Health and Medicine

As a mechanical engineer, Hui Meng built her career on the study of turbulent flows generated by jet engines, aerosol particles and other aerodynamic systems. Today she's turned her focus to biomedical engineering and is applying her skills to understanding flow in the tiny blood vessels that lead to the human brain.

Some of the leading figures at the forefront of the new field of "computational anatomy" will be at the University at Buffalo next week to attend a conference titled "Mapping the Human Body: Spatial Reasoning at the Interface Between Human Anatomy and Geographic Information Science."

As an estimated two million people gather in Vatican City this week to mourn the death of Pope John Paul II, their public grieving is less about personal pain and more about honoring the memory of someone they greatly admired, according to an expert on bereavement and mourning at the University at Buffalo.

Working with survivors of terrible and sometimes nightmarish car accidents, University at Buffalo psychologist J. Gayle Beck has developed a new group-therapy treatment program for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of their accidents.

Ho-Leung Fung, professor and chair emeritus in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, has been named the editor-in-chief of The AAPS Journal.

As part of National Alcohol Screening Day, the Clinical Research Center at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions will offer Buffalo-area residents the opportunity to look at their drinking style to see if they are social drinkers or have crossed the line into problem-drinking territory.

Good news may be on the horizon for the millions who struggle with chronic bad breath with the identification by oral biologists at the University at Buffalo of several previously unknown halitosis-related bacteria that may represent new targets for treatment.

Gayle A. Brazeau, associate dean for academic affairs in the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, has been appointed to a three-year term as an associate editor for the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education.

Shamanism, humankind's oldest spiritual and healing tradition, is in many cultures dominated by men, and Western skeptics often debunk its effectiveness. In a groundbreaking new book published this month by Random House, however, Barbara Tedlock of the University at Buffalo challenges the historical hegemony of the male shamanic tradition, restores women to their essential place in the history of spirituality and celebrates their continuing role in the worldwide resurgence of shamanism.

The University of Buffalo has signed an agreement with Sleep Solutions, Inc., the medical device and health-care services company providing direct-to-patient testing services, to commercialize and distribute an innovative diagnostic testing technology for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and Cheyne-Stokes respiration (CSR).