Health and Medicine

It might not seem like it if you've recently spent your lunch hour waiting in line for a flu shot, but New York State has one of nation's lowest immunization rates for flu and pneumonia, a factor that may contribute to the more than 5,000 deaths of New York State residents every year from these diseases.

Researchers affiliated with the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions have been awarded two grants focusing on couples therapy and family treatment for alcoholism and drug abuse, which are among the most effective, but rarely used substance-abuse treatment programs because they are labor-intensive and costly to deliver.

Despite the high volume of shopping done on the Internet each day, many consumers fail to make online purchases because of continued reluctance to engage in transactions with intermediaries that are not familiar and trusted, according to a study by researchers at the University at Buffalo School of Management.

As he packed off the army knapsack used by renowned "wartime poet" Robert Graves, Robert Bertholf -- curator of the University at Buffalo Poetry and Rare Books Collection -- reflected on the value of the items he often sends to museums from around the world. The knapsack was sent last month to the Imperial War Museum in London, where it is part of the exhibition, "Anthem for Doomed Youth: Twelve Soldier Poets of the First World War." It is one of four major exhibits in which the UB Poetry and Rare Books Collection, which is quietly achieving international notoriety for its significance, is participating over the next few months.

A study centering on two emerging theories on the causes of diabetes in adults will be conducted by researchers at the University at Buffalo over the next three years, funded by a $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Piero Bianco produces movies. Not films that chronicle the human condition, a la Hollywood. His subject is human biology at its most basic -- the translocation and unwinding of DNA by a DNA motor protein. Bianco is the first to record on videotape in real time a molecule of a particular DNA motor protein in the process of "unzipping" a double strand of bacterial DNA.

The role of plant-based estrogens in modifying breast-cancer risk is the subject of a five-year research study and intervention to be conducted by nutritional epidemiologists at the University at Buffalo.

A new, patented nanotechnology that one day may allow cancer patients to receive treatments through an MRI procedure in a doctor's office is being developed by scientists at the University at Buffalo's Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics and a French nanotechnology firm, Nanobiotix, Inc.

Diabetic women who use hormone replacement therapy (HRT) were more likely to have their blood glucose under control, and have lower cholesterol levels than women who never used hormone therapy, a study by University at Buffalo epidemiologists has found.

University at Buffalo scientists have been awarded a $2 million National Science Foundation grant to use new technologies, such as grid computing, data mining and collaborative environments, to enhance protein-structure determination, a key tool in the rational drug-design process, where the discovery of new pharmaceuticals is based on precise knowledge of protein structures.