Thursday, July 02, 2020
UMSOM Researchers Help Weigh Role of Human Challenge Studies for COVID-19 Vaccine Development
Members of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) Working Group, which includes Kathleen Neuzil, MD, MPH, DTPH, the Myron M. Levine, MD, DTPH Professor in Vaccinology and Director of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (CVD) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), assessed the practical considerations and prerequisites for using controlled human infection models (CHIMs) to support development of a SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine.
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
From Tradition to Virtual Reality: Online Student Clinician Ceremony Celebrates Next Chapter of Medical Training
The Class of 2022, along with family and friends, logged on from their computers to celebrate this year’s Student Clinician Ceremony, held on Friday, June 19. Now in its 18th year, the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) Annual Student Clinician Ceremony marks the third year of medical education as students transition into clinical clerkships.
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
UM School of Medicine Researchers Receive Federal Funding to Rapidly Test New Treatments for COVID-19
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) will be partnering on an agreement funded by the federal government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to rapidly test hundreds of drugs, approved and marketed for other conditions, to see whether any can be repurposed to prevent or treat COVID-19. The compounds will be tested in studies using state-of-the-art technologies in the laboratory of coronavirus researcher Matthew Frieman, PhD., Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. UMSOM will receive up to $3.6 million over the next year to fund this effort.
Monday, June 15, 2020
UM School of Medicine Researchers Help Identify Potent Antibody Cocktail with Potential to Treat COVID-19
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) evaluated several human antibodies to determine the most potent combination to be mixed in a cocktail and used as a promising anti-viral therapy against the virus that causes COVID-19. Their research, conducted in collaboration with scientists at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, was published today in the journal Science. The study demonstrates the rapid process of isolating, testing and mass-producing antibody therapies against any infectious disease by using both genetically engineered mice and plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients.
Tuesday, June 09, 2020
UM School of Medicine Researchers Identify New Genetic Defect Linked to ALS
Researchers at the UMSOM have identified how certain gene mutations cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The pathway identified by the researchers may also be responsible for a certain form of dementia related to ALS. The finding could offer potential new approaches for treating this devastating condition, which causes progressive, fatal paralysis and sometimes mental deterioration similar to Alzheimer’s disease. Their discovery was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and included collaborators from Harvard University, University of Auckland, King’s College London, and Northwestern University.
Wednesday, June 03, 2020
UM School of Medicine's Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science Receives Endowment Gift from Pivot Health Solutions; Will Advance Research and Train Next Generation of Scie
Victoria G. Marchese, PhD, PT, Chair, Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science (PTRS), University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), announced that Pivot Health Solutions has given $250,000 to fund the Pivot Health Solutions Physical Rehabilitation Science PhD Education Endowment. This important gift will be used as a critical resource for PhD students in Physical Rehabilitation Science in the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science (PTRS) at UMSOM.
Tuesday, June 02, 2020
UM School of Medicine’s Institute of Human Virology Awarded Grants to Strengthen COVID-19 Response in Sub-Saharan Africa
The Center for International Health, Education and Biosecurity (Ciheb) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Institute of Human Virology was awarded $4 million from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to support coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) response activities in Botswana, Nigeria, Malawi, and Mozambique.
Monday, June 01, 2020
In A COVID-19 World, Another Threat to the Health of Our Children
In the U.S., our children rarely fall ill to grave infections because they are protected by vaccines. Serious illnesses like measles, mumps, congenital rubella syndrome, chickenpox, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, rotavirus diarrhea, hepatitis (A and B), polio and bacterial meningitis are all preventable through routine childhood vaccinations.
Thursday, May 28, 2020
UM School of Medicine Researchers Develop Experimental Rapid COVID-19 Test Using Innovative Nanoparticle Technique
Scientists from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) developed an experimental diagnostic test for COVID-19 that can visually detect the presence of the virus in 10 minutes. It uses a simple assay containing plasmonic gold nanoparticles to detect a color change when the virus is present. The test does not require the use of any advanced laboratory techniques, such as those commonly used to amplify DNA, for analysis. The authors published their work last week in the American Chemical Society’s nanotechnology journal ACS Nano.
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
UM School of Medicine Researchers Find No Benefit for Treatment Used to Avoid Surgery for Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm
A new landmark study by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) found that patients with a vascular condition, called abdominal aortic aneurysm, received no benefits from taking a common antibiotic drug to reduce inflammation. Patients who took the antibiotic doxycycline experienced no reduction in the growth of their aneurysm over two years compared to those who took a placebo, according to the study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The finding could lead doctors to stop prescribing the drug as a way to prevent small aneurysms from growing larger and bursting.