Research

University of Vermont researchers Sean Diehl, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and a Vaccine Testing Center immunologist, Sam Scarpino, Ph.D., former assistant professor of mathematics and statistics, Donna Rizzo, Ph.D., professor of engineering, and John Hanley, Ph.D., a postdoctoral associate in engineering, have been awarded the inaugural UVM Biomedical Engineering Program Pilot Research Program grant for their project, titled “Integrating omics and clinical data to study dengue infection.”

A five-year, $20 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical and Translational Research (CTR) Network grant will fund a joint program between the University of Vermont (UVM) and Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine to develop and sustain a clinical and translational research infrastructure improving rural and community health for residents of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Two University of Vermont research teams have been awarded SPARK-VT grants by the university to help commercialize their work and move it a step closer to the marketplace, following a faculty pitch competition held June 16, 2017.

For patients who survive an episode of critical illness, they can experience weakness and other limitations to their function long after they’ve left the hospital. But there’s hope in sight: A unique, multi-site clinical trial that aims to improve outcomes for intensive care unit patients using a combination of early nutritional supplementation and exercise.

Acute respiratory disease (ARD) due to infection with adenovirus is a major cause of morbidity at military training centers. In addition to ARD, adenovirus infection can cause sore throat, pneumonia, conjunctivitis, and urinary infections.

All it takes is the flip of a protein “switch” within the tiny wire-like capillaries of the brain to increase the blood flow that ensures optimal brain function. New research has uncovered that capillaries have the capacity to both sense brain activity and generate an electrical vasodilatory signal to evoke blood flow and direct nutrients to nourish hard-working neurons.

While the debate regarding the safety of e-cigarettes continues, another issue has emerged: Is vaping addictive?

Despite diagnoses for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) occurring in a reported 11 percent of U.S. school-aged kids, clinicians still don’t fully understand the underlying causes of this common condition. Now a brain marker may be on the horizon, thanks to a new approach that provides evidence of a relationship between brain structure and dimensional measures of ADHD symptoms.

Only one new drug has become available over the past 50 years for the estimated 1.5 million Americans and five million-plus people worldwide suffering from lupus, but new research has identified a previously unknown mechanism involved in the immune response that could provide an alternative therapy target.

The following interview with Neil Zakai, M.D., M.Sc., associate professor of medicine at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, originally appeared on the Facebook page of the Thrombosis and Haemostasis journal and focused on his research publication, titled “D-dimer and the Risk of Stroke and Coronary Heart Disease: The REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS),” which was pre-published online in December 2016. (Key: TH = Thrombosis and Haemostasis; NZ = Neil Zakai)