-
Rewriting survival
Fifty years ago, a breast cancer diagnosis meant a similarly aggressive path for nearly everyone: highly invasive surgery to remove as much tissue as possible—sometimes including not just the breast but the lymph nodes and chest muscle—often combined with toxic chemotherapy and radiation.
Category: Story
-
A better journey
When Georgetown family medicine physician Sarah Kureshi felt a strange mass in her toddler daughter’s stomach, she suspected something like an intussusception, an intestinal blockage. Two-and-half-year-old Nusayba had vomited once that morning, but was feeling better. Still, to be sure, her mother brought her to the hospital to be evaluated.
Category: Story
-
The resilient brain
It happens in an instant. One moment, you’re reaching for a coffee mug, preparing breakfast—and the next, everything changes. Your right side feels impossibly heavy, and fingers refuse to respond. Words form in your mind but won’t come out of your mouth. Each passing moment could mean the difference between recovery and life-altering disability.
Category: Story
-
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