Recent faculty publications in prestigious academic journals such as The Lancet, The EMBO Journal, The Annals of Neurology and the New England Journal of Medicine showcase the top-notch research being conducted at NJMS.

Experts Reach Across Disciplines and State Lines
Researchers from New Jersey Medical School and Case Western Reserve University have joined forces to identify the beneficial effects of two toxic gases - nitric oxide and carbon monoxide - on the regulation of blood pressure.

Annie Beuve, PhD, assistant professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at New Jersey Medical School, and Focco van den Akker, PhD, assistant professor of Biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University, collaborated on a study that appears in the January 24 issue of The EMBO Journal, the academic publication of the European Molecular Biology Organization, which is published by Nature Publishing Group.

The paper documents how NO and CO bind to a protein called soluble guanylyl cyclase (sGC) which is critical in the formation of a molecule messenger, cGMP, which induces the relaxation of blood vessels. Dysfunction in this process is responsible for many cardiovascular diseases including hypertension (high blood pressure), artherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and erectile dysfunction. Understanding this process will help develop new strategies for the clinical treatment of these diseases which affect more than 50 million Americans.

Pneumo-Vac for Babies is Common "Cents"
A novel cost analysis published in The Lancet provides compelling evidence for the financial importance of investing in the future. According to Anushua Sinha, MD, MPH, assistant professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, and colleagues from Johns Hopkins and Harvard, investing in infant vaccines against pneumococcus, would not only save lives, but ultimately save money. Despite the relatively high cost of the vaccine, savings would be realized by averting nearly half a million deaths, 1.2 million hospitalizations and the cost burden associated with loss of life.

This would also result in a savings of 8.3 million disability-adjusted life years, or DALYs, a year. DALYs are a measurement developed by the World Health Organization for the overall burden of disease, combining years of life lost due to premature death with years of full health lost due to disability. 

According to Dr. Sinha's paper, some 3.8 million infants between ages 3 and 29 months die each year around the world from potentially preventable causes. Should the vaccine's potential effects be as dramatic as her study suggests, Dr. Sinha said, widespread use of the vaccine "is common sense when you think about it."

Single Drug Best Fertility Treatment for Women With Ovary Syndrome
The findings of a National Institutes of Health study published in the February 8 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine may be helpful for women who have an infertility disorder that is associated with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Dr. Peter McGovern, associate professor and director of the Division of Reproductive, Endocronology and Infertility in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women's Health, was the only researcher in the tri-state area to participate in this nationwide study. Dr. McGovern was the lead investigator at New Jersey Medical School, which was one of twelve sites that participated in this study of 626 infertile women who were diagnosed with PCOS.

Findings support the use of a single fertility drug - clomiphene citrate - as a first-line therapy for infertility in women with PCOS, providing new evidence that a combination therapy of clomiphene and metoformin - a diabetes drug that was previously believed to be helpful in enhancing fertility among PCOS patients - was not any more effective than clomiphene alone.

Adult Stem Cells Involved in Widespread Repair of Neonatal Brain Injury
Neuroscientists at NJMS have discovered that the neonatal brain possesses a previously unknown capacity to replace damaged neurons in multiple brain regions. Furthermore, their research reveals that the production of these new neurons lasts for at least five months following injury.

The study, led by Steve Levison, PhD, professor of neuroscience, was published on-line February 6 in the Annals of Neurology.

Of particular interest is that these newly generated neurons - which are made from resident stem cells lying deep within the brain - travel great distances in response to homing signals (which Levison's laboratory characterized) that are produced by cells in the vicinity of the damaged neurons.

These findings, which challenge the dogma that you are born with all of the neurons that you'll ever have, provide information that will enable researchers to amplify the number of new neurons that can be generated from the brain's resident stem cells as well as to direct those cells to brain regions where they are required for cell replacement. These discoveries provide hope that the effects of brain damage in infants resulting from lack of blood or lack of oxygen, which occurs in approximately 1 to 2 per 1,000 full-term births, can be mitigated.

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