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:
BETHESDA, Md. (AP) — Sam Srisatta, a 20-year-old Florida college student, spent a month living inside a government hospital here last fall, playing video games and allowing scientists to document every morsel of food that went into his mouth.
From big bowls of salad to platters of meatballs and spaghetti sauce, Srisatta noshed his way through a nutrition study aimed at understanding the health effects of ultraprocessed foods, the controversial fare that now accounts for more than 70% of the U.S. food supply. He allowed The Associated Press to tag along for a day.
“Today my lunch was chicken nuggets, some chips, some ketchup,” said Srisatta, one of three dozen participants paid $5,000 each to devote 28 days of their lives to science. “It was pretty fulfilling.”
Examining exactly what made those nuggets so satisfying is the goal of the widely anticipated research led by National Institutes of Health nutrition researcher Kevin Hall.
“What we hope to do is figure out what those mechanisms are so that we can better understand that process,” Hall said.
A research team led by scientists at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has discovered that a protein essential for building key hearing structures in the inner ear also plays a critical role in maintaining them throughout life. The researchers report that healthy hearing involves two distinct forms of a molecular motor protein called myosin 15 (MYO15A)—one form that helps build stereocilia, and a second, much longer, version of the protein that is needed to maintain stereocilia. Stereocilia are the finger-like projections that extend from the surface of hair cells, the inner ear's sensory cells.
NIH human and mouse study may open an unexplored path for finding treatments
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health discovered that reactivation of ancient viral genes embedded in the human genome may cause the destruction of neurons in some forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The results, published in Science Translational Medicine, suggest a link between human endogenous retroviral genes (HERVs) and ALS. The findings also raise the question of whether antiretroviral drugs, similar to those used for suppressing HIV, may help some ALS patients.
An international team of scientists from the 1000 Genomes Project Consortium has created the world’s largest catalog of genomic differences among humans, providing researchers with powerful clues to help them establish why some people are susceptible to various diseases. While most differences in peoples’ genomes — called variants — are harmless, some are beneficial, while others contribute to diseases and conditions, ranging from cognitive disabilities to susceptibilities to cancer, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other disorders. Understanding how genomic variants contribute to disease may help clinicians develop improved diagnostics and treatments, in addition to new methods of prevention.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has reorganized its divisional structure to integrate its research portfolio, promote translational research and increase efficiencies. The new structure will incorporate research on clinical neuroscience, brain development and behavioral treatment development into existing and newly formed components of NIDA divisions. NIDA is part of the National Institutes of Health.
“We believe the reorganization will allow us to take advantage of new scientific opportunities, especially those addressing multidisciplinary and translational science,” said NIDA Director Nora D. Volkow, M.D.
NIH study finds mothers’ use of tenofovir tied to lower bone mineral content in babies
Infants exposed in the womb to a drug used to treat HIV and reduce the transmission of HIV from mother to child, may have lower bone mineral content than those exposed to other anti-HIV drugs, according to a National Institutes of Health study.
Current standards may misclassify certain fetuses as growth-restricted
Current standards for ultrasound evaluation of fetal growth may lead to misclassification of up to 15 percent of fetuses of minority mothers as being too small, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other institutions.
National Institutes of Health scientists and their colleagues identified a previously unappreciated role for the soft palate during research to better understand how influenza (flu) viruses acquire the ability to move efficiently between people. In studies using ferrets, the team collected evidence that this patch of mucous-coated soft tissue separating the mouth from the nasal cavity is a key site for the emergence of flu viruses with a heightened ability to spread through the air. The finding could aid efforts to define the properties governing flu virus transmissibility and predict which viruses are most likely to spark pandemics.
The research was led by Kanta Subbarao, M.D., of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Ram Sasisekharan, Ph.D., of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Their report is published online in the journal Nature.
Prion diseases—incurable, ultimately fatal, transmissible neurodegenerative disorders of mammals—are believed to develop undetected in the brain over several years from infectious prion protein. In a new study, National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists report they can detect infectious prion protein in mouse brains within a week of inoculation. Equally surprising, the protein was generated outside blood vessels in a place in the brain where scientists believe drug treatment could be targeted to prevent disease. The study, from NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), appears in the Sept. 22 issue of mBio.
One in six U.S. adults ages 18 and older reports trouble hearing without a hearing aid, according to new results from a nationally representative survey looking at hearing and hearing loss. Data from the 2014 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) show age differences in self-reported hearing loss, use of hearing aids or assistive technology, and the likelihood of seeing a doctor or other health professional for hearing loss. The findings are published in a data brief released September 17 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
The National Institutes of Health Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) today presented to NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., a detailed design framework for building a national research participant group, called a cohort, of 1 million or more Americans to expand our knowledge and practice of precision medicine. Dr. Collins embraced the design recommendations made by the ACD, noting the need to remain nimble and adaptable as the Initiative progresses. He also thanked the Committee for their recommendations on policy issues and welcomed the opportunity to review them. NIH plans to move quickly to build the infrastructure so that participants can begin enrolling in the cohort in 2016, with a goal of enrolling at least 1 million participants in three to four years.
