Epidemiology

Although 1 in 7 adults smoke cigarettes the year prior to undergoing weight-loss surgery, nearly all successfully quit at least a month before their operation. However, smoking prevalence steadily climbs to pre-surgery levels within seven years, according to new research led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.  McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Steven Belle, PhD, MScHyg, Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and a Co-Director in the Epidemiology Data Center, Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, is a co-author on this work.

Read More

Mucus is a protective, slimy secretion produced by goblet cells and which lines organs of the respiratory, digestive, and reproductive systems. Slime production is essential to health, and an imbalance can be life-threatening. Patients with diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and ulcerative colitis produce too much mucus, often after growing too many goblet cells. Loss of goblet cells can be equally devastating – for instance during cancer, after infection, or injury. The balance of slime creation, amount, and transport is critical, so doctors and medical researchers have long sought the origins of goblet cells and have been eager to control processes that regenerate them and maintain balanced populations.

Read More

Sometimes, in order to understand the big picture, you need to start by assessing the smallest of details. It’s a truth that engineers know well — selecting the right materials can mean the success or failure of a given application.

Read More

Overweight and obese vitamin D-deficient children who took a relatively high dose of vitamin D every day for six months had lower blood pressure and improved insulin sensitivity than their peers who took a lower dose, according to the results of a UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh clinical trial reported in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.  McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Abbe de Vallejo, PhD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Immunology in the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, is a co-author on the study.

Read More

Twice as many people as previously believed are dying of sepsis worldwide, according to an analysis published in The Lancet and announced at the Critical Care Reviews annual meeting in Belfast. Among them are a disproportionately high number of children in poor areas.

Read More

Transplants from donors with hepatitis C may be a safe option for those awaiting new hearts – a major development in curbing the nationwide organ shortage, according to new research.

Read More

As a healthy heart ages, it becomes more susceptible to cardiovascular diseases. Though researchers have discovered that relaxin, an insulin-like hormone, suppresses atrial fibrillation (AF), inflammation, and fibrosis in aged rats, the underlying mechanisms of these benefits are still unknown. In a recent Scientific Reports paper, a University of Pittsburgh research team discusses how relaxin interacts with the body’s signaling processes to produce a fundamental mechanism that may have great therapeutic potential.

Read More

Artur Dubrawski, PhD, is not a critical care physician, but his best friend is. Dr. Dubrawski, a research professor in Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, loves talking about disease symptoms with McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Michael Pinsky, MD, a professor of critical care medicine, cardiovascular disease, bioengineering and more at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. They also love talking about data and, more important, what the data means.

Read More

Cardiol Therapeutics Inc., a leader in the production of pharmaceutical cannabidiol (CBD) products and in the development of innovative cannabidiol medicines for heart disease, announced the formation of the Clinical Steering Committee (CSC) for a Phase 2 international trial in acute myocarditis using its CardiolRx™100 cannabidiol formulation.

Read More

The University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine is the first in the nation to establish opioid-free pain management guidelines for the vast majority of procedures performed in all of its clinics.

Read More

Magee-Womens Research Institute (MWRI) has received $112,500 in funding from A Glimmer of Hope Foundation (GOH) to further research of metastatic breast cancer (MBC) and to enhance patient support services at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital.

Read More

Pancreatic cancer happens when cells that aren’t normal grow and start to form tumors in the pancreas, a small organ located deep in the belly, behind your stomach.  The pancreas makes juices that help your body digest food. It also makes insulin and other hormones that help control your blood sugar.

Read More

According to the American Cancer Society, kidney cancer is among the top ten most common cancers in men and women, and clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) – the most common subtype of tumor associated with kidney cancer – accounts for more than 75 percent of cases.

Read More

Surgery can mend congenital heart defects shortly after birth, but those babies will carry a higher risk of heart failure throughout the rest of their lives. Yet, according to a Science Translational Medicine study published by UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh researchers, β-blockers could supplement surgery to regenerate infant heart muscle and mitigate the lasting effects of congenital heart disease.

Read More

Jenny Blair, writer for PittMed, reports in her article that in April 2019, Pitt began enrolling patients in one of the world’s first trials that combines the electronic health record with a new, efficient, safety-focused randomization process. The system is powered by software created by the Texas-based Berry Consultants. The approach, called REMAP (randomized, embedded, multi-factorial, adaptive platform), may transform the way doctors learn from patients—and how they care for them.

Read More

Primary investigators Gwendolyn Sowa, MD, PhD, of Pitt’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the UPMC Rehabilitation Institute, and McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Nam Vo, PhD, of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, were awarded $21.5 million to establish the Low Back Pain: Biological, Biomechanical, Behavioral Phenotypes Mechanistic Research Center (LB3P MRC), a multidisciplinary research center dedicated to categorizing patients into chronic low back pain subgroups with the goal of targeting treatments specific to individual patients’ pain and reducing the use of opioids.

Read More

Oncorus, Inc., an oncolytic virus company focused on driving innovation to transform outcomes for cancer patients, announced recently the completion of an oversubscribed $79.5 million Series B financing.  Oncorus is a University of Pittsburgh spin-out company based on the pioneering research of McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Joseph Glorioso III, PhD, Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine with a secondary appointment in the Department of Human Genetics, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.  Dr. Glorioso is a co-founder of Oncorus and heads its Scientific Advisory Board.

Read More

More than 30 million Americans suffer from diabetes and must inject themselves with insulin two to four times daily. Researchers have been looking for ways to administer the drug orally, and researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have now shown such a feat is possible.

Read More

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Hillman Cancer Center—including McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Simon Watkins, PhD, founder and director of the Center for Biologic Imaging at the University of Pittsburgh, a member of the Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and a distinguished professor and vice chairman within the Department of Cell Biology—provide the first concrete evidence for the long-held belief that sick mitochondria pollute the cells they’re supposed to be supplying with power.

Read More

McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member David Vorp, PhD, associate dean for research at Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering and the John A. Swanson Professor of Bioengineering, and his team are using Amazon Web Services (AWS) resources to improve the diagnosis and treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms, the 13th-leading cause of death in western countries. New machine learning technologies and advances in computing power, like those offered by Amazon SageMaker and Amazon EC2, are making it possible to rapidly translate insights discovered in the lab into treatments and services that could dramatically improve human health.

Read More

One out of four sepsis patients who survive their hospital stay have elevated levels of inflammation a year after discharge, and they are at higher risk for major health problems and death, according to a study led by physician-scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System.  McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members who are authors on this study include:

Read More

By Dr. George V. Mazariegos, Opinion Contributor, The Hill

“Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future,” President John F. Kennedy told the U.S. Committee for UNICEF in 1963. That same year, Dr. Thomas Starzl, my mentor, performed the world’s first pediatric liver transplant.

Read More

Living-donor liver transplant offers numerous advantages over deceased-donor transplant, including better three-year survival rates for patients and lower costs, according to new research from the UPMC Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Read More

Death rates from sepsis fell faster in New York than expected—and faster than in peer states—following the introduction of the nation’s first state-mandated sepsis regulation, according to an analysis led by University of Pittsburgh researchers and published in JAMA. The policy requires all New York hospitals to quickly implement certain protocols when the deadly condition is suspected.

Read More

McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Mangesh Kulkarni, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, was awarded $17,793 in funding from the Central Research Development Fund (CRDF) to support research for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Read More

The McGowan Institute has formed an alliance with the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory to develop and demonstrate how microgravity can improve regenerative medicine-based therapies. The ISS provides a unique platform to conduct studies in a microgravity environment.

Read More

Erica Comber, a PhD student in Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU’s) Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), and her colleagues in Carnegie Mellon University’s Bioengineered Organs Initiative, are working to help people with lung disease by making them new ones.

Read More

Hepatitis C is a liver disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV), which is carried in the blood of infected people. According to various estimates, anywhere from 3 to 10 million people in the United States are carriers of the virus. One reason for this is because the virus wasn’t even diagnosed until the late 1980s. In fact, a majority of carriers are still unaware of their HCV status.

Read More

People who receive opioids for the first time while hospitalized have double the risk of continuing to receive opioids for months after discharge compared with their hospitalized peers who are not given opioids, according to research led by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

Read More

With Alex Trebek’s recent announcement that his pancreatic cancer is in remission, many people have wondered if this difficult cancer is now easier to treat. Pancreatic cancer remains a major cancer killer, but advances are happening.

Read More

A team of specialists at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh have performed UPMC’s first in-utero surgery to close an open neural tube defect in a baby months before her birth.  McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Stephen Emery, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, & Reproductive Sciences, Maternal Fetal Medicine, and the Director of the Center for Innovative Fetal Intervention at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC, was a member of the surgical team.

Read More

The faster fluid is removed using continuous dialysis from patients with failing kidneys, the higher the likelihood they will die in the next several months, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members Gilles Clermont, MD, and John Kellum, MD, are co-authors of the study.

Read More

Reversibly paralyzing and heavily sedating hospitalized patients with severe breathing problems do not improve outcomes in most cases, according to a National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trial conducted at dozens of North American hospitals and led by clinician-scientists at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Colorado schools of medicine.

Read More

Much like cancer, sepsis isn’t simply one condition but rather many conditions that could benefit from different treatments, according to the results of a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study involving more than 60,000 patients. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members who are co-authors on the study include:

Read More

A major milestone on its strategic mission to lead in sepsis diagnostics, Beckman Coulter recently announced that its Early Sepsis Indicator has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Sepsis is a global healthcare crisis that affects more than 30 million people worldwide. The Early Sepsis Indicator is a first-of-its-kind, hematology-based cellular biomarker that is designed to help emergency department physicians identify patients with sepsis or at increased risk of developing sepsis.

Read More

In the years following bariatric surgery, a person’s overall eating behaviors and the amount of time spent watching television, playing video games and using a computer for recreation are a better indication of long-term weight loss success than specific weight control practices like counting calories.

Read More

New research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center sheds light on how tumors use the body’s regulators of immunity for their own benefit. Published in Nature Immunology, the findings could be used to develop the next generation of immune therapies to fight various cancers.  McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member James Luketich, MD—Henry T. Bahnson Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, the Chairman, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, the Chief, Division of Thoracic and Foregut Surgery, the Director, Thoracic Surgical Oncology, the Co-Director, Lung Cancer Center, the Associate Director of Surgical Affairs, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and the Director, Mark Ravitch/Leon C. Hirsh Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery—is a co-author on the paper.

Read More

Total pancreatectomy with islet autotransplantation (TPIAT) is a surgical procedure used to treat severe complications of chronic pancreatitis (CP) or very high risk of pancreatic cancer while reducing the risk of severe diabetes mellitus.

Read More

Pancreatic cancer is a grim diagnosis, with a five-year survival rate of less than 9 percent. To improve those odds, researchers at UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine sought genetic signatures in the largest study of its kind that could be used to better match drugs to patients and for early detection.

Read More

If you follow transplant news, you probably know the grim facts: Worldwide, there is an enormous and widening gap between the number of people who need transplant organs and the number of donor organs available. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), 20 people die every day waiting for a transplant. While UNOS and other organizations work to increase awareness and recruit more donors, researchers and doctors are working hard to find medical solutions that can help close that gap.

Read More