News | Page 9 | Graduate School of Medical Sciences

Designing Self-Destructing Bacteria to Make Effective Tuberculosis Vaccines

Working toward more effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccines, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have developed two strains of mycobacteria with "kill switches" that can be triggered to stop the bacteria after they activate an immune response. Two preclinical studies, published, Jan. 10 in Nature Microbiology, tackle the challenge of engineering bacteria that are safe for use in controlled human infection trials or as better vaccines. While TB is under control in most developed countries, the...

image of islets and blood vessels, both host and grafted

Islet Transplantation with Blood Vessel Cells Shows Promise to Treat Type 1 Diabetes

Adding engineered human blood vessel-forming cells to islet transplants boosted the survival of the insulin-producing cells and reversed diabetes in a preclinical study led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The new approach, which requires further development and testing, could someday enable the much wider use of islet transplants to cure diabetes.

Islets, found in the pancreas, are clusters of insulin-secreting and other cells enmeshed in tiny, specialized blood vessels. The...

Atomic force microscopy images of hepatitis B DNA

Digging Into a Decades-Old Hepatitis B Mystery Suggests a New Potential Treatment

In their effort to answer a decades-old biological question about how the hepatitis B virus (HBV) is able to establish infection of liver cells, research led by Weill Cornell Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and The Rockefeller University identified a vulnerability that opens the door to new treatments.

The team successfully disrupted the virus’s ability to infect human liver cells in the laboratory using a compound already in clinical trials against cancer —...

New Therapy May Effectively Control HIV in Uganda

A multi-national, multi-institutional study led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators found little natural resistance to a new HIV therapy called lenacapavir in a population of patients in Uganda.

The study, published Jan. 30 in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, adds to growing evidence that lenacapavir may be a powerful new tool in the global anti-HIV drug arsenal. Approximately, 1.5 million people are living with HIV in Uganda.

“Our data shows that only 1.6% of the...

Two Weill Cornell Medicine Faculty Members Elected to ASCI

Two Weill Cornell Medicine physician-scientists, Dr. Niroshana Anandasabapathy and Dr. Rohit Chandwani, have been elected members of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) for 2025.

One of the nation’s oldest nonprofit medical honor societies, the ASCI is comprised of more than 3,000 physician-scientists serving in the upper ranks of academic medicine and industry. Members are renowned for translating innovative laboratory findings into...

Cancer’s Ripple Effect May Promote Blood Clot Formation in the Lungs

Blood clots form in response to signals from the lungs of cancer patients—not from other organ sites, as previously thought—according to a preclinical study by Weill Cornell Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and University of California San Diego Health. Clots are the second-leading cause of death among cancer patients with advanced disease or aggressive tumors.

While blood clots usually form to stop a wound from bleeding, cancer patients can form clots without...

image showing pancreatic islets in green and islet endothelial cells in red

Mapping of Specialized Blood Vessel Cells May Lead to Diabetes Treatments

The distinct population of endothelial cells that line blood vessels in the insulin-producing “islets” of the human pancreas have been notoriously difficult to study, but Weill Cornell Medicine investigators have now succeeded in comprehensively detailing the unique characteristics of these cells. The resulting atlas advances basic research on the biology of the pancreas and could lead to new treatment strategies for diabetes and other pancreatic diseases.

In the study, published Feb....

Fluorescence image showing the basolateral amygdala with projections from the insular cortex and prefrontal cortex stained red and green

Advanced Brain Circuit-Mapping Technique Reveals New Anxiety Drug Target

Weill Cornell Medicine investigators have identified in a preclinical model a specific brain circuit whose inhibition appears to reduce anxiety without side effects. Their work suggests a new target for treating anxiety disorders and related conditions and demonstrates a general strategy, based on a method called photopharmacology, for mapping drug effects on the brain.

In their study, published Jan. 28 in Neuron, the researchers examined the effects of experimental drug compounds that...

photo of Black woman holding her wrist as though it hurts

Communities of Color Face Greater Barriers in Accessing Opioid Medications for Pain Management

Non-white communities had significantly less access to opioid medications commonly prescribed for moderate to severe pain than white communities over the decade beginning in 2011, according to a study by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers.

The findings, published Jan. 21 in Pain, stretched across all socioeconomic groups, and suggest that communities of color may be especially vulnerable to the unintended consequences of efforts to reduce unsafe use of opioid analgesics.

From...

image of two naloxone nasal spray units, a blue NYC carrying case and an instruction packet

Research Highlights Prevention Efforts in Fentanyl Overdoses

The overwhelming majority of those in New York City who obtained a naloxone kit to counteract opioid overdose had a high need for the drug, according to a new study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The study, published Jan. 16 in the Journal of Urban Health, found that 97% of people who received naloxone kits through various opioid overdose prevention programs were at high risk of overdosing or witnessing an overdose...