"The [meeting] was a tremendous opportunity for me to network and learn from other scientists in my field," said JENNA MALINAUSKAS (IDM). "I learned tips and tricks to sequencing during the hands on training portion, what resources are available to me as a researcher, and how to improve my science. The opportunity to become more involved in the scientific community will benefit me throughout my career and I'm excited to attend more conferences i...
PITTSBURGH TODAY - Southwestern Pennsylvania remains more affordable overall than the average U.S. region, scoring particularly well in the areas of housing and health care.
NEW YORK TIMES - Among 30 experts who were recently asked to think big, but realistically, about solutions to the nation's opioid crisis, Dean DONALD BURKE emphasized community development and preventing addiction by reducing demand. "A good start would be to systematically link long-term data from treatment providers to death records to generate long-term outcomes of different types of treatments."
Dean Donald Burke shares his recent letter to the chancellor's office asking for an official University review of the naming of Parran Hall, "I write to request that the Office of Diversity and Inclusion form a review committee to consider whether the name "Parran Hall" is consistent with the University's mission to create a diverse and inclusive environment. Concerns have been raised both locally and nationally about Thomas Parran's legacy."
JOURNAL OF IMMUNOLOGY - Wonderlich, Swan, Bissel, Hartman, Carney, O'Malley, Obadan, Santos, Walker, Sturgeon, Frye, Maiello, Scanga, Bowling, Duangkhae, Wiley, Flynn, Wang, Cole, Reed, Barratt-Boyes establish a new nonhuman primate disease model for evaluation of vaccine and therapeutic approaches to prevent and treat infection with highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses.
ASPPH FRIDAY LETTER - Faculty, students, and staff are paying particularly close attention to cancer and working to enhance interdisciplinary collaborations to fight the disease. Each of Pitt Public Health's seven departments employs its own critical lens for exploring how to prevent disease and promote population health.
ASPPH FRIDAY LETTER - Health data scientist Yll Agimi, and BCHS’s Steven Albert interprets interesting link, or lack thereof, between mandated licensing procedures and motor vehicle accidents by those afflicted with dementia. “Laws requiring physicians to report dementia patients to licensing authorities not necessarily mean fewer hospitalizations.”
ASPPH FRIDAY LETTER - Findings published in the journal Public Health Reports suggest that real-time information about stamp bags can be used to supplement current public health surveillance measures and could serve as an early warning of new illegal drugs of high lethality available at the local level. It is the first robust and detailed public health report of a stamp bag surveillance system.
“We think we now have tools to measure changes to tumors that have become resistant to therapy,” says HUGEN’s ADRIAN LEE, who identified a new genetic change in the estrogen receptor that hinders treatment of breast cancer in some patients, uncovering new clues for potential improved treatments for breast cancer patients.
THE WASHINGTON POST - “People need to understand that trauma is not just something that happens in the mind,” said EPI's REBECCA THURSTON, who has spent the past four years studying women who have suffered sexual abuse and harassment. Over time, she discovered, sexual harassment can work like a poison, stiffening women’s blood vessels, worsening blood flow, and harming the inner lining of their hearts.
CITY LAB - “Universities are key drivers of the knowledge economy. And I know firsthand that Pittsburgh has great ones. Could the city have turned around without these institutions?” There is no question that what sets Pittsburgh apart from our Rust Belt brothers and sisters is the fact so much investment has come out of our “eds and meds” [educational and medical institutions]."
NATURE MEDICINE - Gupta, Sanyal, Ratner, Ding, Zerbato, Giacobbi, Venkatachari, Patterson, Chargin, Chen, Mailliard, Rinaldo, and Sluis-Cremer found that the size of the inducible latent HIV-1 reservoir in aviremic subjects on ART is approximately 70-fold larger than previous estimates.
DISCOVER THE BURGH - There is so much going on in and around Pittsburgh's 90 neighborhoods. Discover the Burgh has covered quite a bit - with no end in sight!
NASDAQ SUNDAY BUSINESS - Pitt’s LifeX initiative, founded by HUGEN's DIETRICH STEPHAN, will fight large unmet health needs by translating research into new companies offering new solutions for patients. LifeX brings together a combination of resources that young companies need to grow to scale, lab space, co-working office, mentorship, legal and venture capital advice.
HEALTH AFFAIRS - Alan Weil, Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief, shares his “Top Ten” favorite articles for 2017. HPM's ERIC ROBERTS' study addressed proposed mergers among large US health insurers and growing consolidation among providers, which have renewed concerns about the effects of market concentration on commercial health care prices.
PITT MAGAZINE - Two of Pitt’s featured “change agents” are Pitt Public Health grads. SEUNG WOOK LEE (BIOS '79, '82) and HYUN KYUNG MOON (EPI '86) were pioneers and trailblazers in their fields whose careers were made possible by degrees from Pitt. “Everything I’ve done is possible because of Pitt,” says Moon. “It gave me the credentials to be in the room."
PITT WIRE - While learning English at Pitt, 25 Japanese students missed out on the annual Coming of Age Ceremony, a national holiday in Japan. The Asian Studies Center threw them a party. “So many people support me here in Pittsburgh,” said Nanami Moriyasu, a Yasuda student majoring in English literature. “This ceremony was satisfying.”
MEDICAL X-PRESS - "At least 18 percent of individuals with pancreatic cancer and a personal history of other HBOC- or LS-related cancers carry mutations in a pancreatic cancer susceptibility gene based on our data, suggesting that criteria for genetic testing in individuals with pancreatic cancer should include consideration of previous cancer history," concludes HUGEN's BETH DUDLEY and colleagues.
CNN - The American Heart Association released a scientific statement, published in Circulation, warning that breast cancer patients may be at an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and could benefit from discussing those risks with their doctors. The statement is "long overdue," said EPI's LEWIS KULLER who also has studied cardiovascular disease and breast cancer.
THE PITT NEWS – Nearly 3,000 Pennsylvanians died of opioid overdoses in 2015, according to the Public Health Dynamic's Laboratory. But researchers like MICHAEL MALLON (BCHS '13), the project coordinator for Pitt Public Health's Opioid Initiatives, are working to change that statistic. "Pennsylvania is one state that is being hit harder than others. the number of overdoses almost doubles every eight or nine years," Mallon said.