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 new, open-source software that can help track the embryonic development and movement of neuronal cells throughout the body of the worm, is now available to scientists. The software is described in a paper published in the open access journal, eLife on December 3rd by researchers at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and the Center for Information Technology (CIT); along with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute, New York City; Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; Zhejiang University, China; and the University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington. NIBIB is part of the National Institutes of Health.
As far as biologists have come in understanding the brain, much remains to be revealed. One significant challenge is determining the formation of complex neuronal structures made up of billions of cells in the human brain. As with many biological challenges, researchers are first examining this question in simpler organisms, such as worms.
Image A shows the twisted up worm embryo inside the egg with the fluorescently labeled cells. The second image shows how the computer program identifies each of the marked cells, and image C shows the untwisted worm.
Gene therapy can safely rebuild the immune systems of older children and young adults with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID-X1), a rare inherited disorder that primarily affects males, scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have found. NIAID’s Suk See De Ravin, M.D., Ph.D., is scheduled to describe the findings at the 57th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.
SCID-X1 is caused by mutations in the IL2RG gene that prevent infection-fighting immune cells from developing and functioning normally, leaving affected infants highly susceptible to life-threatening infections. Transplantation of blood-forming stem cells, ideally from a genetically matched sibling donor, is a lifesaving treatment for infants with SCID-X1. Those without a matched sibling often receive stem cells from a parent, which only partially restores immunity. Such patients require lifelong treatment and may continue to experience complex medical problems, including chronic infections.
For many years, clinicians debated the best time to start antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV infection, with some worrying that the risks of treatment in terms of drug toxicities could outweigh the benefits of controlling the virus. In a new commentary, scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, argue that the results of three large clinical trials definitively prove that the benefits of starting ART early in infection outweigh any theoretical risk. Together, the findings from the NIH-funded SMART study reported in 2006, HPTN 052 study in 2011 and START study this year conclusively demonstrate that starting ART promptly after HIV diagnosis protects the health of the infected individual while preventing HIV transmission to uninfected sexual partners, the authors write.
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Carl Dieffenbach, Ph.D., Director, Division of AIDS, NIAID Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., NIH Director
When the first cases of what would become known as AIDS were reported in 1981, scientists and physicians did not know the cause and had no therapies to treat those who were infected. Times have changed and today physicians can offer their patients highly effective medicines that work as both treatment and prevention. We can now speak credibly about having within our sights the end to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, when new HIV infections and deaths due to AIDS are rare.
Ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic as we know it will require using antiretroviral therapy (ART) to treat all infected people upon diagnosis, facilitating the implementation of an array of prevention tools including pre-exposure prophylaxis, and eliminating mother-to-child HIV transmission. While recent scientific advances demonstrate these objectives are all possible, we must encourage universal HIV testing so that people know their status and are linked to care if infected and linked to a prevention program if at risk of infection. Approximately 50,000 people in the United States are newly infected with HIV each year, and about 1 in 8 of the 1.2 million who currently are infected do not know their status. Tragically, nearly a third of all new HIV infections in this country are transmitted by people who are unaware of their infection; another 60 percent of infections arise from people who are diagnosed but not in care.
In a Federal Register notice on Nov. 25, 2015, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published safeguards and criteria for research to assess the safety and effectiveness of solid organ transplantation from donors with HIV infection to recipients with HIV infection. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), led the development of the criteria, which provide the framework for clinical studies on transplantation of HIV-infected organs to begin in the United States as early as 2016.
The HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act, signed into law on Nov. 21, 2013, allows scientists to carry out research into organ donations from one person with HIV infection to another and mandates development of safeguards and criteria for the conduct of such research. Prior to passage of this law, transplantation of organs from people with HIV infection was illegal in the United States.
In the United States, and throughout the world, men drink more alcohol than women. But a recent analysis by scientists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health, indicates that longstanding differences between men and women in alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms might be narrowing in the United States.
Researchers led by Aaron White, Ph.D., NIAAA’s senior scientific advisor to the director, examined data from yearly national surveys conducted between 2002 and 2012.
A newly discovered link between order in the activity of neurons in the brain and excitability—how likely it is that individual neurons will “fire”—may provide a means for monitoring treatment of conditions like epilepsy that would be less invasive and thus more versatile than current methods. This new approach, developed by NIMH scientists, has implications beyond conditions like epilepsy; the findings support an emerging picture of how the brain balances flexibility and order during wakefulness and sleep.
An analysis by National Institutes of Health researchers has shown that people with sickle cell anemia who took the drug hydroxyurea at the recommended dose had higher survival rates than those who took less than the recommended dose. The findings appear in the journal PLOS ONE.
Researchers at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases reviewed data from 383 people who came to NIH for treatment or evaluation for sickle cell anemia between 2001 and 2010. The study found that 66 percent of people were taking hydroxyurea. Of the group taking hydroxyurea, only two-thirds (or 44 percent of all patients) were using doses high enough to fall within the recommended range. People taking the recommended dose were 64 percent less likely to die from sickle cell anemia compared to those not taking hydroxyurea. This survival benefit was not observed in those taking less than the recommended dose of hydroxyurea. Hydroxyurea is the only FDA-approved drug to treat sickle cell anemia, a rare blood disorder.
Study sheds light on preventing or reversing certain obesity-associated diseases
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health have identified a potential molecular target for reducing obesity-related inflammation. Researchers have known that overeating (that is, excess calorie consumption) by individuals with obesity often triggers inflammation, which has been linked to such diseases as asthma and Type 2 diabetes. In their study, published recently in The Journal of Clinical Investigation (Nov. 3, 2015, online version), the investigators found that a protein called SIRT3 provides resistance to this inflammatory response and could potentially prevent or reverse obesity-associated diseases of inflammation.
Lead researcher Michael N. Sack, M.D., Ph.D., a senior investigator at NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, explained that he and his team identified the role of SIRT3 through an investigation involving 19 healthy volunteers who fasted for a 24-hour period.
NIH analysis allays concerns raised by previous study
The recommendation to delay delivery of otherwise healthy infants until at least the 39th week of pregnancy does not appear to have increased stillbirths in the United States, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions. These findings contradict an earlier study that raised the concern that waiting until 39 weeks could lead to more stillbirths.
Research has shown that foregoing delivery before 39 weeks, either by induced labor or via cesarean, when there is no medical reason to deliver early lowers the chances of newborn illness and death. Yet one study linked a policy in a large hospital group of avoiding such optional, or elective, deliveries before 39 weeks to an increase in stillbirths in its patients.
