Nursing Research Leader Sheds Light on How Neighborhoods Influence Health
By Melissa Glim
Monday, April 4, 2022
When you think about public health, city planning might not be the first thing that comes to mind. Yet where we live — the quality of the buildings, the availability of places to walk and play safely, and the types of schools and stores in the neighborhood — can profoundly affect our health. This relationship has been emphasized by the COVID-19 pandemic, as close, stuffy living conditions, the need to take public transportation to essential jobs, and inequities in access to testing and vaccination sites all contributed to the larger reduction in life expectancy for Black and Latino Americans compared to Caucasians over the last two years.
Shannon N. Zenk, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., F.A.A.N., Director of the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021 for her research into how neighborhood characteristics affect the health of residents and contribute to the health disparities seen between communities with different racial and ethnic makeups and different levels of income.
Dr. Shuai Xie Brings a New Perspective to Research on Environmental Exposures
By Alison Jane Martingano
Monday, December 13, 2021
“Engineering is about solving problems,” says IRP postdoctoral fellow Shuai Xie, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Xie speaks from experience. One of the problems she was interested in solving during her graduate studies in chemical and environmental engineering was how to accurately measure the way airborne contaminants adhere to and release from indoor building materials. This is a particularly important problem to solve because those interactions can affect measurements of indoor air pollution, potentially rendering them inaccurate. Of course, Dr. Xie was not trying to solve this engineering problem for its own sake; accurately gauging contamination of indoor air is important for human health.
IRP Study Could Help Identify Women at Greater Risk for Fertility Problems
By Brandon Levy
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
As the calendar page turned from 2020 to 2021, many people adopted major lifestyle changes like healthier eating or significantly increasing their physical activity. While these New Year’s resolutions will likely improve their overall health, they could also wreak havoc on the reproductive cycles of a small set of women. New IRP research sheds light on the genetic factors that make some women susceptible to diet- or exercise-induced disruptions to their reproductive systems.
By Brandon Levy
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
It might seem easy to blame your parents for the way you turned out; after all, they raised you and gave you all of your DNA. But, before throwing blame around, consider saving some for the place where you grew up. According to new IRP research, being raised in an urban environment can dramatically alter how your genes influence your brain.1
By IRP Staff Blogger
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Studying the neural control of behavior is a challenge. Researchers must consider an animal’s environment, past experiences, and motivations. Work in relatively simple organisms, for example the invertebrate C. elegans, has teased apart the neural circuitry of highly stereotyped behaviors, like foraging. But in mammals, very little is known, “and that’s surprising given just how important behaviors like this are,” said Dr. Eric Horstick, who studies the molecular mechanisms underlying animal behavior.
By Michael Gottesman
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Yasmine Belkaid, chief of the Mucosal Immunology Section in the NIAID Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, has won the Sanofi–Institut Pasteur 2016 International Mid-Career Award for “outstanding research in the life sciences…contributing to progress in global public health,” announced on December 13, 2016 in Paris.
By IRP Staff Blogger
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
You may already know that diet, obesity, exposure to the sun, radiation, and hormones are just a few of the many risk factors associated with cancer diagnoses. But, do you know about other risk factors, especially those playing out through epigenetics, the molecular relationship between the environment and our DNA? Read more...
By Craig Myrum
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Speaking at the NIH Research Festival in September, Michael Gottesman, M.D., the NIH Deputy Director for Intramural Research said, “The real research is being done by the fellows, by the students.” The FARE awards are meant to commend those researchers doing outstanding work at the NIH.
By IRP Staff Blogger
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
In Charles Dickens’ 1843 classic, A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by four ghosts who help him to see the error of his ways and embrace a life of service. Scrooge is then able to correct the actions that could have led to his demise. Researchers studying epigenetics take on a similar task.
