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.
Trial is First in Series of Accelerated Safety Studies of Ebola Vaccines
Initial human testing of an investigational vaccine to prevent Ebola virus disease will begin next week by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Policy’s implementation is key to accelerating biomedical discoveries
The National Institutes of Health has issued a final NIH Genomic Data Sharing (GDS) policy to promote data sharing as a way to speed the translation of data into knowledge, products and procedures that improve health while protecting the privacy of research participants. The final policy was posted in the Federal Register Aug. 26, 2014 and published in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts Aug. 27, 2014.
Enthusiasm for genomics grows with an estimated 3 million D.C. visitors to exhibition
With eye-catching models, interactive displays and engaging elements, the Genome: Unlocking Life’s Code exhibition is going on tour after having completed a 14-month engagement at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) in Washington.
An experimental vaccine to prevent the mosquito-borne viral illness chikungunya elicited neutralizing antibodies in all 25 adult volunteers who participated in a recent early-stage clinical trial conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The results are reported in the current issue of The Lancet.
A nasal brush test can rapidly and accurately diagnose Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), an incurable and ultimately fatal neurodegenerative disorder, according to a study by National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists and their Italian colleagues.
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health have created high-resolution images of the glutamate receptor, a protein that plays a key role in nerve signaling. The advance, published online in the journal Nature on August 3, 2014, opens a new window to study protein interactions in cell membranes in exquisite detail. Click image for more.
Study shows power of combining big data analysis with cutting-edge genomic techniques
Using data from over 18,000 patients, scientists have identified more than two dozen genetic risk factors involved in Parkinson’s disease, including six that had not been previously reported. The study, published in Nature Genetics, was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and led by scientists working in NIH laboratories.
Repurposed drugs may offer first potential therapy
Investigators have identified a gene that underlies a very rare but devastating autoinflammatory condition in children. Several existing drugs have shown therapeutic potential in laboratory studies, and one is currently being studied in children with the disease, which the researchers named STING-associated vasculopathy with onset in infancy (SAVI). The findings appeared online today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The research was done at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health.
A drug candidate developed by researchers at the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and its collaborators to treat sickle cell disease has been acquired by Baxter International’s BioScience business. The drug candidate, Aes-103, is the first specifically developed to target the underlying molecular mechanism of sickle cell disease. Baxter now will advance the clinical development activities required for regulatory approval and commercialization.
Mice exposed to low doses of arsenic in drinking water, similar to what some people might consume, developed lung cancer, researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found.
