Entries in "Research"
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January 24, 2007
Venture dollars drop for local biotechs
Crain's Cleveland Business, January 24, 2007
Investors injected $87 million into young health care companies in Northeast Ohio in 2006—barely half of what was raised in 2005, but $26 million more than 2004, according to an annual report by BioEnterprise Corp. BioEnterprise president Baiju Shah said he is "very encouraged" by the findings, which he said indicate an upward trend in health care investment, despite the drop from 2005. Mr. Shah spread credit for the increase in investment over the past few years to institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University; a growing venture capital community; and groups such as BioEnterprise and JumpStart, a nonprofit that invests in early stage companies with high growth potential. Read article.
January 09, 2007
Everson says it's sticking with Pollock
The Syracuse Post Standard, January 9, 2007
As controversy swirls over the authenticity of a group of paintings by dribble-and-drip master Jackson Pollock, the Everson Museum of Art is staying with its plan to exhibit the works this summer. Ellen Landau, a Pollock expert and professor at Case Western Reserve University, is among those who say the pieces should be considered originals. Read article.
Adult stem cells spur market rush, avoid embryo ban
Bloomberg News, January 9, 2007
Five-month-old Luis Fernando Rojo was near death in a Miami hospital, suffering with blisters and bloody diarrhea after his tiny body rejected part of a marrow transplant for a rare bone disorder. So U.S. regulators allowed Luis's doctors to try an unapproved therapy from Baltimore-based Osiris Therapeutics Inc. Osiris, which first sold shares to the public on August 4, was founded in 1992 using technology developed by Arnold Caplan, a stem cell researcher at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Read article.
December 11, 2006
Study finds risk of getting HIV not raised by birth control pills
The Plain Dealer, December 9, 2006
Birth control pills and other forms of hormonal contraception do not elevate a woman's risk of contracting HIV, according to a large international study that included work by Case Western Reserve University. The findings were published Thursday in the online edition of the journal AIDS and will appear in the January printed edition. Read article.
December 07, 2006
Super kids: Boost your baby's brain power
News 14 Carolina online, December 7, 2006
Get moving: Researchers from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland studied the children of 20 women who continued to exercise throughout pregnancy and 20 expectant moms who quit exercising. At 5 years old, the children born to the moms who exercised performed significantly better on tests of general intelligence and oral language skills. Read article.
December 05, 2006
Revamp of brain 'could slow CJD'
BBC News Online, December 4, 2006
Tests in mice with scrapie—a disease similar to CJD in humans and BSE in cattle—showed the life-extending treatment works. The method used by the German team involves molecules called special RNAs (siRNAs), Journal of Clinical Investigation reports. These shut down the production of proteins that go awry in prion disease. Qingzhong Kong, an expert in prion diseases at the Case Western Reserve University in the United States, said: "Much more research is needed before RNA interference can be harnessed to treat prion disease." Read article.
Theoreticians ponder why we exist: Scientists debate how anthropic reasoning predicts cosmological constant
MSNBC.com, December 4, 2006
The emergence of humans in the universe might not tell us anything concerning the fundamental constants of nature as scientists have speculated, new theoretical findings argue. The idea known as the anthropic principle states that human existence is possible only if fundamental constants such as the speed of light or the strength of gravity are not higher or lower than what is observed. However, theoretical physicist Glenn Starkman of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and cosmologist Roberto Trotta at Oxford University in England take issue with how anthropic reasoning predicts the cosmological constant. Read article.
December 04, 2006
New moms and newborns need privacy, study shows
USA Today, December 3, 2006
Flowers are always nice, but perhaps the best gift you can give a brand-new mom is some quiet time alone with her baby. "I can remember when I first got into obstetrics, back in the late '70s, early '80s, fathers could stay on the floor all the time, and grandparents and siblings were the only ones who could come to visit," says lead author Barbara Morrison, an assistant professor of nursing at the Case Western Reserve University Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. Read article.
The case of Pollock's fractals focuses on physics
New York Times, December 2, 2006
In an article published this week in the prestigious science journal Nature, two physicists contend that a method intended to identify complex geometric patterns in the seemingly chaotic drip paintings of Jackson Pollock is flawed and may be useless in the increasingly convoluted world of authenticating Pollock's work. The article, written by a physics professor and a physics doctoral student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, provides a new twist in the mystery surrounding a group of small drip paintings discovered several years ago in a storage locker in Wainscott, N.Y. In 2004, before the examination of the disputed paintings, a physics doctoral student at Case Western, Katherine Jones-Smith, became interested in Taylor's published reports about Pollock and fractals and made the research the subject of a presentation. Read article.
November 30, 2006
Case researchers say artwork analysis flawed
The Plain Dealer, November 30, 2006
A Case Western Reserve University physics student and her colleague have added a new twist to a nasty feud about whether a group of recently discovered paintings is the work of renowned artist Jackson Pollock. The Case research, published today in the prestigious journal Nature, casts doubt on a method a fellow scientist had used to suggest that the paintings weren't real Pollocks. Read article.
A shrinking outlay for science
The Plain Dealer, November 30, 2006
Ruth Keri's growing anxiety about securing research dollars should matter to more than the handful of scientists who toil in her lab at Case Western Reserve University. Keri's story—recently detailed by Plain Dealer reporter Regina McEnery—is one of literally thousands of such tales across the country. Read article.
November 27, 2006
Search for cure means chase for funding: Breast cancer research part lab, part grant work
The Plain Dealer, November 27, 2006
Ruth Keri inched forward with the crush of runners in the annual Race for the Cure. Like the others, she is fighting for a cure for breast cancer one painstaking step at a time. Keri is a cancer biologist, a laboratory scientist at Case Western Reserve University who studies an aggressive form of breast cancer. At 43, she is a rising star in breast cancer research who also is elbow to elbow with young scientists in the high-stakes race for grants that fuel their work. Read article.
Sleep may be key to staying trim
The New Zealand Herald, November 25, 2006
Middle-aged women may be able to sleep their way to a trimmer body, new study findings suggest. In a study that followed more than 68,000 U.S. women for 16 years, researchers found that those who caught more zzz's each night tended to put on less weight during middle age. The findings, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology and presented this year at a medical conference, add to evidence that sleep habits affect a person's weight. Dr. Sanjay R. Patel of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland led the research. Read article.
November 22, 2006
Patents linked to income growth
Fort Worth Star Telegram (reprinted from The Plain Dealer), November 20
If necessity is the mother of invention, a recent trend in patents could bode well for Ohio's struggling economy. After starring as an incubator of inventions early in the 20th century, the number of patents awarded to Ohioans fell year after year. But in the 1990s, economists noted a change. Patent awards were on the rise. Ned Hill, vice president for economic development at Cleveland State University, said patents are on the rise because the quality of research at Case Western Reserve University and Ohio State University "has just gotten a lot better in the last decade, and they're paying more attention to patents." Read article.
November 21, 2006
Picking up the pieces
The Columbus Dispatch, November 21, 2006
When Ralph Harvey scans Antarctica's icy terrain, it becomes clear just how rough-and-tumble the solar system was four billion years ago. At a minimum, the inner solar system had a rough coming-of-age moment," said Harvey, a Case Western Reserve University geologist who spends a month or so in November and December with a team that combs icy Antarctic wastes for meteorites. Read article.
A new way to treat migranes
Kansas.com (The Wichita Eagle). November 21, 2006
Katherine Lahar's migraines stole years of Christmases and birthdays and other special occasions from her. She never knew when the tunnel vision, the nausea, the vomiting and diarrhea and excruciating pain would hit. She just knew they would—sometimes for a week at a time. That was then. Now, she's a different person. Lahar is a beneficiary of work done by Bahman Guyuron, chief of the Division of Plastic Surgery at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Read article.
November 20, 2006
East Toledo in running for wind power lab
Toledo Blade, November 20, 2006
America's first laboratory for testing offshore wind turbine blades would be built in East Toledo and begin operating along the Maumee River shoreline by mid-2009 if a contingent of northern Ohio academic, business, and government officials gets its way. The Ohio site is one of six nationally in the running for the $11.5 million U.S. Department of Energy project, which could create dozens of spin-off jobs by attracting manufacturers and parts suppliers for the booming wind power industry. Besides the principal sponsors of northwest Ohio's application mentioned above, numerous other parties are involved in the effort to make the project a reality here. They include: Midwest Terminals of Toledo International, the Ohio Department of Development, Bowling Green State University, Case Western Reserve University... Read article.
OSU cancer project apparently in limbo
Columbus Dispatch, November 20, 2006
Ohio State University officials have worked for at least two years to bring a rare, expensive cancer-treatment machine to central Ohio. University President Karen A. Holbrook included a statement about particle therapy in her 2005 State of the University speech, and university leaders talked about it to state officials and doctors at other hospitals. Now, however, university leaders won't talk about the project, and uncertainty about how to pay for it might be the reason. Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Columbus Children's Hospital, Case Western Reserve University and Battelle were named in the 2006 Third Frontier proposals as possible partners in the Ohio State project. Read article.
Ohio must keep making things
The Plain Dealer, November 19, 2006 (editorial)
When people talk about the economic glory days of Ohio, and especially its northeast quadrant, they invariably speak of this region's once-unsurpassed ability to "make things." Unfortunately, many of the industries that made this region wealthy have grown old. Understand that the recent flurry of fuel cell activity did not come out of the ether. It builds upon groundbreaking work that began years ago at the NASA Glenn Research Center and has continued there and at universities including Case Western Reserve University. Entrepreneurs used that research to start companies that are now attracting outside interest. Read article.
November 17, 2006
Reinventing Ohio
The Plain Dealer, November 16, 2006
If necessity is the mother of invention, a recent trend in patents could bode well for Ohio's struggling economy. Ned Hill, vice president for economic development at Cleveland State University, said patents are on the rise because the quality of research at Case Western Reserve University and Ohio State University "has just gotten a lot better in the last decade, and they're paying more attention to patents." Read article.
November 16, 2006
Michigan, Ohio deer deemed safe to eat
The Toledo Blade, November 15, 2006
Hunters need not worry about contracting a brain-wasting disease from deer when the Michigan deer firearms season opens today, officials said. So far, the disease has not been found in Michigan or Ohio deer. Ohio firearms season opens November 27. Venison lovers may take some comfort in research from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, which suggests that chronic wasting disease may not jump to humans. "So far, at least with the model available, there is still a significant species barrier," said Shu G. Chen, assistant director of the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case and a coauthor of a study in the August issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. Read article.
New test predicts best candidates for defibrillators
Forbes.com, November 16, 2006
A new, noninvasive test easily performed in a doctor's office may be able to predict which patients are at risk for sudden cardiac death and who would likely benefit from implanted defibrillators. "This trial suggests there's a way to individualize therapy for patients," said study senior author Dr. David S. Rosenbaum, professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Read article.
November 15, 2006
Six projects get NorTech money: $1 million will help turn technology ideas into moneymakers
The Plain Dealer, November 15, 2006
NorTech, the Northeast Ohio technology development organization, has distributed $1 million in grant money from the Fund for Our Economic Future to support the commercialization of six projects: A collaboration among the National Center for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, the Case Center for Imaging Research, and local companies Arteriocyte and Athersys will receive $310,000 to develop ways to improve stroke therapies. The Wright Fuel Cell Group will receive $150,000 to build portable fuel cells created with Ohio-made products. Case Western Reserve University, Graf-Tech, HydroGen, Contained Energy, Northeast Hydrogen and Chemsultants are part of the fuel cell group. Read article.
November 14, 2006
Income gap between races persists, census says
The Plain Dealer, November 14, 2006
Washington—Decades after the civil rights movement, racial disparities in income, education and home ownership persist and, by some measurements, are growing. And for Northeast Ohio, those gaps are even more pronounced than the national figures. The report showed two bright spots. Compared with the national averages, Hispanics in Northeast Ohio were more likely to own a home and earn a bachelor's or graduate degree. The area's high rate of racial segregation likely plays a key role in economic and educational disparities, said Claudia Coulton, codirector of the Center on Urban Poverty and Social Change at Case Western Reserve University. "When there's more segregation, it usually cuts down on opportunities," she said. Read article.