Health and Medicine

The John R. Oishei Foundation has awarded $1.5 million to the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to establish a highly interactive, multidisciplinary Center for Research in Cardiovascular Medicine that will lead to better understanding of the mechanisms responsible for sudden cardiac death (SCD) in ischemic heart disease.

The difference in weight between two passenger vehicles, it turns out, is not the only "killer" factor in a head-on collision. Researchers in the University at Buffalo's Center for Transportation Injury Research have found that even when a passenger car weighs more than an SUV, passengers in the car remain at higher risk of dying in a head-on collision than passengers in the SUV.

Men who drink alcohol and have a predisposition for physical violence toward their female partners are more likely to be violent on the days they drink alcohol, according to a study conducted at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) and reported in the February 2003 issue of the American Psychological Association's Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

Robert Louis Stevenson once quipped that "Marriage...is a field of battle and not a bed of roses." He may be right, but researchers at the University at Buffalo and Stanford University say some marriages are rosier than others -- not because they have no battles, but because of the way the spouses deal with them. And how they deal, the researchers note, depends on how much the partners value themselves and feel valued by the other.

University at Buffalo scientists have discovered a promising new drug lead that works by inhibiting the sophisticated bacterial communication system called quorum sensing.

Fertility researchers at the University at Buffalo have shown that nicotine and cotinine, a substance produced by nicotine's breakdown, cause sperm to change in ways that could reduce fertility potential.

Binge drinking by African Americans who drink appears to negate the protective health effects seen in most groups who, as in this population, consume moderate amounts of alcohol in general, researchers at the University at Buffalo have found.

Gambling is widespread -- and spreading -- in American society with 82 percent of individuals interviewed having gambled in the past year, according to a national survey conducted at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) and reported in the Winter 2002 issue of the Journal of Gambling Studies. Previous surveys found gambling participation at 61 percent (1975) and 63 percent (1998).

With a new four-year, $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education (GSE) has announced it will establish new teacher education programs designed to improve classroom instruction for students in Buffalo and rural Western New York schools who have limited English proficiency (LEP).

Four University at Buffalo faculty members with expertise in cults and the ethical, legal and social implications of human cloning are available to members of the media covering claims made by Clonaid and the controversy surrounding human cloning.