Latest News Releases 16 April

Americans don’t think bird flu is a threat, study suggests

CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health, a team led by researchers from the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) say public ignorance and apathy towards bird flu (highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI) could pose a serious obstacle to containing the virus and preventing a larger-scale public health crisis.

Journal: American Journal of Public Health

Researchers use machine learning to predict exercise adherence

University of Mississippi
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Sticking to an exercise routine is a challenge many people face. But a University of Mississippi research team is using machine learning to uncover what keeps individuals committed to their workouts.

Journal: Scientific Reports

Wesley Sundquist named to TIME’s annual TIME100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world

University of Utah Health
Grant and Award Announcement

Research in the Sundquist lab laid the foundations for the development of lenacapavir, a drug that prevents HIV infection with 99.9% to 100% efficacy and could dramatically lower infection rates worldwide.

Insomnia and sleep medication use connected to disability in older adults

Penn State
Peer-Reviewed Publication

For adults over the age of 65, higher levels of both insomnia symptoms and sleep medication use were associated with higher risk of disability a year later, according to a new study by researchers in the Penn State Department of Biobehavioral Health and the Taipei Medical University Program in Global Health and Health Security.

Journal: SLEEP

Early-life exposure to air and light pollution linked to increased risk of pediatric thyroid cancer

Yale University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New Haven, Conn. — A new study led by researchers at Yale University suggests that early-life exposure to two widespread environmental pollutants— small particle air pollution and outdoor artificial light at night—could increase the risk of pediatric thyroid cancer.

The study—a collaborative effort involving multiple Yale departments and institutions across the U.S.—found a “significant association” between exposure to ambient fine particulate matter air pollution (PM2.5) and outdoor artificial light at night (O-ALAN) and increased risk of papillary thyroid cancer in children and young adults up to 19 years old. The exposures occurred during the perinatal stage of life, typically defined as the time from when pregnancy occurs up to a year after birth.

Journal: Environmental Health Perspectives

Study details role of protein that may play a key role in the development of schizophrenia

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

he rodent experiment, conducted at the State University of Campinas, highlighted the involvement of the hnRNP A1 molecule in maintaining the integrity of the myelin sheath – a fatty layer that protects neurons and facilitates communication between them.

Journal: Journal of Neurochemistry
Funder: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

Global innovation takes center stage at Rice as undergraduate teams tackle health inequities

Rice University
Grant and Award Announcement

At the Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies’ 15th annual Undergraduate Design Competition, the future of global health innovation was on full display. Rice University welcomed 22 student teams from 18 universities across eight countries, both in-person and virtually, to present affordable, practical solutions designed to improve health care in low-resource settings at the April 11 event. Far from just another student competition, the event serves as a global stage where future engineers, scientists and public health leaders come together to address some of the world’s most urgent health care challenges.

Research expands options for more sustainable soybean production

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A group of scientists supported by FAPESP is studying a new strain of bacteria in consortium with rhizobia, microorganisms that biologically fix nitrogen, an essential nutrient for crops.

Journal: FEMS Microbiology Ecology
Funder: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

A wearable smart insole can track how you walk, run and stand

Ohio State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new smart insole system that monitors how people walk in real time could help users improve posture and provide early warnings for conditions from plantar fasciitis to Parkinson’s disease.

Journal: Science Advances

Swim Across America grants $900,000 toward first-of-its-kind gene editing innovation

Swim Across America
Grant and Award Announcement

Swim Across America has funded more than $100 million in cancer research throughout the years. The nonprofit organization has also supported previous FDA-approved immunotherapy breakthroughs Keytruda, Opdivo, Yervoy and Tecentriq. Today, the nonprofit organization is announcing two innovative first-of-its-kind gene editing innovation grants given to Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy and Joseph Fraietta, PhD, at University of Pennsylvania, and Pietro Genovese, PhD, at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Funder: Swim Across America

Integrative approach reveals promising candidates for Alzheimer’s disease risk factors or targets for therapeutic intervention

Baylor College of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study provides solutions to the pressing need to identify factors that influence Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk or resistance while providing an avenue to explore potential biological markers and therapeutic targets.

The researchers integrated computational and functional approaches that enabled them to identify not only specific genes whose alterations predicted increased AD risk in humans and behavioral impairments in AD fruit fly models but also showed that reversing the gene changes has a neuroprotective effect in living organisms.

Journal: American Journal of Human Genetics

Stand up for NOAA research — the time to act is now

American Meteorological Society
Business Announcement

The American Meteorological Society (AMS), in partnership with the National Weather Association (NWA), today released a statement regarding the proposed elimination of NOAA Research. It reads in part, "If enacted, [the administration's 2026 budget passback plan] would close all of NOAA’s weather, climate, and ocean Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes. ... In effect, the scientific backbone and workforce needed to keep weather forecasts, alerts, and warnings accurate and effective will be drastically undercut, with unknown — yet almost certainly disastrous — consequences for public safety and economic health."

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15 April

UC political scientist named Carnegie Fellow

University of Cincinnati

Sylvester Cancer Tip Sheet for April 2025

University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Duke-NUS and T Cells Diagnostics team up to simplify T-cell analysis

Duke-NUS Medical School

15 April