-
Fauci joins Georgetown faculty
This summer, infectious diseases expert and advisor to seven presidents Anthony Fauci, M.D., joined the Georgetown faculty as a Distinguished University Professor, the university’s highest professional honor that recognizes extraordinary achievement in scholarship, teaching, and service.
Category: Story
-
The curious brain
From the time he was a young boy, fascinated with dinosaurs and his rock collection, Zac Colon (G’21) always felt drawn to the sciences. He liked understanding how organisms and systems worked—at one point even informing his parents he wanted to autopsy a dead squirrel.
Category: Story
-
Long-term Study Supports Link Between Inflammation and Cognitive Problems in Older Breast Cancer Survivors
Scientists are still trying to understand why many breast cancer survivors experience troubling cognitive problems for years after treatment. Inflammation is one possible culprit. A new long-term study of older breast cancer survivors, published today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, adds important evidence to that potential link.
Category: Story
-
Studies of Cytosolic DNAs in the Interactions of Aging Hallmarks (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) – RFA-AG-23-015
The accumulation of DNA in the cytosol (the fluid portion of a cell’s cytoplasm) has important associations with aging, cellular senescence, and decline of cellular and physiological functions. The goal of this FOA is to explore cytosolic DNAs as integrators of hallmark interactions and instigators of downstream events leading to age-related cellular and tissue deterioration. Deadline October 11, 2022.
Category: Funding
-
Mapping Interconnectivity Among Hallmarks of Aging Under Lifespan Modifications (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) – RFA-AG-23-013
This FOA is designed to discover whether there are hierarchies among the hallmarks that underlie different changes with age, or if there is a threshold beyond which the hallmarks and/or their interactions with one another become “tipping points” that beyond which the aging process cannot be reversed. Deadline October 11, 2022.
Category: Funding
-
Inter-Organelle Communication as a Platform to Interrogate the Interactions of Hallmarks of Aging (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) – RFA-AG-23-012
Contact sites where the membranes of cell organelles come together are critical hubs for the transfer of ions, metabolites, lipids, and proteins that have important roles in cellular aging. This FOA aims to deepen our mechanistic understanding of organelle communication and how it shapes the interactions of the hallmarks of aging. Deadline October 11, 2022.
Category: Funding
-
Research Reveals How Aging Cells Can Be an Underlying Cause of Kidney Damage
A study in mice by researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center has found that stress and tissue damage initiated by angiotensin II, a molecule that is known to increase blood pressure and stiffening in the linings of blood vessels, leads to cellular senescence, a process by which a cell ages and permanently stops dividing but does not die. Importantly, when the researchers eliminated senescent cells from the mice, tissues returned to a normal state in spite of a continued infusion of angiotensin II.
Category: Story
-
Reducing your risk of cognitive disease: A $12M research study, 60 years in the making
A McCourt researcher has dedicated her career to aging research and a decades-old study, revealing a non-medical intervention that proves resilient against dementia.
Category: Story
-
Trial Stopped Early: Giving Immunotherapy Before Targeted Rx Improves Survival in Advanced Melanoma
More people with advanced melanoma survive for two years or more when they receive a combination of two immunotherapy drugs given before a combination of two targeted therapies, if needed, compared to people who start treatment with targeted therapies. The finding comes from a clinical trial that was stopped early because definitive results became apparent sooner than expected. It provides strong evidence for how best to treat patients with melanoma that has a specific mutation: Immunotherapy is the better initial approach even for people whose tumors have a mutation that could be treated by targeted therapies.
Category: Story
-
Vascular Defects Appear to Underlie the Progression of Parkinson’s Disease
In an unexpected discovery, Georgetown University Medical Center researchers have identified what appears to be a significant vascular defect in patients with moderately severe Parkinson’s disease. The finding could help explain an earlier outcome of the same study, in which the drug nilotinib was able to halt motor and nonmotor (cognition and quality of life) decline in the long term.
Category: Story