules to Mankind,Emory GYN/OB Sarah L. Berga, MD, discussed the state of childbirth in the United States and how maternal stress affects pregnant women and their fetuses.

Berga is McCord professor and chair of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Emory School of Medicine. Sadly, Berga has seen maternal mortality rise steadily since the 1980s when she entered her medical residency. Georgia, she says, has the worse maternal mortality in the country. And the United States fares worse than many countries when it comes to maternal mortality.

Despite the unfortunate rise in maternal mortality of late, the good news is physicians have now started to pay more attention to the effect of stress ”both the physical and emotional kind” on women and their fetuses. Recent research shows stress has the same negative effect on the body as do organic diseases, such as thyroid disease. In fact, too much stress reduces thyroxine levels by about 50 percent, says Berga. But because there’s no clinical recognition of this, tests are needed to determine if thyroxine levels are indeed insufficient. The bottom line is, pregnant women should visit a gynecology clinic on a regular basis to ensure their and their babies’ safety.

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Mammography can save lives by following ACS guidelines

The recent recommendation issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to revise screening mammography guidelines has generated considerable confusion and worry among women and their loved ones, says Carl D’Orsi, MD, FACR, director of the Emory Breast Imaging Center.

Carl D'Orsi, MD

Carl D’Orsi, MD

D’Orsi says he is counseling women who are concerned about mammograms and deciding what screening schedule to follow that they should use the long-established American Cancer Society guidelines: annual screening using mammography and clinical breast examination for all women beginning at age 40.

The recent recommendations by the task force advise against regular mammography screening for women between ages 40 and 49. It suggests that mammograms should be provided every other year (rather than yearly) for women between ages 50 and 74, and then breast cancer screening in women over 74 should be discontinued. Some individuals may also consider including a breast ultrasound package for a more comprehensive screening approach.

Mammography is not a perfect test, but it has unquestionably been shown to save lives, says D’Orsi, professor of radiology and of hematology and oncology in the Emory’s School of Medicine, and program director for oncologic imaging at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory. Since the onset of regular mammography screening in 1990, the mortality rate from breast cancer, which had been unchanged for the preceding 50 years, has decreased by 30 percent.

Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

These new recommendations – which are based on a review that did not include experts in breast cancer detection and diagnosis – ignore valid scientific data and place a great many women at risk, continues D’Orsi.

Ignoring direct scientific evidence from large clinical trials, notes D’Orsi, the task force based its recommendations to reduce breast cancer screening on conflicting computer models and the unsupported and discredited idea that the parameters of mammography screening change abruptly at age 50.

The task force commissioned their own modeling study and made recommendations in reliance on this study before the study had ever been published, made public or held to critical peer review, and did not use both randomized, controlled trials and already-existing modeling studies, explains D’Orsi.

If Medicare and private insurers adopt these flawed recommendations as a rationale for refusing women coverage of these life-saving exams, it could have deadly effects for American women, says D’Orsi.

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Encouraging news on women and heart disease

A new study reported this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine delivers encouraging news that Americans are on the right track in the fight against heart disease among women.

The study reports that all women, especially those younger than 55, have recently experienced a greater increase than men in their chances of survival following a heart attack.

Study leader, Viola Vaccarino, MD, PhD, professor of medicine (cardiology), and director of the Emory Program in Cardiovascular Outcomes Research and Epidemiology, researched trends in the rate of in-hospital deaths following heart attack from June 1994, through Dec. 2006. Data were collected from 916,380 patients through the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction.

Between 1994 and 2006, in-hospital death rates decreased among all patients, but decreased more strikingly in women than in men. The decreased risk of death was largest in women younger than 55 years (a 52.9 percent reduction) and lowest in men of the same age (33.3 percent). The absolute reduction in the risk of death among patients younger than 55 was three times larger in women (2.7 percent) than men (0.9 percent).

Vaccarino and her colleagues say a large part (93 percent) of this sharper decrease in mortality of younger women compared with men in recent years is due to the improved risk profile of women compared with men at the time of the heart attack hospitalization, perhaps the result of better recognition and management of coronary heart disease and its risk factors in women before the acute heart event.

Whatever the reason, the improvement indicates that we are headed in the right direction, says Vaccarino. Increased and ongoing awareness to the prevention of cardiovascular risk factors—by healthy diet, regular physical activity and avoidance of smoke and smoking—is saving lives, she notes.

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Importance of flu vaccinations for pregnant women

Pregnant women are at the top of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s priority list when it comes to vaccinating people against the novel H1N1 flu virus this year. Not only should pregnant women receive the 2009 H1N1 vaccine, they should also receive the usual seasonal flu vaccine, say Emory experts.

Staying healthy in pregnancy

Staying healthy in pregnancy

Because pregnancy weakens the immune system, a pregnant woman who gets any type of flu has a greater chance for serious health problems. Pregnant women who contract H1N1 flu are more likely to be admitted to the hospital, compared with other people in general that get H1N1 flu. Pregnant women are also more likely to have serious illness, including pneumonia and death from this particular novel strain.

Both vaccines are made with a dead, or inactivated, flu virus and are given as an injection, usually in the arm. The other type of flu vaccine is a nasal spray and is not recommended for pregnant women. The nasal spray vaccine is safe for women after they have delivered, even if they are nursing. In addition to immunizations, pregnant women also need to prepare for breastfeeding by inquiring if they can get a breast pump covered by insurance.

A recent study by Emory researchers found that seasonal flu vaccination of pregnant women can benefit both mothers and infants, says Kevin Ault, MD, associate professor in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Emory.

Saad B. Omer, MBBS, MPH, PhD, assistant professor of global health at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health, served as senior author on the report, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. The study shows that there is substantial evidence that vaccination is not only safe for pregnant women but that it is critical for protecting women and their infants against serious complications from the flu.

Other members of the research team included Ault and Carlos del Rio, MD, professor and chair in the Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University.

The seasonal flu shot has been given to millions of pregnant women over several decades . Flu shots have not been shown to cause any harm to pregnant women or their babies. The 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine is being made in the same way and by the same manufacturers as the seasonal flu vaccine, explains Ault.

Ault also serves as principal investigator of a seasonal flu vaccine clinical trial underway at Emory Vaccine Center involving pregnant women.

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