When researchers try to uncover the cause of disease, they commonly start with two questions: Did a quirk in the patient’s genes open the door to illness? Did exposure to environmental factors play havoc with the patient’s health? Very often, both troublemakers are at least partly to blame. To provide the most effective treatment, doctors need to know as much as possible about how these partners in sickness and poor health work together.
Recent news from The Johns Hopkins University
This section contains regularly updated highlights of the news from around The Johns Hopkins University. Links to the complete news reports from the nine schools, the Applied Physics Laboratory and other centers and institutes are to the left, as are links to help news media contact the Johns Hopkins communications offices.
Johns Hopkins Students Design Ebola Protection Suit Improvements
Two Johns Hopkins mechanical engineering teams have developed improvements for a protective suit for health workers treating people stricken with Ebola and other infectious diseases, including prototypes for a more comfortable hood and face mask that make breathing easier, and for a battery-powered system that curbs humidity in the suit.
A Personalized Virtual Heart Predicts the Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death
An interdisciplinary Johns Hopkins University team has developed a non-invasive 3-D virtual heart assessment tool to help doctors determine whether a particular patient faces the highest risk of a life-threatening arrhythmia and would benefit most from a defibrillator implant.
Mapping City Hotspots for Zika Mosquito, ‘Never Will Bite’ Soap Among Winning Ideas at Johns Hopkins Hackathon
Mapping a city to detect Zika mosquito hotspots. Fashion accessories infused with a long-acting mosquito repellant. A special soap that keeps mosquitos away. Those are among the winning ideas from a Johns Hopkins University hackathon that drew participants from Baltimore to Brazil looking for ways to help prevent the spread of the Zika virus.
How Do Energy Policies and Climate Change Affect Air Quality—and Our Health?
A new interdisciplinary science team, led by experts from Yale and Johns Hopkins universities and funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will try to figure how power generation trends, climate change and public policy interact to affect air quality. A key goal is to trace how the resulting changes in air pollution may affect the health of people who live and work in the mid-Atlantic area.
Web Search Study Finds a ‘Charlie Sheen Effect’ on HIV Prevention
A Johns Hopkins computer scientist played a key role in a new study that analyzed online news and search engine records to gauge the public’s response to actor Charlie Sheen’s Nov. 17, 2015, disclosure on NBC’s TODAY Show that he was HIV-positive.
Johns Hopkins Biologist Scott Bailey Receives $250,000 President’s Frontier Award
A public health biologist who is trying to stop the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and pave the way to new treatments for genetic diseases has received the 2016 President’s Frontier Award, a Johns Hopkins University honor that provides $250,000 in research funding. The program was launched last year as part of an expanded university effort to provide more funding to help its faculty move forward with innovative research projects. This year’s recipient is Scott Bailey, an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, within the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Johns Hopkins and DuPont Join Forces to Produce an Improved Ebola Protection Suit
The Johns Hopkins University and DuPont have signed license and collaboration agreements allowing DuPont to commercialize a garment with innovative features from Johns Hopkins to help protect people on the front lines of the Ebola crisis and future deadly infectious disease outbreaks. DuPont intends to have the first of these garments available in the marketplace during the first half of 2016.
Johns Hopkins’ Ebola Protective Suit Honored in Fast Company ‘Innovation by Design Awards’
The Johns Hopkins University’s new personal protective suit for front-line health care workers in Ebola outbreaks has been honored as one of 10 finalists in the Social Good category of Fast Company’s 2015 Innovation by Design Awards.
Tamper-Resistant Pill Dispenser Aims to Stamp Out Medication Misuse
You can whack it with a hammer, attack it with a drill, or even stab it with a screwdriver. But try as you might, you won’t be able to tamper with a high-tech pill dispenser designed by mechanical engineering students at Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering. Which is exactly the point.
New Kit May Help Train Global Health Providers to Insert and Remove Contraceptive Implants
To address a global health challenge, a team of Johns Hopkins University biomedical engineering undergraduates has developed a teaching set called the Contraceptive Implant Training Tool Kit or CITT Kit, for short. The medical simulator includes two training models: a stand-alone replica arm and a layered band that can be worn by health workers who act as “patients” during practice sessions.
Who’s Making Sure the Power Stays On?
Electricity systems in the United States are so haphazardly regulated for reliability, it’s nearly impossible for customers to know their true risk of losing service in a major storm, a Johns Hopkins University analysis found.
Johns Hopkins Researchers Partner with Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore to Probe Mercury Levels in Dolphins
Johns Hopkins environmental scientists are collaborating with researchers from Dolphin Island at Resorts World Sentosa, Singapore, to learn more about how and where mercury accumulates in the bodies of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins.
Johns Hopkins Appoints Four to Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships
The Johns Hopkins University has named four prominent scientists as its newest Bloomberg Distinguished Professors, unique faculty positions created with a landmark $350 million gift from alumnus and former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, to foster interdisciplinary collaboration across the institution’s many divisions.
Johns Hopkins 1st in Research Spending for 35th Straight Year
The Johns Hopkins University led the U.S. in higher education research spending for the 35th straight year in fiscal 2013, with $2.2 billion for medical, science and engineering research, according to the National Science Foundation.
Improved Suit for Ebola Caregivers Selected for Funding in Federal Competition
An advanced protective suit for health care workers who treat Ebola patients, devised by a Johns Hopkins team, is one of the first five awardees in a federal funding contest aimed at quickly devising new tools to combat the deadly disease. The Johns Hopkins prototype is designed to do a better job than current garments in keeping health care workers from coming in contact with Ebola patients’ contagious body fluids, both during treatment and while removing a soiled suit.
MEDIA ADVISORY: Johns Hopkins Traumatic Brain Injury Expert Available to Discuss the Mechanics of Concussion in Light of Lacrosse Helmet Recall
The recent decertification of two popular lacrosse helmets, the Warrior Regulator and the Cascade Model R, is causing concern for those involved in men’s lacrosse, one of the nation’s fastest-growing sports. The decertification by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment comes at a time of growing worries about concussions in athletes. At Johns Hopkins, engineers working at the forefront of traumatic brain injury research have created a novel “digital head” that is helping explain why some physical movements of the brain cause severe damage while others do not.
Twitter Posts May Shine a Fresh Light on Mental Illness Trends
Johns Hopkins computers scientists, who have already used Twitter posts to track flu cases, say their techniques also show promise as a tool to gather important information about some common mental illnesses. By reviewing tweets from users who publicly mentioned their diagnosis and by looking for language cues linked to certain disorders, the researchers say, they’ve been able to quickly and inexpensively collect new data on post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, bipolar disorder and seasonal affective disorder.
New Online 3-D Tool Seeks Possible Targets To Disable Ebola Virus
Johns Hopkins biomedical engineers have developed a free, browser-based online tool that could speed up the creation of new drugs to treat or prevent Ebola virus infections. The software, called MuPIT Ebola Edition, enables a researcher to visualize Ebola gene mutations in the context of three-dimensional protein structures. It also offers views of antibody binding sites called epitopes that are situated on protein surfaces. These sites may give researchers new targets for preventive vaccines and serums to treat those who are already infected.