Research advances from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Research Program (IRP) often make headlines. Read the news releases that describe our most recent findings:
Whether you’re shedding pounds with the help of effective new medicines, slimming down after weight loss surgery or cutting calories and adding exercise, there will come a day when the numbers on the scale stop going down, and you hit the dreaded weight loss plateau.
In a recent study, Kevin Hall, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health who specializes in measuring metabolism and weight change, looked at when weight loss typically stops depending on the method people were using todrop pounds. He broke down the plateau into mathematical models using data from high-quality clinical trials of different ways to lose weight to understand why people stop losing when they do. The study published Monday in the journal Obesity.
Multi-step screening process leads to molecule that may protect brain cells.
In the fight against brain damage caused by stroke, researchers have turned to an unlikely source of inspiration: hibernating ground squirrels.
While the animals’ brains experience dramatically reduced blood flow during hibernation, just like human patients after a certain type of stroke, the squirrels emerge from their extended naps suffering no ill effects. Now, a team of NIH-funded scientists has identified a potential drug that could grant the same resilience to the brains of ischemic stroke patients by mimicking the cellular changes that protect the brains of those animals.
An ischemic stroke occurs when a clot cuts off blood flow to part of the brain, depriving those cells of oxygen and nutrients like the blood sugar glucose that they need to survive. Nearly 800,000 Americans experience a stroke every year and 87 percent of those are ischemic strokes.
Currently, the only way to minimize stroke-induced cell death is to remove the clot as soon as possible. A treatment to help brain cells survive a stroke-induced lack of oxygen and glucose could dramatically improve patient outcomes, but no such neuroprotective agents for stroke patients exist.
Recently, researchers led by John Hallenbeck, M.D., an NINDS senior investigator and co-senior author of the study, found that a cellular process called SUMOylation goes into overdrive in a certain species of ground squirrel during hibernation. Dr. Hallenbeck suspected this was how the animals’ brains survived the reduced blood flow caused by hibernation, and subsequent experiments in cells and mice confirmed his suspicions.
Ozone is a highly reactive form of oxygen that is a primary constituent of urban smog.
Exposure to common air pollutants, such as ozone and fine particles, may increase the risk of early pregnancy loss, according to a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health and led by Pauline Mendola, Ph.D., an investigator at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The study appears in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
Ozone is a highly reactive form of oxygen that is a primary constituent of urban smog. Researchers followed 501 couples attempting to conceive between 2005 and 2009 in Michigan and Texas. The investigators estimated the couples’ exposures to ozone based on pollution levels in their residential communities. Of the 343 couples who achieved pregnancy, 97 (28 percent) experienced an early pregnancy loss — all before 18 weeks. Couples with higher exposure to ozone were 12 percent more likely to experience an early pregnancy loss, whereas couples exposed to particulate matter (small particles and droplets in the air) were 13 percent more likely to experience a loss.
NIH scientists improve efficiency, speed, and resolution of optical microscopy.
Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Chicago improved the speed, resolution, and light efficiency of an optical microscope by switching from a conventional glass coverslip to a reflective, mirrored coverslip and applying new computer algorithms to process the resulting data.
Hari Shroff, Ph.D., chief of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering’s lab section on High Resolution Optical Imaging (HROI), and his team have spent the last few years developing optical microscopes that produce high resolution images at very high speed. After his lab develops these new microscopes, they release the plans and software for free, so any researcher can replicate the advances made at NIH.
An image of a zebrafish eye collected by a super resolution microscope that also uses adaptive optics to increase efficacy.
Obesity during pregnancy — independent of its health consequences such as diabetes — may account for the higher risk of giving birth to an atypically large infant, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. Their study appears in JAMA Pediatrics.
“Our results underscore the importance of attaining a healthy body weight before pregnancy,” said the study’s lead author, Cuilin Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., a researcher in the Division of Intramural Population Health Research at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “They also suggest that clinicians should carefully monitor the pregnancies of all obese women, regardless of whether or not they have obesity-related health conditions.”
River blindness, or onchocerciasis, is a disease caused by a parasitic worm found primarily in Africa. The worm (Onchocerca volvulus) is transmitted to humans as immature larvae through bites of infected black flies. Symptoms of infection include intense itching and skin nodules. Left untreated, infections in the eye can cause vision impairment that leads to blindness. Mass distribution of ivermectin is currently used to treat onchocerciasis. However, this treatment can be fatal when a person has high blood levels of another filarial worm, Loa loa. In a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and other organizations describe how a cell phone-based videomicroscope can provide fast and effective testing for L. loa parasites in the blood, allowing these individuals to be protected from the adverse effects of ivermectin.
NIH study shows connections between glucose metabolism, Alzheimer’s pathology, symptoms.
For the first time, scientists have found a connection between abnormalities in how the brain breaks down glucose and the severity of the signature amyloid plaques and tangles in the brain, as well as the onset of eventual outward symptoms, of Alzheimer’s disease. The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, and appears in the Nov. 6, 2017, issue of Alzheimer's & Dementia: the Journal of the Alzheimer's Association.
Led by Madhav Thambisetty, M.D., Ph.D., investigator and chief of the Unit of Clinical and Translational Neuroscience in the NIA’s Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroscience, researchers looked at brain tissue samples at autopsy from participants in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA), one of the world’s longest-running scientific studies of human aging. The BLSA tracks neurological, physical and psychological data on participants over several decades.
Scientists found potential connections between problems with how the brain processes glucose and Alzheimer’s disease pathology and symptoms.
Nápoles will be NIH’s first Latina Scientific Director.
The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) announced the appointment of Anna María Nápoles, Ph.D., M.P.H., as scientific director of its Division of Intramural Research (DIR), making her the first Latina named to the position at the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Nápoles joins NIMHD from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) where she served as a professor and behavioral epidemiologist in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine since 2001. She has been at the forefront of developing methods for community-engaged, translational research to improve the health of disparity populations that build community capacity to deliver culturally suitable, evidence-based behavioral interventions.
Dr. Nápoles brings more than 30 years of experience in research on patient-clinician communication, cancer control health disparities, psycho-oncology, and community-based models of research in racially and ethnically diverse populations, as well as socioeconomically diverse groups. She has served as a scientific advisor to numerous NIH and non-NIH funded research projects, advising on the use of advanced qualitative and quantitative methods for studying complex socio-behavioral processes that affect the health of disparity populations.
Following an extensive national search for this appointment, Dr. Nápoles will begin her appointment on Nov. 13. In her new role Dr. Nápoles will focus on population health with an emphasis on social, behavioral, and clinical research while utilizing the robust basic science environment at NIH. She will also oversee the executive direction and scientific leadership for the entire intramural research program at NIMHD.
The deadliest malaria parasite needs two proteins to infect red blood cells and exit the cells after it multiplies, a finding that may provide researchers with potential new targets for drug development, according to researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health. Their study appears in the latest issue of Science.
Plasmodium falciparum, the species of parasite that causes the most malaria deaths worldwide, has developed drug-resistance in five countries in Southeast Asia.
In the current study, researchers sought to uncover the role of plasmepsins IX and X, two of the 10 types of plasmepsin proteins produced by P. falciparum for metabolic and other processes. They created malaria parasites that lacked plasmepsin IX or X under experimental conditions and compared them to those that had the two proteins.
Behaviors and brain activity consistent between mothers from different countries.
Infant cries activate specific brain regions related to movement and speech, according to a National Institutes of Health study of mothers in 11 countries. The findings, led by researchers at NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), identify behaviors and underlying brain activities that are consistent among mothers from different cultures. Understanding these reactions may help in identifying and treating caregivers at risk for child maltreatment and other problematic behaviors.
The study team conducted a series of behavioral and brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In a group of 684 new mothers in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, South Korea and the United States, researchers observed and recorded one hour of interaction between the mothers and their 5-month-old babies at home. The team analyzed whether mothers responded to their baby’s cries by showing affection, distracting, nurturing (like feeding or diapering), picking up and holding, or talking. Regardless of which country they came from, mothers were likely to pick up and hold or talk to their crying infant.
NIH-Led meeting identifies knowledge gaps, development goals.
Scientists and clinicians from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and the California Institute of Technology discuss key considerations for developing a universal influenza vaccine in a meeting report appearing in the October 17 issue of Immunity. The report summarizes discussions from a workshop NIAID held June 28-29, 2017, in Rockville, Maryland, entitled, “Pathway to a Universal Influenza Vaccine.” The workshop brought together U.S. and international experts from academia, industry and government to identify knowledge gaps in influenza research and to set goals to fill these knowledge gaps. NIAID will use the report to develop a strategic plan and research agenda aimed at the development of a universal influenza vaccine.
Colorized transmission electron micrograph showing H1N1 influenza virus particles
