Category: School of Medicine
Causes found for ‘stiff skin’ syndrome affecting young adults
March 29, 2010
By studying the genetics of a rare inherited disorder called stiff skin syndrome, researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have learned more about scleroderma, a condition affecting about one in 5,000 people that leads to hardening of the skin as well as other debilitating and often life-threatening problems. The findings, which appeared last […]
SoM to host ‘A Tribute to 150+ Women Professors’ celebration
March 22, 2010
Florence Sabin, the famed pathologist, became the first woman given the title of full professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in 1917. The second female professor wasn’t named until more than 40 years later. And when Janice Clements was promoted in 1990, she was only the 24th woman in the nearly 100-year […]
Researchers receive $1 mill to map ‘mobile DNA’ in humans
March 22, 2010
Sequencing the human genome was just one step in understanding our biology; researchers still know very little about the function of most of our DNA. Now, a team of researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has been awarded $1 million in stimulus funding to examine how certain mobile segments of DNA known as […]
Inexpensive acne drug found to prevent HIV breakout
March 22, 2010
Johns Hopkins scientists have found that a safe and inexpensive antibiotic in use since the 1970s for treating acne effectively targets infected immune cells in which HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, lies dormant and prevents them from reactivating and replicating. The drug, minocycline, likely will improve on the current treatment regimens of HIV-infected patients […]
Why symptoms of schizophrenia emerge in young adulthood
March 22, 2010
In reports of two new studies, a Johns Hopkins–led research team says it has identified the mechanisms rooted in two anatomical brain abnormalities that may explain the onset of schizophrenia and the reason symptoms don’t develop until young adulthood. Both types of anatomical glitches are influenced by a gene known as DISC1, whose mutant form […]
Safety checklist continues to keep hospital infections in check
March 22, 2010
The state of Michigan, which used a five-step checklist developed at Johns Hopkins to virtually eliminate bloodstream infections in its hospitals’ intensive care units, has been able to keep the number of these common, costly and potentially lethal infections near zero, even three years after adopting the standardized procedures. A report on the work was […]
Johns Hopkins wins $9.7 million federal grant to study cardiovascular racial disparities in Baltimore
March 15, 2010
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has been awarded a $9.7 million federal grant to study ways to improve cardiovascular outcomes among African-American patients and to understand and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in blood pressure management in Baltimore. The five-year grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute will go to create […]
Study: Kidney donors suffer few ill effects from life-giving act
March 15, 2010
In a landmark study of more than 80,000 live-kidney donors from across the United States, Johns Hopkins researchers have found that the procedure carries very little medical risk and that, in the long term, people who donate one of their kidneys are likely to live just as long as those who have two healthy ones. […]
Protecting patients: JH flu-shot rates 2x national average
March 8, 2010
A campaign that makes seasonal flu vaccinations for hospital staff free, convenient, ubiquitous and hard to ignore succeeds fairly well in moving care providers closer to a state of “herd” immunity and protecting patients from possible infection transmitted by health care workers, according to results of a survey at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. In a report […]
Mosquitoes—not birds—may have carried West Nile virus
March 8, 2010
Mosquitoes—not birds, as suspected—may have a played a primary role in spreading West Nile virus westward across the United States, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study is among the first to examine the role of mosquitoes in the dispersion of West Nile virus across […]