Health & Medicine
Gene Therapy’s Road to Redemption
Pediatrics Nationwide magazine
Fifteen years ago, gene therapy suffered a highly visible fatality, leaving the field in shambles. Now, one team’s efforts at gene therapy for muscular dystrophy suggest the field may finally be on track to deliver on its initial promise.
$1.6 Million Study of Appendicitis Treatment Could Help Children Avoid Surgery
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
In the first study of its kind in the United States, researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital will examine the effectiveness of antibiotic therapy alone to treat appendicitis in children, research that could allow patients to avoid a surgery many may not need
Anti-Alzheimer’s gene may have led to the rise of grandparents
Science magazine
Evolutionarily speaking, we are born to make babies. Our bodies—and brains—don’t fall apart until we come to the end of our child-bearing years. So why are grandmothers, who don’t reproduce and who contribute little to food production, still around and still mentally sound?
Researchers Identify Genetic Mutation Linked to Congenital Heart Disease
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
A mutation in a gene crucial to normal heart development could play a role in some types of congenital heart disease—the most common birth defect in the U.S. The finding could help narrow the search for genes that contribute to this defect, which affects as many as 40,000 newborns a year.
Therapy Slows Onset and Progression of Lou Gehrigs Disease, Study Finds
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Studies of a therapy designed to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) suggest that the treatment dramatically slows onset and progression of the deadly disease, one of the most common neuromuscular disorders in the world.
A knowledge gap
Pediatrics Nationwide magazine
Many pediatricians don’t feel competent to treat patients with genetic disorders, according to a new study that raises questions about how to better prepare physicians for these cases.
Baby steps
Pediatrics Nationwide magazine
Necrotizing enterocolitis affects about 2,000 to 4,000 infants each year, making it the most common gastrointestinal illness in neonatal intensive care units. A multicenter consortium studying the disease may be closer to understanding it.
Viruses, Vaccines and the “Unstoppable” Ralph Tripp
UGA Research Magazine
Colleagues describe UGA’s Ralph Tripp as “unstoppable.” And he’s set his sites on finding a cure for respiratory syncytial virus, to which virtually every American child is exposed by the age of 2.
Boosting Immune Process with IFN-y Helps Clear Lethal Bacteria in Cystic Fibrosis
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Boosting a key immune process called autophagy with interferon gamma (IFN-γ) could help clear a lethal bacterial infection in cystic fibrosis, a new study suggests. The work, led by a team in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and published in PLoS One in May, offers new information about immune function in patients with the disease.
PDL-1 Antibody Could Help Immune System Fight Off Influenza Viral Infection, Study Suggests
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
An antibody that blocks a component of a key signaling pathway in the respiratory airways could help the immune system rid the body of the influenza virus, a new study suggests. The findings not only offer a new approach to treating the flu, but also add new information about how the immune system responds to respiratory viral infections.