School of Medicine

Samuel A. Canaan Jr., M.D., assistant professor emeritus of clinical ophthalmology and visual sciences, died Friday, Oct. 19 at age 85.

Photo by Robert BostonResearchers presented posters of their basic, clinical and translational research at the Research Training Symposium and Poster Session Oct. 25.

F. Sessions Cole, M.D., has been awarded a nearly $2 million, five-year grant to establish a career development program in the genetics and genomics of lung disease.

A School of Medicine faculty member has written a book about how she overcome her anxiety and panic attacks.

Normal lung air passage (left) and asthmatic lung air passage after viral infectionBabies who get severe respiratory viral infections are much more likely to suffer from asthma as they get older. Now researchers at the School of Medicine have pinpointed a key step in the development of asthma in mice after a severe respiratory infection. They suggest that medications designed to interfere with this mechanism could potentially prevent many cases of childhood asthma.

ImaiThe body’s fat cells help the pancreas do its job of secreting insulin, according to research at the School of Medicine led by senior author Shin-Ichiro Imai. This previously unrecognized process ultimately could lead to new methods to improve glucose metabolism in type 2 diabetic or insulin-resistant people.

Scientists at the School of Medicine, working as part of an international team of researchers, have completed a massive effort to map the genetic changes underlying the most commonly diagnosed form of lung cancer. Their results are published in the Nov. 4 advance online issue of the journal Nature.

School of Medicine researchers have found that a protein that they believe may provide a novel approach for obesity treatment in the future.

Six School of Medicine faculty have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society. The highest honor awarded by AAAS, the rank of fellow is bestowed upon members by their peers in recognition of scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.

ApteStudying a mouse model of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in older Americans, scientists at the School of Medicine have found age is key in determining whether damaging blood vessels will form beneath the retina and contribute to vision loss. The scientists, led by principal investigator Rajendra Apte, discovered that specific immune cells called macrophages play a role in the disease process in older mice by failing to block the development of abnormal, leaky blood vessels behind the retina.