Health | WPN World People News

With the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa reviving interest in the first outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever 40 years ago, scientists led by Dr. Joel Breman of the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health have released a report highlighting lessons learned from the smaller, more quickly contained 1976 outbreak.

The recently launched Genomic Data Commons (GDC) will get a dramatic increase in the power and utility of its resources with the announcement on 29 June of the signing of a data sharing agreement between the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Foundation Medicine, Inc. (FMI), a molecular information company that has generated genomic profiles of people with cancer. NCI’s GDC is a unified data system that promotes the sharing of genomic and clinical data among researchers and is a core component of the Cancer Moonshot and the President’s Precision Medicine Initiative. NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Barren fields due to the impact of El Niño-induced drought in the Southern African nation of Lesotho.

A subgroup of women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a leading cause of infertility, may produce excess adrenal hormones, according to an early study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.

Researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health developed a clinical-grade stem cell line, which has the potential to accelerate the advance of new medical applications and cell-based therapies for millions of people suffering from such ailments as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, diabetes, and muscular dystrophy. The stem cells were developed by isolating human umbilical cord blood cells following a healthy birth, and coaxing them back into a pluripotent state, or one in which they have the potential to develop into any cell type in the body. Cells developed in this manner are called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). With NIH support, these cells were manufactured by Lonza, Walkersville, Maryland, and described in a publication by Behnam Baghbaderani, Ph.D., and colleagues in Stem Cell Reports.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 24 released the results of its investigation into the potential health impact that lead contamination in the Flint, Michigan water supply had on the blood lead levels of local children. The findings indicate that when the source of the water supply was switched to the Flint River, without appropriate corrosion control measures, young children who drank the water had blood lead levels (BLLs) that were significantly higher than when the source of water was the Detroit water system. After the switch back to the Detroit water system, the percentage of children under 6 years with elevated blood lead levels returned to levels seen before the water switch took place.