News

A New York firefighter critically injured while battling an inferno at a Crown Heights brownstone just before Christmas finally went home March 23.

A team of researchers led by scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College has designed what appears to be a powerful gene therapy strategy that can treat both beta-thalassemia disease and sickle cell anemia. They have also developed a test to predict patient response before treatment.

Amid the deafening rhetoric around health care reform there's a silence that should concern all of us. While the Supreme Court considers challenges to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on a variety of grounds, no one is talking about what healthcare reform will mean for medical education and biomedical research, an essential element in the quest for more efficient and effective care. It's a critical piece of the reform puzzle that has fallen off the table.

In the first published study of its kind, researchers from the Catholic University/Policlinico Gemelli in Rome, Italy, and NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center found that bariatric surgery dramatically outperforms standard medical treatment of severe type 2 diabetes.

A palpable sense of anticipation filled Griffis Faculty Club on Friday, March 16 in the moments leading up to the Match Day ceremony as 120 fourth-year students from Weill Cornell awaited their fate in the form of a sealed envelope.

For one month last fall, Weill Cornell Medical College student Nii Koney experienced first-hand what it's like to be a gynecologic oncologist. All thanks to a new award from the Hearing the Ovarian Cancer Whisper non-profit organization, based in Palm Beach County, Fl.

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have developed a computer program that has tracked the manner in which different forms of dementia spread within a human brain. They say their mathematic model can be used to predict where and approximately when an individual patient's brain will suffer from the spread, neuron to neuron, of "prion-like" toxic proteins -- a process they say underlies all forms of dementia.

Nationwide ambulance use by patients suffering from a stroke has not changed since the mid-1990s, even though effective stroke treatments are now available. In a study published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center found that the number of stroke victims transported via ambulance has remained relatively static over the years, highlighting the need for more education about stroke symptoms and the importance of early intervention.

Scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have discovered that the single protein -- alpha 2 delta -- exerts a spigot-like function, controlling the volume of neurotransmitters and other chemicals that flow between the synapses of brain neurons. The study, published online in Nature, shows how brain cells talk to each other through these signals, relaying thoughts, feelings and action, and this powerful molecule plays a crucial role in regulating effective communication.

The National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) has selected Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Weill Cornell Medical College to participate in a new national effort to accelerate the development of therapies for people with neurological diseases. NeuroNEXT (for Network for Excellence in Neuroscience Clinical Trials) links 25 sites through a common research infrastructure, streamlining the process to conduct clinical trials of promising therapies.

Dr. Crystal approached the issue of genomic testing by sharing the results of one specific experience -- his own.

Since 2006, the Global Emergency Medicine Program in the Division of Emergency Medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital has been committed to the advancement of the science and practice of emergency medicine, disaster preparedness and public health the world over.

Katherine Hajjar, M.D., is a tenacious sleuth when it comes to understanding a bodily function that many of us prefer to ignore -- the flow of our blood. Specifically, blood vessels and how they grow.

By engineering cells to express a modified RNA called "Spinach," researchers have imaged small-molecule metabolites in living cells and observed how their levels change over time. Metabolites are the products of individual cell metabolism. The ability to measure their rate of production could be used to recognize a cell gone metabolically awry, as in cancer, or identify the drug that can restore the cell's metabolites to normal.

Dr. Lia Logio has been elected to a three-year term on the Council of the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine (APDIM).

From the sliver of land that separates Manhattan and Queens in the middle of the East River is a clear view of Weill Cornell Medical College. It's a vista students and faculty at the new CornellNYC Tech campus will gaze upon from their quarters on Roosevelt Island.