All News | The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

News from Brown

Child asthma emergency visits drop after indoor smoking bans

December 26, 2016

Fewer children visited emergency rooms for asthma problems in the three years after cities banned indoor smoking than in the three years before, according to a new study.

Read Article

News from Brown

Are Uber drivers entrepreneurs?

December 21, 2016

A case study created by Brown undergraduates as part of an entrepreneurship class investigates the entrepreneurial aspects of the ridesharing platform’s driver model.

Read Article

News from Brown

Galápagos waters illustrate ecological drama of climate change

December 21, 2016

Brown marine biologist Jon Witman and students have spent much of 2016 in the Galápagos Islands, continuing years of chronicling the complex and dramatic ecological changes wrought by the increasingly volatile El Niño – La Niña cycle.

Read Article

News from Brown

RNA pathway plays key role in health, lifespan, fly study shows

December 21, 2016

The piRNA pathway was thought to be most active in the reproductive organs of animals, but researchers have discovered in the common fruit fly that the pathway also operates in a non-reproductive body tissue, playing a vital role in maintaining health and lifespan.

Read Article

News from Brown

Famine alters metabolism for successive generations

December 12, 2016

A famine that afflicted China between 1959 and 1961 is associated with an increased hyperglycemia risk not only among people who were born then, but also among the children they had a generation later.

Read Article

News from Brown

Celebration in Stockholm: Kosterlitz receives Nobel Prize

December 10, 2016

Brown physicist Michael Kosterlitz stood on the most revered stage in all of science to receive his medal for the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Read Article

News from Brown

Research offers clues about the timing of Jupiter's formation

December 9, 2016

The new study shows that Jupiter had probably reached its present day size by about 5 million years after the first solids in the solar system formed.

Read Article

News from Brown

Blood-borne HPV antibodies indicate head, neck cancer prognosis

December 8, 2016

A new study in JAMA Oncology finds that the presence of particular antibodies of human papillomavirus in blood serum are reliable indicators of five-year head and neck cancer survival.

Read Article

News from Brown

New compound targets TB bacterium’s defense against the immune system

December 5, 2016

Developed by chemists at Brown University in conjunction with colleagues at MIT and Cornell, the compound could enable a new drug strategy for treating tuberculosis.

Read Article

News from Brown

Video: Kosterlitz meets with President Obama in the Oval Office

December 1, 2016

Obama congratulated four American 2016 Nobel Laureates on their "amazing work."

Read Article

News from Brown

Quantum obstacle course changes material from superconductor to insulator

November 30, 2016

The research could help scientists better understand how defects can affect the quantum behavior of materials.

Read Article

News from Brown

Nobel Prize festivities to kick off with D.C. event

November 29, 2016

A week before heading to Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize, Brown physicist and 2016 Nobel Laureate Michael Kosterlitz will meet President Obama and participate in a discussion at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Read Article

News from Brown

To improve disaster response, New England medical experts confer at Brown

November 29, 2016

When a storm or an attack happens, New England’s emergency physicians will be better prepared and able to share resources because of a recently formed society, which will meet at Brown on Dec. 1.

Read Article

News from Brown

Diet quality low but steadily improving among U.S. kids

November 23, 2016

An analysis of diet quality among more than 38,000 U.S. children shows that nutrition for the nation’s kids has been getting steadily better in recent years, but what they eat is still far from ideal and disparities persist by income, race and receipt of government food assistance.

Read Article

News from Brown

Scientists reconstruct formation of the Appalachians

November 21, 2016

A new study finds that the process that built the Appalachian Mountains 300 million years ago is similar to the process building the Himalayas today.

Read Article

News from Brown

Opioids, NSAIDs no different overall for persistent pain after crashes

November 21, 2016

A new study finds that on average, the risk of chronic pain after a car accident was no greater among people given NSAIDs than among people given opioids, but those with opioids were more likely to remain on medication longer.

Read Article

News from Brown

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee tackles data privacy and national security

November 17, 2016

Seny Kamara, a computer scientist at Brown, is part of a committee that will explore the tradeoffs between data privacy, encryption, national security and law enforcement.

Read Article

News from Brown

Study reveals workings of immune response to deadly fungal infections

November 17, 2016

Now that scientists understand what triggers key steps in the immune response to menacing fungi such as Candida albicans, they hope to develop ways to make it work better.

Read Article

News from Brown

$27 million gift to expand Brown’s effort to decipher disease, improve health

November 14, 2016

A new gift from The Warren Alpert Foundation will allow the University to substantially expand and enhance its M.D./Ph.D. program and endow a professorship in the Brown Institute for Translational Science.

Read Article

News from Brown

Biomedical breakthroughs at the Brown Institute for Translational Science

November 14, 2016

Brown University is pursuing a strategic vision to ensure that the most promising advances in basic biomedical research become new treatments for patients.

Read Article

News from Brown

Treating cholera in Haiti after Hurricane Matthew

November 9, 2016

In a pair of tents on the grounds of a health center in a tiny town, Dr. Adam Levine is managing a cholera treatment unit where the staff still sees 10 to 15 new cases a day, more than a month after Hurricane Matthew.

Read Article

News from Brown

Brown awarded CDC contract to battle health care-related infections

November 8, 2016

Starting with a new three-year, $2.7 million award to help implement antimicrobial stewardship in nursing homes, a University-led team will perform research and implementation projects for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aimed at reducing infections.

Read Article

News from Brown

Researchers use graphene templates to make new metal-oxide nanostructures

November 7, 2016

Metal-oxide films with wrinkles and crumples transferred from graphene templates have improved properties as catalysts and electrodes.

Read Article

News from Brown

After Australia cut drug copays for indigenous people, hospital use declined

November 7, 2016

When the Australian government reduced drug costs for indigenous people with or at risk for chronic conditions, they became substantially less likely to need hospitalization to treat those health problems.

Read Article

News from Brown

Hospital readmission history a valid measure of skilled nursing quality

November 1, 2016

A new study supports the federal government’s use of a skilled nursing facility’s history of hospital readmissions as a key indicator of care quality.

Read Article

News from Brown

Brown researchers developing new interactive sleep app

November 1, 2016

The new approach combines personal sleep analytics with recommendations based on the scientific sleep literature.

Read Article

News from Brown

U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends interventions to support breastfeeding

October 31, 2016

Dr. Maureen Phipps, chair of obstetrics and gynecology in the Alpert Medical School and a member of the task force, discusses its new recommendations supporting breastfeeding.

Read Article

News from Brown

Chinese medical education rising unevenly from Cultural Revolution rubble

October 31, 2016

A new research review chronicling the history and current state of medical education in China finds that the country’s quest to build up a medical education system to serve its massive population has produced a rapid, if uneven, result.

Read Article

News from Brown

Fun with physics: Brown’s new Nobel Laureate talks theory

October 27, 2016

Michael Kosterlitz, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics, met with students from the physics department during a town hall event.

Read Article

News from Brown

Research helps explain formation of ringed crater on the Moon

October 27, 2016

The Moon’s Orientale basin is an archetype of “multi-ring” basins found throughout the solar system. New research reveals how those rings were formed.

Read Article

News from Brown

‘Speed networking’ catalyzes collaborations on health disparities

October 26, 2016

To inspire new ideas aimed at addressing health disparities, the Office of the Vice President for Research convened an unconventional approach: “speed networking” for researchers.

Read Article

News from Brown

As competition concludes, ‘bio balloon’ team has reached great heights

October 26, 2016

An undergraduate team of emerging synthetic biologists from Brown and Stanford prepares to culminate a global competition this weekend after a productive nine months advancing the science of an entirely biological balloon.

Read Article

News from Brown

Brown launches new Data Science Initiative

October 25, 2016

The initiative, which includes a new master’s program, will bolster research that integrates data in new scholarly contexts and prepare students to be leaders in a data-enabled society.

Read Article

News from Brown

Study yields rich dossier of cancer-linked protein’s associates

October 24, 2016

By developing an atomic-scale picture of how the cancer-linked enzyme PP2A binds to other proteins, Brown University researchers have developed a new list of nearly 100 of its potential partners.

Read Article

News from Brown

Resisting cruelty by leading aid efforts, Syrian doctor comes to Brown to study

October 17, 2016

Tortured and then forced to flee Syria, Dr. Khaled Almilaji has countered tyranny with ever-greater efforts to care for his country’s people — his latest move is to study public health at Brown.

Read Article

News from Brown

Ladd Observatory to celebrate 125 years

October 14, 2016

A weeklong series of events will commemorate the observatory’s rich history.

Read Article

News from Brown

Cocoa compound linked to some cardiovascular biomarker improvements

October 14, 2016

A new review of 19 randomized clinical trials finds that consumption of cocoa, and therefore compounds called flavanols, may improve some biomarkers related to lipids and insulin resistance.

Read Article

News from Brown

Grant funds big-data study of brain connectivity

October 13, 2016

With more than $1.2 million over three years to study how complex brain networks process information, Brown has earned its second grant this fall from the federal BRAIN Initiative and shares significantly in a third.

Read Article

News from Brown

Significant deforestation in Brazilian Amazon goes undetected, study finds

October 12, 2016

A new study finds that close to 9,000 square kilometers of Amazon forest was cleared from 2008 to 2012 without detection by the official government monitoring system.

Read Article

News from Brown

Brown researchers develop new ligase for biomedical use

October 11, 2016

The new heat-stable RNA ligase could be useful for a variety of applications including in vitro diagnostics and sequencing.

Read Article

News from Brown

Machine learning technique helps identify cancer cell types

October 11, 2016

The new technique could be useful in early testing of cancer drugs and in understanding drug resistance.

Read Article

News from Brown

Believing that others understand helps us feel that we do — even when we don’t

October 5, 2016

New research on how people think supports the idea of a “community of knowledge,” in which people blend the perceived expertise of others into their assessment of their own understanding.

Read Article

News from Brown

Brown’s J. Michael Kosterlitz wins Nobel Prize in Physics

October 4, 2016

Professor of physics awarded "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.”

Read Article

News from Brown

Environmental change drove diversity in Lake Malawi cichlids

October 3, 2016

Researchers show that periods of deep, clear water in Lake Malawi over the past 800,000 years coincide with bursts of species diversification.

Read Article

News from Brown

BRAIN grant of $1.6 million powers study of neural signals

September 29, 2016

Three-year project will develop a software tool to help scientists and doctors understand how recorded brainwaves emerge from underlying neural activity.

Read Article

News from Brown

Formaldehyde damages proteins, not just DNA

September 29, 2016

Formaldehyde, a common toxicant and carcinogen recently subjected to new federal regulations, may be more dangerous than previously thought, a new study suggests.

Read Article

News from Brown

Ancient global cooling gave rise to modern ecosystems

September 26, 2016

Sea surface temperatures dipped dramatically during a period from 7 million to 5.4 million years ago, a time of massive global ecological change.

Read Article

News from Brown

Pluto’s ‘heart’ sheds light on a possible buried ocean

September 23, 2016

A giant asteroid impact in the dwarf planet’s past offers new insights into the possibility of an ocean beneath its surface.

Read Article

News from Brown

New NIH grants support child health research

September 22, 2016

Several Brown University faculty members are key participants in three projects investigating how early life and environmental exposures affect children.

Read Article

News from Brown

$2M grant to study simultaneous marijuana, alcohol use

September 22, 2016

Next year at colleges in three states with different marijuana use laws, a team of public health researchers will study why students often use marijuana and alcohol simultaneously.

Read Article