2018

A Buffalo News editorial focused on the remarkable story of George Melvin Ellis Jr., who donated to the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences the university’s largest-ever gift. A stipulation was that his identity remain anonymous until both he and his wife were deceased. The editorial stated: “The story of the medical school’s single biggest gift in the history of the university by one of its graduates, and one of the largest bestowed upon the Buffalo region, is about one man’s unwavering dedication to the patients he served and his deep abiding belief that whatever money he made through savvy investments was not his but belonged to the university. ... The decency, dedication and commitment by one man toward his alma mater and adopted community will help generations to build a better future.”

Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair for addiction medicine, was interviewed on why rapidly taking patients off opioids might not be a good idea. The story discusses a letter, published by international experts in the journal Pain Medicine, that outlines risks associated with forcing patients off opioids too quickly, and calls on U.S. policymakers to develop realistic guidelines. Blondell, who was not among authors of the letter, said: “Whether it’s a fast taper or a slow taper, the big question is — well, what do you do after that?” said Blondell, who was not among authors of the letter. “What we really need is better science, not more politics. … In my experience, when you have global recommendations based on expert opinions and you try to apply those to individual patients at individual clinics, there’s a lot that gets lost in translation.”

A new study that suggests a link between food allergies and increased disease activity in patients with multiple sclerosis interviews Bianca Weinstock-Guttman, MD, professor of neurology, who was not involved in the research. "Interestingly, a previous study on pediatric MS patients identified that food allergies that developed within the first 5 years of life were associated with a lower risk for relapses," she said. "Immunological differences developed too early versus later-life food allergens between the pediatric to adult population may be an explanation for the discordant results."

Research by Fraser J. Sim, PhD, associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology, suggests that the spontaneous regeneration of myelin, the brain’s fatty insulator that keeps neurons communicating, could lead to a novel approach to developing treatments for multiple sclerosis and other inflammatory diseases. "The idea that pathological quiescence of progenitors could prevent regeneration in MS is distinct from the current pre-clinical strategies making their way into trial," he said.

Jeffrey M. Lackner, PsyD, professor of medicine, discussed recently published results of a landmark NIH clinical trial that evaluated cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a method for relieving symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, common misconceptions of CBT, and how a gastroenterologist can approach patients who are candidates for CBT.

Research by Joshua Gordon, a graduate student in the MD/PhD Program, that showed that postmenopausal women experiencing tooth loss could be at higher risk of developing high blood pressure compared to other women. “Edentulism has been found to be associated with coronary heart disease, stroke and all-cause mortality,” he said. “Risk of hypertension associated with edentulism could be related to life-course health factors that either lead to or were associated with edentulism, including past history of periodontal disease.” Jean Wactawski-Wende, dean of the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions, also contributed to the research.

Research by Brian Clemency, DO, associate professor of emergency medicine, found that opioid use patients who have been treated with naloxone for overdose and who meet certain clinical criteria can be safely discharged from the Emergency Department within an hour after treatment.

Richard M. Gronostajski, PhD, professor of biochemistry and director of the Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics graduate program, addresses ethical issues raised after a Chinese scientist claimed that he altered and edited the genes of twin baby girls to make them immune to the HIV virus using the new gene-altering tool CRISPR. “CRISPR has been revolutionary — it's been powerful,” he said. “It was anticipated that someone would eventually want to edit human beings. It’s a wake-up call.” 

An article about whether doctors are being unfairly criticized for their role in the opioid crisis interviews Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD, senior associate dean for health policy. "Without access to legal prescriptions, they are forced to go to street dealers for their pills,” said Nielsen, also clinical professor of medicine. “As we reduced the number of opioids out there, chronic pain patients become medical refugees. People are dying.”

An article in reports the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences will use a $600,000 grant from the New York State Department of Health to support the expansion of primary care residency and medical student training in ambulatory settings throughout Western New York. Interviewed is Andrew B. Symons, MD, clinical associate professor of family medicine and vice chair for medical student education in the Department of Family Medicine. “All of the focus is really concentrating on promoting primary care in underserved areas,” Symons said.

An article looked at research by Sara O’Donnell, a clinical psychology doctoral student working in pediatrics, that found that college students would rather go without food than without their phones. “As part of a recent experiment, 76 UB students, ages 18 to 22, were deprived of their smartphone or food. Afterward, participants could earn time with their smartphone or 100-calorie servings of a favorite snack by completing a computer task…. Ultimately, the researchers found that students were much more motivated to earn time on their smartphone and were willing to spend more hypothetical money to gain access to their phone,” the article notes.

BlueCross BlueShield has awarded $2.7 million in grant funding to nine health-based projects across Western New York, including $200,000 to the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences for the expansion of emergency access to medication-assisted treatment for patients with opioid-use disorder as well as rapid referral to long-term treatment.

An article about why so many adults are reluctant to get a flu shot despite scientific evidence that shows the benefits of the vaccine interviews Thomas A. Russo, MD, professor of medicine and chief of infectious diseases. “Historically, adults do poorly with vaccines,” he said. “The other thing is that there is a fair amount of misinformation out there.” A related article about why people should get a flu shot every year features answers by local and national experts, including Russo. “Whenever you take any medication, there’s a small but finite chance you can have an adverse reaction to it,” he said, “but it’s very rare with the flu vaccine.”

Steven Lipshultz, MD, A. Conger Goodyear professor and chair of pediatrics, is interviewed about the role that new facilities played in recruiting him to Buffalo; his history of research, publications and clinical trials in population health; and his optimism that progress he’s made will continue here. “There’s collaboration between Oishei Children’s, Roswell Park (Comprehensive Cancer Center) and the [Jacobs] School to promote a higher level and degree of bone marrow transplants, not just for cancer but for genetic diseases. That could be curative. It’s science fiction coming to real life for children who are born and saved at the children’s hospital. I think we are well-poised,” he said.

Research by Sara O’Donnell, a clinical psychology doctoral student in pediatrics, found that college students would rather go without food than without their phones. “When deprived of both food and smartphones, students were much more motivated to work for time to use their smartphone, and were willing to part with more hypothetical money to gain access to their phone,” she said. “We knew that students would be motivated to gain access to their phones, but we were surprised that despite modest food deprivation, smartphone reinforcement far exceeded food reinforcement.”

A feature story on a website covering news in diabetes, covers the work of Paresh Dandona, MD, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism, that has shown that drugs developed for Type 2 diabetes are also effective in treating patients with Type 1 diabetes. Dandona now is recruiting patients with Type 1 diabetes in a major Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation-funded clinical trial to further test these drugs.

Reports on a study using animal models conducted by researchers in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and UB’s Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions that found that chronic use of Ritalin without the presence of symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder resulted in neuroinflammation in brain regions associated with motivated behavior, quote Panayotis Thanos, PhD, senior research scientist. “One month after use was stopped, the inflammation and structural changes were still there,” he said. “This could result in long-term risks for young adults, as these areas of the brain also influence addiction and the ability to respond to changes in the environment.”

An article about medical crowdfunding campaigns and the role that GoFundMe now plays in paying for health care interviews Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD, senior associate dean for health policy. “The Affordable Care Act had three goals. Two of them got met,” she said, noting that one goal was to reform insurance abuses like denial of coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Insuring as many people as possible was the second goal, she said, adding, “The third goal was to reduce costs. The third goal was not met.”

Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD, senior associate dean for health policy, was quoted in an article about a plan by President Donald Trump that would gradually lower drug payment levels to levels based on international prices and set payment amounts for storing and handling drugs that are not tied to the drug’s cost. “This latest proposal is innovative, very good and long overdue. It’s a step in the right direction and it’s a smart model,” Nielsen said. “However, it’s going to face enormous opposition to come to fruition.”

Best Life cites a UB study showing depressed children with asthma had imbalanced activity in their autonomic nervous system. The story quotes Bruce D. Miller, MD, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics, an author of the study.

Outside magazine referenced research led by Panayotis Thanos, PhD, senior research scientist in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and UB’s Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions, in an article on how a gym is using exercise to help its members fight addictions. The research found that animals tasked with running on a treadmill for five days a week restored their dopamine levels, and that aerobic exercise prevented stress-induced cocaine relapses.

Everyday Health quotes Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine, about a recent decline in the number of opioid overdose deaths in the United States. “It’s a little light at the end of the tunnel. We know that fewer people are dying of drug overdoses but what we don’t know is why,” said Blondell, an opioid addiction expert.

An article in The Wire, reprinted from The Conversation, is written by Wei-Chiao Huang, a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering, and Jonathan F. Lovell, associate professor of biomedical engineering. It describes their research that could boost the efficacy of malarial transmission-blocking vaccines to help reduce the spread of the disease that kills more than 400,000 people annually.

An article in Business First about changes and initiatives that will impact how medical schools prepare the nation’s future doctors interviews Alan J. Lesse, MD, senior associate dean for medical curriculum at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “These students have grown up in the digital age. They have access to limitless amounts of information because of the internet and its rapid rewards system,” Lesse said. “Their attention spans are shorter and their ability to or their need to memorize large amounts of information is much less, given that they must have 10- to 100-fold more information to learn than I did.”

Medical Xpress reports on research led by Panayotis Thanos, PhD, senior research scientist in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and UB’s Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions, which found that nonprescription use of Ritalin may cause structural changes in the brain. "We found that chronic use of this drug by those without ADHD-like symptoms resulted in neuroinflammation in regions of the brain which are related to motivated behavior," Thanos says.

Research led by Jonathan F. Lovell, associate professor of biomedical engineering, has provided a breakthrough in efforts to boost the efficacy of malarial transmission-blocking vaccines to help reduce the spread of the disease that kills more than 400,000 people annually. “For some decades, researchers have been working on a novel idea called a ‘transmission-blocking vaccine.’ This vaccine is different from traditional vaccines that protect the recipient from getting the disease. Here, the vaccine blocks the transmission of the parasite that causes malaria from an infected human host to mosquitoes,” Lovell said. Research was conducted in the Lovell Lab.

Anne B. Curtis, MD, Charles and Mary Bauer Professor and chair of medicine, was selected as a panelist on the American College of Cardiology Hour With Dr. Valentin Fuster that was released during the 2018 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions. Curtis joined Fuster and three other cardiologists to share their perspectives on the most significant science released during the conference.

An article on Medical Xpress reports on research by Richard M. Gronostajski, professor of biochemistry, that showed that the absence of one copy of a single gene in the brain causes a rare, as-yet-unnamed neurological disorder. "This paper shows that a single point mutation in NFIB is responsible for these clinical characteristics, including mild intellectual disability, lack of muscle tone, speech delay, attention deficit disorder and other behavioral abnormalities, as well as macrocephaly," said Gronostajski, director of the Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics graduate program and a researcher at UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences.

The cover story in Money magazine about the opioid crisis and the difficult decisions parents face when deciding whether to financially cut off their addicted children interviews Kenneth E. Leonard, PhD, professor of psychiatry and director of the UB Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions. “(Parents) are faced with this dilemma: Do I help them get out of this in the short term, or do I let them experience the natural consequences of their behaviors?” Leonard said. “You don’t want to do anything that will ruin their lives, but on the other hand, you want them to learn from experience. Nobody wants their child to suffer, short term or long term.”

Paresh Dandona, MD, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism, was interviewed about his $1.6 million grant from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, in which he is enrolling Type 1 diabetes patients in a study of his “triple therapy” approach involving insulin plus two additional drugs that he has found help even out blood sugar control in Type 1 diabetics.

Evgeny A. Dyskin, MD, PhD, clinical assistant professor of orthopaedics, is performing a relatively new surgical procedure, intent on saving limbs of fracture patients. One of his patients is Allie Mazur, a UB senior who made a connection with Chicago Bears’ tight end Zach Miller because they suffered similar injuries.

An article about new funding to UB’s Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions (CRIA) to examine the possible role of alcohol use disorders in exacerbating the risk of problems with opioid use interviews Kenneth E. Leonard, PhD, professor of psychiatry and director of the CRIA. The research will help determine whether a percentage probability can be assigned for opioid misuse in the alcohol use disorder population, based on certain factors, he said.

An article about the continuing growth of UBMD Physicians’ Group interviews Kevin J. Gibbons, MD, senior associate dean for clinical affairs and UBMD executive director. “We train to retain and UB has now trained over two-thirds of the physicians in Western New York through the medical school, residency or fellowship," he said. "That’s our mission and that’s what we’re focused on with our hospital partners and physician partners going forward.”

Anne B. Curtis, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Charles and Mary Bauer Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine, is the subject of a Q&A interview. “I passionately believe we need to come together as a cohesive group. We need to be a strong health care system here in Western New York because we have competition all around us. We have the Cleveland Clinic, Rochester and Pittsburgh. We need to do an excellent job in terms of all the basics of good, quality patient care and be up to whatever the latest treatments are,” she said.

L. Nelson Hopkins, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of neurosurgery, was interviewed about his career, research and techniques he has innovated. “This is the most exciting place I’ve ever been in my life,” he said. “Every day there is something new going on, whether it’s a heart procedure or a brain procedure. People are coming from all over the world to train here. How do you beat that?” he said.

Igor Puzanov, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology, has worked with teams that have helped prove the effectiveness of a number of cancer drugs. He discussed how the new drugs work, checkpoint inhibitors and melanoma.

Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD, senior associate dean for health policy, was interviewed about why a national health system is needed to slow the opioid crisis. “The bottom line is, we need people to be alive if we want to help them,” she said.

Mark D. Hicar, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics, is interviewed about the return of acute flaccid myelitis, a polio-like condition that left more than 100 children in the U.S. at least partially paralyzed in 2014. AFM was also diagnosed in more than 100 children again in 2016 and 2018. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is not ruling out any possible triggers. Hicar treated two children with AFM, one in 2014 and one in 2018. The article notes that both were boys — one age 6 and one age 3.

An article in the Buffalo News reports UB spinoff Cytocybernetics, a past 43North winner, has received a $250,000 Small Business Innovation Research award from the National Institute of Mental Health to support its expansion into neuronal drug development. The co-founders of Cytocybernetics are Glenna C. Bett, PhD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and Randall L. Rasmusson, PhD, professor of physiology and biophysics. Bett is company CEO and Rasmusson is company president.

A television broadcast quoted Mark D. Hicar, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases, discussing acute flaccid myelitis, an extremely rare condition affecting young children. He noted that while in most cases, the paralysis is only temporary, “a significant number, potentially about a quarter of patients, their worst paralysis is with them for life, unfortunately.”

An article reports on research by Jonathan F. Lovell, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering, that could boost the efficacy of malarial transmission-blocking vaccines to help reduce the spread of the disease that kills more than 400,000 people annually. “Malaria is a huge global problem. This approach — using a transmission-blocking vaccine — could be part of a suite of tools that we use to tackle the disease,” he said.

Kenneth E. Leonard, PhD, director of UB’s Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions and research professor of psychiatry, was interviewed about a faith-based program in Tennessee to retrain workers for new jobs and new lives after prison and addiction. Leonard said spirituality can help those trying to overcome addiction, but you “can’t just pray these problems away.” “We’ve known since the late 1960s that employment is a powerful predictor of low patterns of alcohol use and better responses to treatment. Similarly, some data suggests that when those addicted to opiates are stably employed and in a relationship with someone who doesn’t use drugs, the outcomes are better,” he said.

Jennifer Surtees, PhD, co-director of UB’s Genome, Environment and Microbiome and associate professor of biochemistry, is interviewed about UB’s Coalesce: Center for Biological Arts artists-in-residency program. “These collaborations between UB’s scientists and the global art community continue to produce unique community workshops, important new dialogues and the continued explorations of microbial communities and their impact on the world around us,” Surtees said.

Peter Winkelstein, MD, executive director of the Institute for Healthcare Informatics and professor of pediatrics, and Timothy Murphy, MD, senior associate dean for clinical and translational research and SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine, are interviewed about federally funded clinical trials conducted through UB. The number has seen a substantial uptick in the last three years, the result of a long-term effort to break down barriers within the university and a dedicated outreach effort in the community. “This substantial increase in research activity at UB is a result of all the changes this institution has made in a variety of areas to foster better health care in our community,” Murphy said. “Those efforts signaled UB’s strong institutional commitment to growing clinical research with a multimillion-dollar investment that allows us to fully support and perform world-class clinical research. Now they are paying off.”

Research by Jonathan F. Lovell, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering, a joint program between the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, could boost the efficacy of malarial transmission-blocking vaccines to help reduce the spread of the disease that kills more than 400,000 people annually. “Malaria is a huge global problem. This approach — using a transmission-blocking vaccine — could be part of a suite of tools that we use to tackle the disease,” he said.

Kathryn Bass, MD, clinical associate professor of surgery, was interviewed about a local child who suffered second-degree deep and partial burns over about 12 percent of her body and was successfully treated with amnion stem cells interviews. Bass treated the child and has written five peer-reviewed medical papers about how to use cell therapy on child burns. “I haven’t done a split-thickness skin graft in two years,” she said. “Tissue regeneration – understanding stem cell biology – opens up a whole new world of medicine.”

Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine, was interviewed about legalizing marijuana and what it could mean for employers and drug testing. Blondell said that just because marijuana may become legal in New York State doesn’t mean that people won’t face repercussions in the workplace for using it. "We're now in new territory, we haven't thought through what we are going to do so employers are going to have to make up policies as they go along," he said. "So it's still illegal federally and it's not legal in every state. So let's just say you're an employer and you run a trucking business, and your trucks now go across state lines. what kind of policies are you going to have for your drivers."

Daniel Antonius, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and director of forensic psychiatry, is interviewed about a new YouTube series that faces backlash over the use of the term “sociopath”. Antonius said diagnosing antisocial personality disorder is an involved process that can take 12 hours or more of intimate interviews and extensive questionnaires. “There’s a negative connotation in this interaction,” he said. “There are people out there with personality disorder diagnoses who are successful, and doing good things in the world. This kind of language adds to the stigmatization rather than talking about mental health in a productive manner.”

Gil I. Wolfe, MD, professor and Irvin and Rosemary Smith Chair of neurology, was one of several experts quoted in an article about myasthenia gravis patients who benefit most from thymectomy. “We analyzed data through month 60 to look at how persistent, how durable, the favorable response to thymectomy is,” he said. “It is quite well established that most myasthenia gravis patients after a prolonged period of focused management do quite well. We wanted to see over how long a period of time you might see benefits from thymectomy that exceeded medical therapy alone.”

An article about a new Ivy League football study that found that a small change in one area of the sport – kickoff rules – may lead to a significant reduction in concussion rates interviews John J. Leddy, MD, clinical professor of orthopaedics and director of the UB Concussion Management Clinic, who called the study “well-done” with findings that “make sense.” “It shows just how powerful rule changes can be in preventing concussions,” he said. "That’s important because you’re going to get concussions in football, but if you can develop rules that reduce the risk, then preventing concussion is much easier than treating concussion.” The story appeared on CNN affiliates around the country.

A special issue of Buffalo Magazine focusing on the opioid epidemic includes interviews with local experts about the future of the crisis, among them, Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine, who said the most critical issue in the local opioid crisis is the over-prescription of opioid medications. “Physicians and other clinicians now prescribe three to four times more opioids than they did 20 years ago. There is a direct correlation between the level of prescriptions with the number of opioid overdose deaths and with admissions to drug addiction treatment programs,” he said. An additional article about the locations of medication drop boxes in Erie County includes Bissell Hall on the UB North Campus.

An article reports on research by Robert Zivadinov, MD, PhD, professor of neurology, that found that brain iron at quantitative magnetic resonance imaging is associated with disability in multiple sclerosis. “In this large cohort of MS patients and healthy controls, we have reported, for the first time, iron increasing in the basal ganglia but decreasing in thalamic structures,” he said. “Iron depletion or increase in several structures of the brain is an independent predictor of disability related to MS.”

An article about legislation that passed the House of Representatives on Sept. 28 that would likely allocate billions of dollars to fight the opioid crisis interviews Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD, senior associate dean for health policy and a former president of the American Medical Association. “This bill has some really good points and is a great first step,” says Nielsen, clinical professor of medicine. “But it fails to create a funding source for infrastructure to treat future patients with substance use disorder. Opioids will not be the last drug crisis we have. Funding to establish treatment facilities and correctly train personnel for future epidemics is not in this bill.”

Research by Jun Xia, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and Jonathan Lovell, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering, a joint program of the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, that showed that barley is an ideal and safe contrast agent for diagnosing swallowing disorders.

An article about the secrets to aging gracefully looks at the UB Center for Successful Aging and interviews Bruce R. Troen, MD, professor of medicine and chief of geriatrics and palliative medicine; Nikhil Satchidanand, PhD, an exercise physiologist and assistant professor of medicine; and Kenneth L. Seldeen, PhD, research assistant professor of medicine.

An article about the financial toll of the U.S. opioid epidemic, which has cost the country more than $1 trillion since 2001, interviews Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine. “Prescription drugs are gateway drugs to heroin,” he said. “Doctors and other physicians inadvertently prescribe their patients into addiction, but when they stop the prescriptions, patients turn to the illicit market for their drugs. As such, these prescribers make things worse by converting a licit drug problem into an illicit problem.”

UB HEALS (Homeless health, Education, Awareness and Leadership in Street medicine), a community outreach program organized by medical students and physicians from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, is in the middle of a 60-day online crowdfunding campaign. “This is an extremely humbling experience. So, it brought medicine back to the human aspect of it. And, for those going into medicine, just keep in mind that even though you need to build your resume and you need to build different types of experiences, having an experience that makes you have a human-to-human connection is extremely valuable,” said Lisa Samuels, a second-year medical student who handles fundraising for the organization. 

Research by Robert Zivadinov, MD, PhD, professor of neurology, has found that brain iron at quantitative magnetic resonance imaging is associated with disability in multiple sclerosis. "In this large cohort of MS patients and healthy controls, we have reported, for the first time, iron increasing in the basal ganglia but decreasing in thalamic structures," he said. "Iron depletion or increase in several structures of the brain is an independent predictor of disability related to MS." 

An opinion piece by Timothy F. Murphy, MD, senior associate dean for clinical and translational research and director of UB’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, looks at clinical research and how participating in clinical trials can improve the health of the entire community. “Every promising new treatment and new miracle drug was made possible by people who participated in clinical trials. Increasing participation in clinical research is an enormous opportunity to engage more people with health care professionals and provide access to the latest treatments,” he writes.

UB researchers have received a five-year, $3 million grant to apply the power of big data to enhance liver health in the region. Andrew H. Talal, MD, professor of medicine and co-principal investigator on the grant, said “clearly, it’s not an exaggeration to say that we are seeing a national crisis of liver disease and liver cancer.”

A broad overview of current research about concussions and advancements in the field quotes John J. Leddy, MD, clinical professor of orthopaedics and director of the UB’s Concussion Management Clinic.  “Believe it or not, we don’t have a gold-standard definition of what a concussion even is right now,” he said. “It remains a clinical diagnosis, that means it’s a diagnosis made by the history taken and the physical examination performed. There’s no one diagnostic test to confirm a concussion in everybody.”

Research by Craig T. Werner, a postdoctoral fellow in pharmacology and toxicology, and David Dietz, PhD, professor and chair of pharmaoclogy and toxicology, shows that a class of proteins, for the first time, been shown to be effective in reducing relapse, or drug-seeking behaviors, in a preclinical study. "One of the greatest challenges with addiction is the persistent vulnerability to relapse," Werner said.

A study by Stephanie Anzman-Frasca, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics, shows that the best way to encourage children to eat healthy foods is to continue to offer them an assortment of healthy foods even if they initially refuse to eat them. It  notes that healthy eating must begin during pregnancy since the flavor of the foods that a mother eats “reach the child in utero.” 

In a story about mental health care inside the Erie County Holding Center, Erie County Commissioner of Mental Health Michael Ranney discussed reforms undertaken at the Holding Center, noting “one of the very positive things we did was establish a relationship with the university.” The story states that the county contracts with the Department of Psychiatry, which provides services at the holding center and Erie County Correctional Facility. The story quotes Daniel Antonius, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and director of the Division of Forensic Psychiatry, who said, “We see inmates sometimes within a day and sometimes within one to two weeks, so if you compared to the community standard — it's actually pretty quick because in the community you often wait two to three months before you’re seeing a psychiatrist.”

There are concerns that the region could face a shortage of obstetrician-gynecologists in coming years. Vanessa M. Barnabei, MD, PhD, professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology, comments about what is being done to boost the number of younger physicians in the specialty. “Most of our graduates have stayed in the immediate area, Erie County for the most part and a couple in Niagara County. But I know there are shortages in Niagara County and only a few OB-GYNs in Orleans (County),” she said. “Many of the babies there are delivered by family practice providers.”

A story reports that first- and second-year students in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences were part of a panel discussion on the future of the medical field and quotes second-year medical student Emily Slominski, who said she’s interested in learning more about interconnectivity between physicians and providers in other fields. “A lot of our experiences right now can almost be frustrating at times because you have patients that have problems that are kind of outside the realm of what you can help with. So it’s nice to see that they’re bringing in other fields, and connecting, and trying to get at the root of the problems.”

An article about new standardized prescribing guidelines adopted last summer by local emergency department doctors dealing with opioid addiction interviews Robert F. McCormack, MD, professor and chair of emergency medicine, who said expanded relationships between the hospitals and clinics has been key. “The truly unique part here is the warm handoff,” McCormack said. “We had enough consensus to say yes, this is the right thing to do, and people bought into that. The idea is this wasn’t putting new services out there; this was coordinating competing services.” Joshua J. Lynch, DO, clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine, and Gale R. Burstein, MD, Erie County commissioner of public health and clinical professor of pediatrics, were also interviewed in the article.

An article reports on research by Caroline E. Bass, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology, that used optogenetics to treat binge drinking in mice. “By stimulating certain dopamine neurons in a precise pattern, resulting in low but prolonged levels of dopamine release, we could prevent the rats from binging. The rats just flat out stopped drinking,” she said.

A story on a dinner held by doctors and students from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to talk about health care with community members from Buffalo’s East Side interviews Linda F. Pessar, MD, director of the Center for Medical Humanities and professor emerita of psychiatry. Pessar said that with the population becoming increasingly diverse, it’s important that doctors start listening and adapting. “The entrepreneurial private practitioner practicing at the community in which he or she lives and grew up is a fading idol,” she said. "If we don’t become responsive to community members, we will not practice the medicine we need and hope to practice, and it seems to me that’s the bottom line.”

Science publications are reporting on research by M. Aleksander Wysocki, a doctoral student in computational cell biology, anatomy and pathology, and Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, that found that the jaw joint bone, the center around which chewing activity literally revolves, appears to have evolved based more on an animal’s size than what it eats. “Still, given how critical the temporomandibular joint is in capturing prey and eating it, these results are very striking,” said Wysocki, first author on the paper originally published in PLoS ONE. “For over a century, it has been assumed that skull shape is closely related to what an animal eats. And now we have found that jaw joint bone structure is related to carnivoran body size, not what the animal is eating.” Tseng is co-author of the piece.

Brittany L. Steimle, a doctoral candidate in biochemistry, received an award for outstanding poster for her presentation on how proteins transport manganese in the brain at the international “Trace Elements in Biology and Medicine” conference, sponsored by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Tahoe City, California. “Understanding how manganese accumulates into the brain through the blood-brain barrier may serve as a key to designing drug targets for individuals who may have been overexposed to manganese in the environment or in whom manganese metabolism has somehow become dysregulated,” said Steimle, who conducts research in the laboratory of Daniel J. Kosman, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of biochemistry.

Catholic Health’s CEO Mark Sullivan is taking steps to better understand his new position, including an hour-long meeting with Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, to discuss how Catholic Health can play a greater role with medical students.

An article about “stone season,” the hot summer weather that can cause dehydration and lead to kidney stones, interviews K. Kent Chevli, MD, clinical professor and chair of urology. “Even the smallest of stones can bring a person down to their knees,” he said.

An article about the role alcohol consumption can play in a relationship reports a UB study showed that heavy drinking wasn’t the problem in couples, unless only one person was doing the heavy drinking, and quotes Kenneth E. Leonard, PhD, research professor of psychiatry and director of UB’s Research Institute on Addictions. “Our results indicate that it is the difference between the couple’s drinking habits, rather than the drinking itself, that leads to marital dissatisfaction, separation and divorce,” he said.

An article in the Buffalo News told about David Dietz, PhD, associate professor, being appointed chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Dietz has developed a research program focused on how susceptible individuals are to drug abuse and relapse.

Research by M. Aleksander Wysocki, a student in the doctoral program in computational cell biology, anatomy and pathology, and Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, found that the jaw joint bone, the center around which chewing activity literally revolves, appears to have evolved based more on an animal’s size than what it eats.

Endovascular Today featured a question-and-answer interview with Linda M. Harris, MD, professor of surgery and program director of vascular surgery integrated residency and vascular surgery fellowship in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. She told about her tenure as past president of the Eastern Vascular Society, how to improve diversity in the field, mentoring the next generation of vascular surgeons and updates in endovascular techniques and technology. She said: “Working with medical students, residents and fellows at my own institution has allowed me to empower many young physicians. The amazing thing is that some of the best and brightest trainees are often some of the most unassuming and humble people you will ever meet.”

Adnan Siddiqui, MD, PhD, professor and vice chair of neurosurgery, served as moderator for a challenging case presentation in Endovascular Today that dealt with a 54-year-old woman with a history of hypertension presented with left upper extremity weakness and facial droop with a National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score of 12. She had been found by her daughter on the floor and was unable to communicate due to dysarthria and confusion. Experts then weighed in with their opinions.

An opinion piece in the Buffalo News about the “very rare” use of buprenorphine in the emergency room of a California hospital to treat opioid-addicted patients noted that it is not rare in Western New York, where the practice was initiated by Joshua J. Lynch, DO, clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “Lynch knows that opioid addiction is a chronic disease requiring immediate aggressive treatment and management and therefore initiated a protocol of administering Suboxone at the time of ER treatment. But he didn’t stop there. He enlisted the help of his department chairman and emergency medicine colleagues. Recognizing that access to follow-up care was a problem, he approached local clinics and asked that they hold open appointment times for patients in crisis,” the article notes.

An article co-authored by David Dietz, PhD, associate professor and chair, Craig T. Werner, PhD, a postdoctoral associate, and Jennifer A. Martin, a doctoral student, all in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, tells about high-profile celebrities who have relapsed into addiction and looks at the painful reality of treating the illness. “Addiction — and relapse — are not the result of a lack of effort, but rather the known symptoms of both a medical and psychosocial problem. In this context, relapse is not indicative of a personal failure but rather a systemic one. Our current treatment regimens still too often fail to prevent relapses because they are still struggling to treat the underlying disease,” they write.

A story on WKBW-TV back-to-school tips to help children get a good night’s sleep includes suggestions from M. Jeffery Mador, MD, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, to make sure they’re well rested and ready for school.

Research by Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, analyzed the fossilized feces of the canine ancestors of dogs and wolves to discover that the extinct species had a jawbone powerful enough to crush the bones of its prey.

Research led by Ruogang Zhao, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, has developed new biotechnology that places lung tissue on electronic chips, allowing researchers to more affordably simulate the progression of pulmonary fibrosis over time and potentially develop new medications.

Local and national media are reporting on a study published in the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation by UB concussion researchers John J. Leddy, MD, clinical professor of orthopaedics, and Barry S. Willer, PhD, professor of psychiatry. Their study found that 21 retired NFL and NHL players exhibited no signs of early onset dementia, which would have been expected if they were affected by the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which has been linked to athletes with a history of concussive or sub-concussive injuries.

Tianeptine is an unapproved antidepressant drug that is believed to have caused an increase in calls to U.S. poison centers. Raphael J. Leo, MD, associate professor of psychiatry, recently published a case study on the drug that noted that blogs advocate use of amounts greater than the recommended daily antidepressant dose in order to achieve “opioid-like effects.” Some people who seek out tianeptine are searching for “a supplement to enhance mood and cognitive function,” he said, adding that he does not think all purchasers “necessarily think of it as an opiate.”

New UB research has shown that, for patients with multiple sclerosis, the disappearance of lesions into the cerebrospinal fluid is a better indicator of who will develop disability than the appearance or expansion of the lesions, and quotes Robert Zivadinov, professor of neurology. “Using the appearance of new brain lesions and the enlargement of existing ones as the indicator of disease progression, there was no sign of who would develop disability during five or 10 years of follow-up, but when we used the amount of brain lesion volume that had atrophied, we could predict within the first six months who would develop disability progression over long-term follow-up,” said Zivadinov, who serves as director of the Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center (BNAC) in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and directs the Center for Biomedical Imaging at UB’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI).

An article about a local couple who in the past two years has seen three of their four children return to Buffalo to live features John B. Ortolani, MD, assistant professor of surgery, who attended the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, then moved to Roanoke, Virginia, and Shreveport, Louisiana, before returning to Buffalo in 2017.

Empire Genomics, the biotechnology company co-founded in 2006 by Norma J. Nowak, PhD, professor of biochemistry and executive director of UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, will move from downtown Buffalo to new offices in Amherst.

Research by Fraser J. Sim, PhD, associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology has found that a receptor called muscarinic type 3 (M3R), a key regulator of the remyelination process, is a promising drug target in the treatment of multiple sclerosis. “This work establishes that M3R has a functional role and if blocked, could improve myelin repair,” he said. “It better positions the field for clinical trials that will be aimed at blocking these receptors in MS patients.”

Research by Robert Zivadinov, MD, PhD, professor of neurology, has found that a new, highly accurate MRI technique can monitor iron levels in the brains of multiple sclerosis patients, helping to identify those at a higher risk for developing physical disability.

An article about the singer Demi Lovato, who was hospitalized recently for an apparent drug overdose, and the enduring struggle of addiction and relapse, interviews Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine, who said a number of risk factors make relapses perilous, but the major culprit is often losing tolerance. “When a relapse occurs, someone may take a dose that they think is going to be effective — and it may even be half of what they were taking before — but because they’ve lost their tolerance, those tend to be lethal,” he said.

An article about a major study presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Chicago shows an Associated Press file photo of a human brain with Alzheimer’s disease on display at the Museum of Neuroanatomy in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

An article on Spectroscopy Now reports on research by Robert Zivadinov, MD, PhD, professor of neurology, that found that a new, highly accurate MRI technique can monitor iron levels in the brains of multiple sclerosis patients, helping to identify those at a higher risk for developing physical disability. “Iron depletion or increase in several structures of the brain is an independent predictor of disability related to MS,” said Zivadinov, who is also director of the Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center (BNAC) and directs the Center for Biomedical Imaging at UB’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI).

A Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences’ animal study may be one of the first to examine how low levels of vitamin D affect physical performance over the long term. Senior author on the study is Bruce R. Troen, MD, professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine. First author is Kenneth L. Seldeen, PhD, research assistant professor of medicine, who said, “The take-home message of this study is that while having low serum vitamin D for a month or even a year or two may not matter for a person, yet over several decades it may have clinical ramifications.”

Research by Jun Xia, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and Jonathan F. Lovell, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering, a joint program of the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, shows that barley is an ideal and safe contrast agent for diagnosing swallowing disorders. “It’s really incredible. Here you have this common grain — it has been grown all over the world for thousands of years, and used to make tea, bread, beer — and we’re just now finding another use for it as a contrast agent for medical imaging,” Xia said. 

Research by Thomas A. Russo, MD, professor of medicine and chief of infectious diseases, investigated the hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae, a rare but increasingly common strain of the pathogen that can infect completely healthy people, is resistant to all antibiotics and can cause blindness in one day and flesh-eating infections, brain abscesses and death in just a few days. “What’s increasingly concerning is the growing number of reports that describe strains of hypervirulent K. pneumoniae that are antimicrobial resistant,” he said. “A bug that's both hypervirulent and challenging to treat is a bad combination.”

An article in the Toledo Blade about the expansion of health care network ProMedica — which recently purchased the nation’s second-largest long-term care provider — quotes Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD, senior associate dean for health care policy in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, who said that changes in how the government reimburses both acute care and skilled nursing facilities is leading to some radical change in the industry. “Across the country, we are seeing mergers, acquisitions and alliances that formerly seemed improbable or unnecessary,” Nielsen said. “Economic pressures, hastened by changes in payment policies to ‘pay for value,’ are driving this movement, even when it is portrayed in altruistic terms.”

While some issues are part of the normal aging process, geriatric syndromes aren’t, according to Anjeet K. Saini, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine. “When we get older, we’re at greater risk for disability that interfere with activities of daily living,” she said. “In geriatrics, activities of daily living are the core principles we need to survive. Once ADLs are decreased, we have more disabilities.”

An article on Demi Lovato’s hospitalization after an apparent drug overdose mentions a quote earlier provided on an unrelated story by Kenneth E. Leonard, PhD, research professor of psychiatry and director of UB’s Research Institute on Addictions. “The longer a person is sober, the better his or her chances of staying away from drugs permanently,” Leonard said.

UB researchers Jun Qu, PhD, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, and David Poulsen, PhD, professor of translational neuroscience in the Department of Neurosurgery, have created a much more accurate and consistent protein analysis tool called IonStar that compares the abundance of proteins in people who are healthy and ill.

An article about the Diabetes Innovation Summit announced that James Schuler, a student in the medical scientist training program (MD/PhD), has received a scholarship to attend the event. The article quotes Schuler talking about his plans to be a pediatric endocrinologist. “Diabetes is the reason I am in medical school. Attending and being a counselor at diabetes camp made me choose to build my life around helping others … One of my projects during my PhD years is analyzing data collected at diabetes camp to improve care for children with diabetes.”

New British research suggests that aspirin dosages to help prevent stroke and heart attack should be determined by a person’s weight and not a one-size-fits-all approach. Anne B. Curtis, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Charles and Mary Bauer Professor and chair of medicine said “it makes a lot of intuitive sense that if you have somebody who is much larger that they might need (a higher dosage).”

Spectrum TV covered the installation of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences sign at the building’s Washington Street entrance.

A new way to treat stroke is using a 4-Dimensional Computed Tomography system that neurosurgery specialists say could change standards of care worldwide. Adnan Siddiqui, MD, PhD, professor of neurosurgery, said what’s different about the 4DCT is that all the triage and intervention can be performed in one setting without having to move the patient. “This is going to revolutionize stroke care all over the world,” he said. “The key is having it all in one room, so we are putting our angio suite and CT scanner right next to the ambulance bay. The patient goes straight from the ambulance into the scanner, and if there’s something to do, we do it right there and then.”

A story reports UB has received a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to help doctors translate proven medical research into patient care, and interviews Ranjit Singh, MB BChir, MBA, associate professor of family medicine. “Clinical trials demonstrate that the drug works,” he said. “Our job once they have discovered that it can work under ideal conditions with specific types of patients, is to figure out how to get practicing physicians out in the real world to use this drug to help their patients.”

The Access to Psychiatry through Intermediate Care (APIC) program assists families struggling with disabled loved ones by connecting them with key medical and social services, and developing strategies to prevent avoidable emergency room and hospital stays. Michael R. Cummings, MD, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry, helped establish APIC in 2014. The Department of Psychiatry secured a $1.8 million, five-year grant to run the program.

Dennis Z. Kuo, MD, associate professor of pediatrics and chief of the Division of General Pediatrics, appeared in a video on Voice of America about the benefits of breastfeeding vs. infant formula following recent news that the U.S. opposed a World Health Organization resolution urging countries to encourage breastfeeding. “I appreciate that formulas do get better and better but I’ve noticed that even our colleagues in the formula industry acknowledge that breast milk is the gold standard,” he said.

Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, comments on the success of the first semester in the new building. “Our first semester in the new building has been exceedingly positive,” he said. “I hear from our students, faculty and staff that the new building has generated a new energy, which was exactly what we had hoped to achieve.”

The Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences has received approval from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to recruit 16 residents in radiology over the next four years, beginning with four enrollees next March through the National Resident Matching Program.

Research by Heidi N. Suffoletto, MD, clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine and orthopaedics, found that wearable technologies designed to track and improve staffing levels in hospital emergency rooms can be helpful, but must be judiciously chosen.

An article on AMA Wire, a publication of the American Medical Association, interviews Moudi Hubeishy, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences Class of 2019. Hubeishy is founder and program director for UB HEALS (Homeless health, Education, Awareness and Leadership in Street medicine), a community outreach program being conducted by UB medical students and physicians from the Jacobs School. “The program has won numerous awards and grants, and — more importantly — has reconnected many homeless individuals with the medical and social care they have been looking for, while exposing and educating medical trainees and professionals about the challenges faced by their patients with low socioeconomic status,” he said.

UB research has developed a multifunctional microscope slide that supports real-time monitoring and mapping of temperature distribution and heat transport using a coating of an optical exceptional point structure. “We have instruments that magnify incredibly small objects. And we have tools that measure heat, like infrared thermometers,” said Ruogang Zhao, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering. “But we haven’t been able to combine them in a low-cost and reliable manner. This new coating takes a big step in that direction.”

New treatments are helping to break the stigma of mental illness. Michael R. Cummings, MD, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry, said new drugs have opened up new ways to treat people. “So prior to that there were very few treatments for schizophrenia, for bipolar disorder, for severe depression. Essentially individuals that had those conditions were institutionalized in large state hospitals with significant overcrowding and significant understaffing.”

UB’s Health in the Neighborhood course offers first-year students in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences the opportunity to better understand medical disparities and how social determinants can affect people. “If you want to learn about the source of that ambivalence and distrust, to discuss what health care providers can do to improve that, you need to go in without your white coat,” said Linda F. Pessar, MD, a teacher and founder of the course, professor emerita of psychiatry and director of the Center for Medical Humanities. “How can you trust someone who you feel is clueless about your life?”

An article about health disparities in the local African-American community features Linda F. Pessar, MD, professor emerita of psychiatry and founder and director of the Center for Medical Humanities in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Pessar participated in a daylong event in April at the new home of the Jacobs School that was designed to bring awareness to the issue and come up with ways to ignite change, which was sponsored by UB’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute. “We have over 200 years of built-in distrust with the African-American community,” Pessar said. “We cannot offer care that will be accepted until we spend some time building trust.”

A story on WBFO-FM about the benefits of the meditation practice of mindfulness interviews Archana Mishra, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine, who practices mindfulness. “Mindfulness is something that helps you become a better human being,” she said. “It reduces anxiety and stress and that’s been proven … by true scientific methods.”

An article in the Buffalo News reports that Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD, senior associate dean for health policy in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, has received the Henry I. Fineberg Award for Distinguished Service from the Medical Society of the State of New York.

An article on HowStuffWorks about how often people should wash their coffee cups interviews Terry D. Connell, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology. “Streptococci, staphylococci and any number of resident or transient oral bacteria, which may include potential pathogens, may reside in unwashed cups,” Connell said. “And, of course, if someone else should drink from one’s cup, bacteria from their mouths can be transferred into it.”

An article on MedPage Today about women physicians who choose not to practice cardiology because of work-life balance issues and gender discrimination problems in the field includes an invited commentary by Anne B. Curtis, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Charles and Mary Bauer Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine. “Having this factor be so important to career decisions today means that one needs to consider these issues in structuring positions in order to attract the best people,” Curtis said.

A story on WBFO offers a glimpse into how students in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences are learning about treating patients in the LGBT community, and interviews Lisa Jane Jacobsen, associate dean of medical curriculum and clinical associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and students Mary Leeman and Helia Zand. “We try to teach them to be respectful of different beliefs, religions, cultures, ethnicities, opinions, and that they don’t have to agree with everybody, but that they certainly have to be respectful and help people,” Jacobsen said.

Business First reports on how the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences’ RISE (Research, Innovation, Surgical Simulation, Education) initiative is taking a unique approach to teaching anatomy and quotes John E. Tomaszewski, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and the Peter A. Nickerson, PhD, Chair of the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, and Steven D. Schwaitzberg, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Surgery.

An article on the blog Rebel Circus reports on a study by Michal K. Stachowiak, PhD, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, that uses cerebral organoids — or mini brains — to understand the cause of schizophrenia. “Neurons that connect different regions of the cortex, the so-called interneurons, become misdirected in the schizophrenia cortex, causing cortical regions to be misconnected, like an improperly wired computer,” Stachowiak said.

An article about the rapid revolution of technology-aided care that is available through remote patient monitoring interviews Anne B. Curtis, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Charles and Mary Bauer Professor and chair of medicine; Ajay Chaudhuri, MD, clinical director of medicine and director of the endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes fellowship program; and Andrew H. Talal, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition; about the devices that can reduce patients’ trips to the doctor’s office.

A new UB study has shown that an at-home cognitive therapy that requires little contact with a medical specialist appears to relieve the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome as well or better than traditional therapy. “Our research shows that patients can learn ways to recalibrate these brain-gut interactions in a way that brings them significant symptom improvement that has eluded them through medical treatments,” said Jeffrey M. Lackner, PsyD, professor of medicine in the Division of Behavioral Medicine and director of the Behavioral Medicine Clinic.

“12 Voices in 12 Hours,” a daylong broadcast on WBEN-AM focusing on the opioid epidemic, interviews Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine. “I think the crisis has been getting worse. It’s not getting as bad as quickly, but I don’t think we’ve turned the corner at all,” he said.

A story about a new study that analyzes the costs of treating torture victims and the economic advantages of helping suffering refugees recover interviews Kim Griswold, MD, MPH, associate professor of family medicine and medical director of the Center for Survivors of Torture, who said the value of hosting refugees is supported by hard data. “Rehab after torture often allows individuals to enter the workforce, contribute to local economies and incur less health care costs over time,” she said.

A story about a New York State law that requires doctors to collect a blood sample from every child born in the state in order to test for pediatric diseases and concerns about what happens to the leftover blood, which becomes the property of the state, interviews Michael D. Garrick, PhD, professor of biochemistry. Regulations have been developed over the past decade, he said, including ones that require researchers and law enforcement to obtain an “OK” from the Institutional Review Board to get access to the samples. “The IRB board needs to give approval, and the patient whose sample would be taken needs to give consent,” he said.

An article in Business First reports that the Department of Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, in conjunction with Evergreen Health, is participating in a multicenter clinical trial investigating the safety and efficacy of a regimen to treat HIV that is administered in monthly injections. Alyssa S. Shon, MD, clinical assistant professor of medicine, is principal investigator on the trial.

An article about questions over whether it was a broken heart that caused the hospitalization of former President George H.W. Bush just a day after the funeral of his wife, Barbara, interviews Anne B. Curtis, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Charles and Mary Bauer Professor and chair of medicine. The sudden loss of a spouse, child or parent “releases an outpouring from the sympathetic nervous system, the fight-or-flight response, which is what seems to damage the heart in broken-heart syndrome,” she said. “The heart rate goes up sharply, blood pressure goes up. This is why people can also have a stroke in situations like this.” 

Research by Jeffrey M. Lackner, PsyD, professor of medicine, showed that patients with the most severe and persistent symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome achieved robust and sustained relief by learning to control symptoms with home-based behavioral treatment. “This is a novel, game-changing treatment approach for a public health problem that has real personal and economic costs, and for which there are few medical treatments for the full range of symptoms,” he said.

Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine talks about the availability of medication-assisted treatment for people dealing with opioid and other chemical dependency issues and whether there are enough qualified physicians to treat them. “Right now, the physician workforce is the limiting step,” he said. “It’s relatively easy to build buildings and make more beds, and relatively easy to hire nurses to staff them. But a lot of agencies in Western New York are hamstrung in their ability to provide enhanced services by the lack of physician resources.”

The Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences will play host to the “Igniting Hope” conference, a collaboration among UB and several entities. Timothy F. Murphy, MD, senior associate dean of clinical and translational research and director of UB’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, said it’s a chance for the university to show what its researchers can do. “If you look at all of the people nationally who participate in clinical studies, less than 10 percent are underrepresented minorities,” he said. 

An article in Photonics Media reports that UB research has developed a multifunctional microscope slide that supports real-time monitoring and mapping of temperature distribution and heat transport using a coating of an optical exceptional point structure, and quotes Ruogang Zhao, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering. “We have instruments that magnify incredibly small objects. And we have tools that measure heat, like infrared thermometers,” Zhao said. “But we haven’t been able to combine them in a low-cost and reliable manner. This new coating takes a big step in that direction.”

New Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences research has shown that an approved anti-cancer drug can significantly restore the social deficits associated with autism spectrum disorder in mice. “We have discovered a small molecule compound that shows a profound and prolonged effect on autism-like social deficits without obvious side effects, while many currently used compounds for treating a variety of psychiatric diseases have failed to exhibit the therapeutic efficacy for this core symptom of autism,” said Zhen Yan, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of physiology and biophysics.

Research by Ruogang Zhao, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, describes how an updated version of the glass microscope can now enable scientists to see tiny objects while also measuring their temperature. “We have instruments that magnify incredibly small objects. And we have tools that measure heat, like infrared thermometers. But we haven’t been able to combine them in a low-cost and reliable manner. This new coating takes a big step in that direction,” he said.

Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, was quoted in an article on the completion of the new $375 million building that is home to the Jacobs School. “This building fully integrates medical education into Buffalo’s growing academic health center, emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and strengthening our relationships with our clinical partners,” Cain said.

A story on Minnesota Public Radio about the massive transition to a new electronic medical records system being conducted by the Mayo Clinic interviews Peter Winkelstein, MD, executive director of the Institute for Healthcare Informatics. "It improves care," he said. "If a caregiver has access to all of the information about a patient when they're seeing the patient, they're much more likely to give appropriate care."

Melinda S. Cameron, MD, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics, served as a panelist for WBFO’s Racial Equity Project. 

A story in AAMC News, the newsletter of the Association of American Medical Colleges, mentions that the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences has received an award under the Back to Bedside program designed to improve interactions between medical residents and patients. The story describes the new initiatives developed by UB residents, called “the Attending of the Day” and the “Close the Loop rounds.” The story quotes Regina Makdissi, MD, assistant professor of medicine and associate director of the internal medicine residency program, who said that the new programs give patients and families more opportunities to discuss all aspects of care in a less formal way. “Teaching best practices in communications will have a positive impact on current and future patients,” Makdissi said.

A story on WKBW-TV about a new study that found that loneliness can become a greater health risk than obesity interviews Michael R. Cummings, MD, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry, who said if you’re feeling lonely, basic social exercises like going out to eat with friends and being out where you’re comfortable can go a long way toward taking steps for your health.

Shanté White, who will graduate today from the Jacob School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, is interviewed about her journey to become a physician, including being the first generation of her family to attend college and the struggles members of her family had with drug and alcohol addiction. “I can say for the first time in my life — I should have said it before — that I’m really proud of myself. Just reflecting back on how I grew up and the things I went through … it’s been hard,” she said.

Christopher S. Cohan, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, is interviewed about UB’s Brain Museum and what makes its contents so special. “It’s something that continues to amaze me,” he said, “because it’s such a complicated organ. It’s something that we’re never going to figure out in the short term and even the long term we wonder really how much we can understand about it.”

An article featuring the new Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building calls it the largest building to have been erected in downtown Buffalo in recent decades, and quotes Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School. “This building fully integrates medical education into Buffalo’s growing academic health center, emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and strengthening our relationships with our clinical partners,” he said.

D. Fernando Estrada, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry, is profiled in the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s “Research Spotlight” section, which highlights distinguished biomolecular and biomedical scientists from diverse backgrounds as a way to inspire up-and-coming scientists to pursue careers in the molecular life sciences. 

In a story about robotic surgery in the magazine In Good Health, Steven D. Schwaitzberg, MD, professor and chair of surgery, talks about which procedures are good candidates for robotic surgery, noting “It really helps the surgeon focus on cases that depend on exact precision. Cancers that are in the lower pelvis region are perfect examples because the robotic arms allow for better movement in that location.”

A section called “Meet Your Doctor” in the magazine In Good Health interviews David M. Holmes, MD, clinical associate professor of family medicine and director of global health education, about the relationship between spirituality and health. He discussed the sensitive nature of bringing faith up with patients. “I mean, we’re trained to ask all kinds of personal questions about a person’s sexual history, but for some reason when it comes to someone’s spiritual history, it’s kind of taboo. But now there’s some movement in medical schools to train physicians to take a student’s spiritual history. It’s just a few simple questions that can give you a quick idea of where the patient is at.”

Timothy F. Murphy, MD, senior associate dean for clinical and translational research and director of UB’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, talks about the $3 billion increase to the National Institutes of Health’s budget and what it means to Western New York research institutions. He said UB brought in $60 million in funding through 174 grant awards, an increase of $2 million and nine awards from the previous year.

Daniel Antonius, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and director of the Division of Forensic Psychiatry, was interviewed for an article about the Toronto driver who killed 10 pedestrians in a van attack. Antonius noted the driver’s history of posting misogynist statements and praise for other misogynists who have committed murders and said that these actions constitute another form of terrorism. “That feeling that someone is out to get you, maybe not you personally but you as part of a group you represent, that is terror,” he said.

Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine, talks about a new marijuana-based drug to help children battling severe forms of epilepsy that is one step closer to FDA approval. Blondell is hopeful that after 40 years of testing the FDA will approve a cannabis-based oil to treat two rare forms of the disease. "What we really need to do is reclassify marijuana and turn the drug companies loose on it so they can begin to isolate these chemicals, study it and find drugs that might help with chronic pain, depression, sleep disorders, seizures, but I think we need to do it in a measured, scientific, medical way, and not some, on a political whim," he said.

The Jacobs Institute’s new Idea to Reality (I2R) Center, aims to foster collaboration between entrepreneurs, physicians, engineers and researchers with a focus on new therapies for strokes and heart attacks. The institute grew out of the work of L. Nelson Hopkins, MD, UB Distinguished Professor of neurosurgery, and is located in the building that houses the UB Center for Translational Research. 

Research by Michal K. Stachowiak, PhD, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, uses cerebral organoids, or mini brains, to understand the cause of schizophrenia. It’s “an important technical advance,” he said, and “an important initial step toward using organoids in regenerative medicine.”

Steven L. Dubovsky, MD, professor and chair of psychiatry, questioned the need for pharmacogenetic testing for antidepressants in an article about disability management. Dubovsky said there’s no reason why measuring genes for enzymes will predict what happens to a drug and whether or not a patient will respond to it. “One reason for this is that most psychiatric drugs are metabolized by multiple enzymes. And if one is low or high in activity, other enzymes will change their activity to compensate for that,” he said.

Torin J. Finver, MD, clinical instructor of family medicine, questioned a study that showed that states with legal marijuana prescribe fewer opioids for pain management “(To say medicinal marijuana laws could help solve the opioid crisis) is overly simplistic. This data is based on a population that hasn’t teased out that people have underlying addictive disorders. The data is making a leap,” says Finver, who is also program director of the addiction medicine fellowship.

A report on research by Jessica A. Kulak, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Primary Care Research Institute housed in the Department of Family Medicine, shows that public health officials may need to consider broadening their tobacco prevention efforts beyond traditional cigarettes to include hookah use. “It may be the case that hookah appeals to youths and young adults who really do not experiment with nicotine products overall because of the perception that hookah is ‘safer’ or that it does not contain nicotine,” Kulak said.

New research by Zhen Yan, PhD, professor of physiology and biophysics, has shown that an FDA-approved anti-cancer drug can significantly restore the social deficits associated with autism spectrum disorder in mice.

An article about a recent study that found that Americans are consuming 17.5 billion drinks a year during binges quotes Brian M. Quigley, PhD, research assistant professor of medicine and senior research scientist in UB’s Research Institute on Addictions, who said he prefers the term “heavy episodic drinking.” “When the public hears the term ‘binge drinking,’” he said, “they think of something else, more akin to a ‘lost weekend’ involving a person drinking for days and having blackouts. That is, of course, an extreme example of a heavy drinking episode.”

Local orthopaedic surgeons are addressing the opioid crisis in Western New York. Leslie J. Bisson, MD, professor and chair of orthopaedics, organized a summit of 35 surgeons to discuss prescribing patterns. “We surveyed our own group and found there was huge variability,” he said. “Some were giving one type of pain medication of a certain number, others were giving twice as many. It was kind of all over the place, but because there wasn’t a lot of literature, it was more practice and habit-based.”

An article about the opioid crisis and the rising number of people who are dying from overdoses interviews Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine, who said the opioid crisis is an epidemic of our own making and that prescription rates have skyrocketed, fueled in part by hospitals and doctors trying to treat chronic pain rather than the underlying symptoms. “Long-term, it’s going to be 20 years before we dig ourselves out of the hole that we made,” he said. “Some aspects of [the crisis] are getting worse.”

An article about the avalanche of fan mail offering friendship, encouragement and sexually provocative photos that is being sent to Nikolas Cruz, the teen accused of killing 17 people in a shooting rampage at a Florida high school last month, in jail interviews Steven L. Dubovsky, MD, professor and chair of psychiatry, who said some people get a kind of “notoriety and fame by association” with heinous killers. “It’s like hanging out with a rock star or being a groupie,” he said.

An article reports a new UB study has shown insight into how Haemophilus influenza affects individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, the fourth-leading cause of death, and interviews Timothy F. Murphy, MD, senior associate dean for clinical and translational research. "Not only were we able to look at what the genes looked like when the patients acquired the pathogen, but we followed these patients every month,” he said. “The genomes are like a looking glass, revealing the pathogen’s secrets to us by showing us how it changed its genes through the years.”

First-year medical students discuss the Health in the Neighborhood course at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and their experiences learning about health care disparities directly from those who are experiencing them in Buffalo. “In order to the learn from the community, it is important to engage as listeners and learners,” said Linda F. Pessar, MD, founder of the course and professor emeritus of psychiatry. The story focused on the national attention it’s drawing from the American Medical Association. “It’s important to have an organization like the AMA be involved in what we’re doing because they have a lot of influence,” said Lisa Jane Jacobsen, MD, associate dean of medical curriculum.

New diabetes research by Paresh Dandona, MD, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism found that taking a fiber supplement can help patients with type 2 diabetes boost their insulin secretion even after eating a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal.

A feature story on Bianca Weinstock-Guttman, MD, professor of neurology, showcases her work with multiple sclerosis patients. The article interviews colleagues who include Ralph H. Benedict, PhD, professor of neurology.

Joint research between UB, the University of Maryland and Yale University discovered genetic and evolutionary patterns in the bacterium Haemophilus influenza. These patterns can improve therapies for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients, whose weakened organs are more susceptible to virulent strains of the bacterium. The UB team was led by Timothy F. Murphy, MD, senior associate dean for clinical and translational research and SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine.

Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, describes his research about what skull size and shape may tell you about an animal’s diet.

After a record snowstorm dumped a foot or more of snow across Western New York, articles reported tips from John M. Canty, Jr., MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Albert and Elizabeth Rekate Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, who said that shoveling “is heavy exercise” and warned that shoveling can cause sudden stress on a person’s body, especially because it is performed in the cold. 

A story about a report by the New York State Department of Health that shows three counties in Western New York have some of the highest rates of pain pill distribution in the state interviews Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine. "You can put a treatment center at every street corner in Buffalo and that's never going to address the problem as long as the health care system is continuing to prescribe new patients into addiction," he said.

A story on ways that seniors can stay strong and avoid breaking a hip as they age interviews Christopher E. Mutty, MD, clinical assistant professor of orthopaedics and an orthopedic surgeon with UBMD Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine. “A sedentary lifestyle certainly does promote bone resorption of minerals from the skeleton and we know that loading and using bone working out, exercise regularly, those kinds of things, maintains bone mass,” he said.

Steven Schwaitzberg, MD, chair of surgery, discusses healthcare and the opportunities and progress being made in Buffalo on Invest Buffalo Niagara's podcast.

A story about how to reduce opioid prescriptions includes comments from Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD, senior associate dean for health policy. Nielsen said that primary care doctors are “trying to change how we practice, so we don’t use opioids as a first-line treatment or even for a while, because there are other ways to approach pain.”

Sourav Sengupta, MD, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry; and Michael R. Cummings, MD, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry, talk about the recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics that children age 12 and over undergo annual depression screenings. “The rate of suicide has gone up in the 10 to 14 population astronomically from 2006. While we don’t really know what causes that, it aligns directly with social media, and the pressures that teens, particularly female teens, go through is astronomical compared to a generation ago,” Cummings said.

Michal K. Stachowiak, PhD, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, discusses new findings that show the early stages of pregnancy as the starting point for schizophrenia. “After centuries of patients suffering horrendous treatment, our findings now reveal that schizophrenia is a disorder of faulty brain construction during the first trimester of pregnancy, and is driven by a common dysregulated pathway,” he said.

An article about concerns among UB officials that proposed cuts in state graduate medical education funding will hurt efforts to diversify the physician workforce interviews David A. Milling, MD, senior associate dean for student and academic affairs. “It is important that our medical professionals reflect the populations that they serve, but we have not been able to meet those numbers in New York State,” he said.

An article reports the new Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building will be featured as part of a hands-on student open house, and notes that sponsors include UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences.  

A panel discussion, titled “Transformational Leadership: Women in Power,” will include Aviva Abramovsky, dean of the UB School of Law, and Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD, senior associate dean for health policy in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. The forum will explore issues of professional value, safety, and career navigation in a male-dominated world, as well as provide a safe space for women to network and learn from some of the most influential women in the region.

Bianca Weinstock-Guttman, MD, professor of neurology, has received the Impact Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for her research and patient care in the field.

David L. Kaye, MD, professor of psychiatry, was quoted in a story about how and when to start talking to your children to prevent child sexual abuse. He said that when something sounds like abuse people don’t want to believe it. “We have that natural reaction to turn away, that ‘no, this couldn't be true.’ And it's frightening for parents too. And it's confusing,” Kaye said.

Research by Kwang W. Oh, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering and electrical engineering, and colleagues developed a chip that uses two different types of forces — capillary- and vacuum-driven — to shrink the diagnostic function of a medical lab onto a chip the size of a small coin. "The chip could become the basis for faster, more efficient and reliable lab on a chip devices. It puts us closer to using such devices where medical labs are lacking, such as the developing world, battlefields and even our homes,” he said.

An article on the website of the National Science Foundation reports on new research by Thomas Grant, PhD, research assistant professor of structural biology, that will dramatically improve how scientists “see inside” molecular structures in solution, allowing for much more precise ways to image data in various fields, from astronomy to drug discovery.

A new blood test approved by the Food and Drug Administration is being characterized as a way to detect concussion, but commentary by John J. Leddy, MD, clinical professor of orthopaedics and medical director of the UBMD Concussion Management Clinic, said those reports are misleading. “There will probably never be one single biomarker that can reveal if someone has had a concussion,” he said, “but rather a group of biomarkers will be required that have clinically useful appearance times in the circulation and specificity for concussion.”

An article on a new study shows that obesity has not decreased for any age group of children features an interview with Xiaozhong Wen, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Behavioral Medicine. Wen, who was not involved in the study, said he thinks people have the tools needed to reverse the obesity trend among children. “It’s not an easy job,” he said. “I think if we work together, we should be able to find a solution — soon, I hope.”

New UB research shows that parents who offer their children a sip of wine or beer on occasion may be contributing to an increased risk of alcohol use and problems later in adolescence. The vast majority of children who sip alcohol don't end up being alcoholics, yet the findings show there is a real effect, and suggest a cautious attitude, said Kenneth E. Leonard, PhD, professor of psychiatry and director of the Research Institute on Addictions.

Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD, senior associate dean for health policy, discusses how the medical community is now addressing the role it played in the opioid addiction crisis. “There were pressures all over nationally to try to make sure that patients had no pain and we also were lied to by pharmaceutical companies, there’s no question. We were told that these were not addictive drugs,” she said.

A feature article focuses on the career of John M. Marzo, MD, clinical professor of orthopaedics and a former team doctor to the Buffalo Bills and Sabres. “A lot of people would tell me, ‘That must be so cool to be on the sideline of every game,’” he said, “and I would say, ‘You know what, I watch the game differently than you do.’ It’s 30 seconds of holding your breath and then waiting until the next play. You watch and then you look to see, did everybody get up?”

New research by Adnan Siddiqui, MD, PhD, vice chair and professor of neurosurgery, and Elad I. Levy, MD, the L. Nelson Hopkins III, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, shows that in stroke patients with large vessel occlusion, the removal of the clot occurs as efficiently after aspiration-based clot removal alone as it does after aspiration-based clot removal performed with a stent retriever. “Our findings were certainly not surprising for us, but they may surprise some in the larger community where not using a stent retriever has been considered heresy,” says Siddiqui, senior author of the study. “We now have level-one evidence showing that both of these strategies are equally effective.” Levy is a co-author.

Cities across the U.S. have filed lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies that make opioids for their role in the epidemic of addiction that has caused an extraordinary number of fatalities. “I was practicing at that period of time and I do remember getting visits from reps from pharmaceutical companies, and they were saying that if somebody has ‘real pain’ they’re not going to get addicted,” said Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine. 

A new study has showed that genetically modified corn does increase crop yields and can provide more health benefits than traditional corn. “The work is significant because it examined literature that studied corn only under field conditions, and compared the GE [genetically engineered] plants with non-GE plants that were genetically identical except for the genes that were engineered,” said Mark R. O’Brian, PhD, professor and chair of biochemistry, who was not affiliated with the research. “It also only included literature where robust statistical analysis was possible.”

Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences researchers are working on ways to improve multiple sclerosis patients’ cognitive function and to repair damage to the myelin coating that protects nerve cells. The studies are being led by Janet L. Shucard, PhD, associate professor of clinical neurology, and Fraser J. Sim, PhD, associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology.

Philip L. Glick, MD, MBA, professor of surgery, was interviewed about a study that showed that television hospital shows pump up the drama at the expense of realism. When examining the significantly lower portion of patients with a length of stay less than a week, and an injury severity score of 25 or higher (20 percent versus 50 percent in real life), he said, “that’s admirable — most hospital executive and discharge planners would be envious.”

A story about the first FDA-approved blood test to help doctors diagnose traumatic brain injuries interviews John J. Leddy, MD, clinical professor of orthopaedics and medical director of the UBMD Concussion Management Clinic, who said the test doesn’t detect concussions and the approval won’t immediately change how patients are treated. “Everybody is looking for a biomarker for a concussion because it’s a clinical diagnosis, which means sometimes that’s hard to make,” he said. “There is no blood test for concussions. I want to make that clear — this blood test is very specific for brain bleeding.”

Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, PhD, senior associate dean for health policy, was interviewed about the appointment of Mark Sullivan as the new CEO of Catholic Health. “It is a high-visibility, high-pressure job and it’s important that people be forward-thinking and realize where things are going,” she said.

Sourav Sengupta, MD, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry, was interviewed for a story about the mass shooting at a Florida high school and about how parents can talk to their children about the tragedy. “As a child psychiatrist, one of the first things I want parents to know is we need to create a safe and nurturing place for kids to come to so if there’s a question or concern or fear, they can come to mom and dad … and explore what’s really going on,” he said. “But part of that also means keeping adult concerns on the adult side.”

New Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences research shows that the evolution of skull shape in the mammalian order Carnivora is more complex than previously thought and influenced by non-dietary factors. “For years, conventional thought surrounding carnivoran skull shape followed the ‘you are what you eat’ paradigm, where distantly related species evolve similar skulls because of shared dietary needs,” said Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences. “We found that to be a dramatic oversimplification.”

A story about the mix of emotions students are experiencing at the Florida high school where the mass shootings recently occurred interviews Steven L. Dubovsky, PhD, professor and chair of psychiatry. “(Counselors need to) emphasize that the situation is now safe,” he said. “The second thing that is important is an element of exposure, that is that you review the event and you may go back to the school sooner rather than later so as to not become phobic of the school.”

Research led by Kwang W. Oh, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering, is developing technology that will allow researchers to create a “lab on a chip” that will allow medical personnel to use a cell phone or similar hand-held device to draw a patient’s blood and provide in-depth medical information on the spot. “The lab-on-a-chip technology is still far away from commercialization. There are a lot of challenges and I tried to tackle the practice challenges,” he said.

An article about Buffalo’s growing biotechnology field reports on two new treatments coming out of the laboratory of Jonathan F. Lovell, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and founder of POP Biotechnologies.

An opinion piece submitted by 26 brain injury experts about calls for the elimination of youth tackle football after a study found a link between sub-concussive hits to the head and chronic traumatic encephalopathy suggests that evidence linking youth casual sports play to brain injury, brain injury to CTE and CTE to dementia is not strong, and is signed by John J. Leddy, MD, clinical professor of orthopaedics and rehabilitation sciences, and Barry S. Willer, PhD, professor of psychiatry. “We believe that further scientific research and data are necessary for accurate risk-benefit analysis,” the authors write.

“A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Acute Care Patient,” is a symposium to be held in March at the Erie County Medical Center. The event will begin with an update on treatment for stroke patients by Kenneth V. Snyder, MD, PhD, assistant professor of neurosurgery.

A Hepatitis A clinic set up by the Erie County Health Department after a local food service worker tested positive for the virus. John K. Crane, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, said that even if someone has been exposed to the virus, both the vaccine and immunoglobulin can help prevent a full-blown infection. “The long incubation period does present certain challenges,” he said. “You don't know you're out of the woods until several weeks have gone by. But the long incubation period also gives public health authorities a chance to do something. So during that time we can give you the Hepatitis-A immunoglobulin and the vaccine. So there's a window of opportunity to intervene.”

The founder of a local startup that is working on a blood test to detect brain aneurysms is working with UB researchers, led by Hui Meng, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering, research professor of neurosurgery and co-director of the Toshiba Stroke and Vascular Research Center, to set up Neurovascular Diagnostics.

John J. Leddy, MD, clinical professor of orthopaedics and medical director of UB’s Concussion Management Clinic, was interviewed about new data concerning Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). “I get asked about this with my own patients. Their families ask me. And I say you know it’s a concern, and we don’t want your son or daughter to hit their head repeatedly and get multiple concussions, I mean that can’t be good for your brain. But we just don’t have evidence yet that repeated concussions or sub-concussive hits actually causes CTE,” he said.

A new study led by Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences vision researchers has demonstrated that the addition of widely available antioxidants to the current standard-of-care prevented vision loss in an animal model of a rare genetic disease. “We hypothesized — based upon findings in the literature, including seminal work from my lab — that oxidation of a specific molecule (which happens to be the immediate precursor of cholesterol) was key to the disease mechanism,” said Steven J. Fliesler, PhD, UB Distinguished Professor and Meyer H. Riwchun Endowed Chair Professor of ophthalmology.

A feature article profiles Evgeny A. Dyskin, MD, PhD, clinical assistant professor of orthopaedics, a native of Russia who specializes in trauma care and handles complex cases at Erie County Medical Center. He noted that patients who may be hesitant to be treated by a doctor from another country quickly change their minds in an emergency situation. “If you speak with an accent, sometimes elective patients in an office setting are apprehensive. It’s normal. I understand it,” he said. “Then I discovered when you see those same people in the emergency room, it’s a different situation. Once they understand you know what you’re talking about, all the superficial stuff goes away.”

A new Erie County wraparound program offers at-risk youth more services, like counseling, and has been effective in decreasing arrests. “For some youth, this is the first opportunity they have to find some underlying issues,” said Peter S. Martin, MD, MPH, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry. “In the juvenile realm, there’s an increasing push to make it so that children and adolescents aren’t penetrating further into the system.”

A UB study shows that, instead of immediately transporting a patient to the hospital, patients are more likely to survive a heart attack when first responders stay on the scene to focus on high-quality cardiac pulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation. “When a patient collapses from cardiac arrest in the community, the chance they will survive is low to begin with. But their chances get even worse if emergency medical services providers automatically try to take the patient to the hospital, rather than maximizing their care on scene,” said Brian Clemency, DO, associate professor of emergency medicine.

News articles report that Cytocybernetics, a UB spinoff co-founded by two Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences faculty, has been awarded $1.5 million by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which will support hiring and development. The company was founded by Glenna C. Bett, PhD, vice chair for research and associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and Randall L. Rasmusson, PhD, professor of physiology and biophysics.

New research suggests that insulin may be effective in treating Alzheimer’s disease. Paresh Dandona, MD, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and chief of endocrinology in the Department of Medicine, first discovered about 17 years ago that Alzheimer’s inflammation is resistant to insulin, and now researchers in the U.K. are testing the concept on rats. “This is about the only ray of hope right now in this moment,” he said. “We need to demonstrate that insulin conclusively and in multi-center trails will improve cognitive function.”

A new study suggests that parents and children who live in communities with high obesity rates are more likely to become overweight themselves than families living in communities where more people are a healthy weight. Leonard H. Epstein, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of pediatrics and chief of behavioral medicine, said that parents can still do a lot to minimize the risk of obesity within their own family. “Model healthy behaviors, which may involve changing parent behaviors,” he said.

End Overdose NY is a coalition that is lobbying for a bill in the New York State Assembly that would authorize safe injection sites to operate legally in the state. “You would actually have the medical community in contact with the user community, and that opens up opportunities with moving them into treatment,” said Kenneth E. Leonard, PhD, professor of psychiatry and director of the Research Institute on Addictions. “A number of the places that have been open for a while do see people moving from going to inject ... to moving into treatment.”

An article features the many improvements the new Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building brings to health care in Western New York, and quotes Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School. “This building fully integrates medical education into Buffalo’s growing academic health center, emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and strengthening our relationships with our clinical partners,” he said.

Teaching, research and clinical work got off to an official start Monday in the new Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building downtown, with Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul visiting to talk with students about the historical significance of the day. “We had a great world-class economy at the time when the first class came here in 1847, the 66 first individuals who sat in downtown Buffalo. Buffalo was an emerging community — it was on the rise,” Hochul said. “It became the home to the highest per capita millionaires in the country. We hosted the Pan-American Exhibition — it was a shining bright light to the rest of the world.”

A new study suggests that living in a community with more obesity may be a risk factor for its individual residents to become overweight or obese. An accompanying editorial by Leonard H. Epstein, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of pediatrics, and Xiaozhong, Wen, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics, highlights the important clinical and public health implications of the findings. “The idea of obesity being contagious provides a very useful analogy for pediatricians to recognize the association of the social environment with obesity (through social networks and/or social norms). It provides a stimulus to action to learn how to deactivate the ‘virus,’ preventing transmission to future generations,” they write.

An article about what’s next for the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus reports the December opening of the new downtown home of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences marked a turning point for the campus, and notes that workers are putting the finishing touches on the new building, which opened to students in early January. Other projects will include the campus’ ninth skybridge linking the medical school building to the Conventus medical office building.

“The Opioid Epidemic,” a one-hour PBS documentary that traces the causes behind the unprecedented growth in the use of prescription opioids and the devastating impact these drugs are having in virtually every part of the nation, interviews Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine  and vice chair of addiction medicine. “I think some physicians don’t appreciate how potent these drugs are,” he said, “and don’t necessarily appreciate how many problems they can create.” 

Stanley A. Schwartz, MD, PhD, UB Distinguished Professor of medicine and pediatrics and division chief of allergy, immunology and rheumatology, is interviewed on the role that pollution plays in the high rates of asthma among minority residents in Buffalo.  Schwartz said that as Rust Belt cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo lost manufacturing jobs, some neighborhoods crumbled. “So, air pollution, lack of good sanitary conditions in inner cities all contribute to why you many see a disparity. And who lives in the inner city? Usually it’s underserved minority individuals, so that goes hand in glove.”

This story reports on a new DNA test for Down syndrome that is quicker than current testing and produces a much smaller percentage of false positive results. Vanessa M. Barnebei, MD, PhD, professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology, said a 40-year-old pregnant woman has roughly a one in 100 chance of a Down syndrome delivery. ”This patient is at increased risk, based on this combination of markers that we assessed and then we would have to call the patient, counsel her about the risk, what that means and then offer her additional testing,” Barnebei said.

The new downtown home of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences has been a lofty project, to say the least. The building’s mechanical, HVAC and plumbing work — the heart of the facility — is on an enormous scale. “At the peak of this job we had about 170 of our workers on the site,” said Matt Peters, the project manager for John W. Danforth Co., a mechanical contracting company based in Tonawanda. “It’s the single largest contract we’ve ever executed in our 133-year history.”

An article about research that showed that in patients with hepatitis C virus infection who were receiving opioid substitutes, interferon-free drug regimens yielded better outcomes compared with regimens that contained interferon, and reports that a related editorial co-authored by Andrew H. Talal, MD, MPH, professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, suggests that DAA efficacy should encourage people with substance use disorders to seek HCV treatment.

A feature story on the new Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building and the impact it is expected to have on medical education at UB quotes Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School; Alan J. Lesse, MD, senior associate dean for medical curriculum and associate professor of medicine; and Kelly Hayes McAlonie, director of campus planning at UB. “We can take advantage of the building. We can look at courses taught in the traditional lecture format and change that to teach in an interactive learning manner, small groups or simulation,” Cain said.

Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine, is interviewed for an article about the Total Freedom program in Darien Center that combines structure, healthier guidance and religion to help people overcome addiction. Blondell called the program one of several reasonable models. “I don’t pass judgment on any program if it’s working for the individual,” Blondell said.

An article in Buffalo Spree magazine features the new Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building and the statement it makes about Buffalo and medical education. “The building has no front or back. All the facades are equally important, but it was decided that the main entrance would be at the corner of Main and High Streets,” the article notes. “Because of the need to separate the public and academic uses, the second floor becomes the ground floor of the medical school. Its lobby features a tower of changeable light. Stairs ascend upward to what the architect describes as the piano nobile level, thereby allowing pedestrians to pass through the building as it connects to the rest of the medical campus.”