Health and Medicine

Two novel proteins studied by a University at Buffalo professor of microbiology and immunology appear to have the potential to enhance the production of antibodies against a multitude of infectious agents.

Jurgen Bohnemeyer, assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, has received a 42-month $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to fund a comparative study of the representation of space in 15 indigenous languages of Guatemala and Mexico, many of which are severely under-documented and endangered.

R. Lorraine Collins, Ph.D., a prolific researcher in the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) for 22 years, has been appointed associate dean for research in the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions and a professor in its Department of Health Behavior.

Jean K. Brown, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, professor and interim dean of the University at Buffalo School of Nursing, has been named dean of the school following a national search, it was announced today by David L. Dunn, M.D., Ph.D., UB vice president for health sciences.

Children who don't have access to dental care are encouraged to sign up for the annual "Give Kids a Smile" day on Feb. 1, conducted by the School of Dental Medicine at the University at Buffalo and the Pediatric Dental Clinic at Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo.

Celebrex, a popular arthritis drug that blocks pain by inhibiting an enzyme known as COX-2, has been shown in laboratory studies to induce arrhythmia, or irregular beating of the heart, via a novel pathway unrelated to its COX-2 inhibition.

"Body Counts," the 12th annual International Women's Film Festival presented by the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender (IREWG) at the University at Buffalo, will open Jan. 31 and continue on Thursday evenings through March 6 in the Market Arcade Film and Arts Centre, 639 Main St.

A new chemical synthesis method based on a catalyst worth many times the price of gold and providing a far more efficient and economical method than traditional ones for designing and manufacturing extremely novel pharmaceutical compounds is described by its University at Buffalo developers in a review article in the current issue of Nature.

In an effort to improve this process and develop new guidelines for antibiotic use for a potentially deadly staph infection, University at Buffalo researchers are collecting bacterial isolates and clinical information from SAB-infected patients hospitalized in three area hospitals and following their charted progress through inpatient treatment, discharge and for a post-discharge period.

In the 21st century, human tissue can be generated from stem cells and severed limbs are successfully reattached, while the physiological processes governing life's most fundamental event, childbirth labor, remain a medical mystery.