Health and Medicine

The visitor in Barry Willer's office at the University at Buffalo was frustrated and deeply depressed. The man's wife had sustained a relatively mild traumatic brain injury, and he was doing all he could to support her. But despite his best efforts, the man's wife described him to friends as being "indifferent." He was at his wits end.

University at Buffalo researcher John Violanti, Ph.D., a specialist in suicide among police officers, is preparing to conduct a study on suicide risk among returning veterans. The U.S. Army yesterday reported a "stunning spike" in the number of soldiers taking their own lives.

A family sociologist at the University at Buffalo says this month's murder-suicides involving a family of four in Ohio and a family of five in California may be "just the tip of the iceberg."

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been identified as the "signature injury" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To meet the needs of veterans with TBI, the VA's Health Services Research & Development Unit is funding a $1.4 million, four-year prospective cohort study of Iraq and Afghanistan-era veterans, headed by University at Buffalo researchers at the Buffalo VA Medical Center. The results will be used nationwide.

As the United States continues to experience a nursing shortage that is expected to grow to one million nurses by 2016, a new research study highlights a pool of potential candidates who could alleviate the shortage in an economical way.

People who lose a job or who are in the midst a financial crisis often are reluctant to talk about their struggles and may isolate themselves from friends and family. A faculty member in the UB School of Social Work offers advice and how to reach out to those hit by financial crunch.

Infants exposed prenatally to cocaine react more emotionally to stress and appear to have fewer stress-reducing coping strategies than infants with no cocaine exposure, researchers at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) have shown.

Sixty New York State pharmacists will be eligible for certification to administer flu and pneumonia shots after completing a training session at the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences on Saturday.

During normal growth and development, cells in the body communicate with each other through protein receptors on the cell surface. Among the proteins used for this communication are receptor tyrosine kinases, or RTKs, which have been shown to play a critical role in the development and progression of many cancers by transmitting too much signal. A biochemist at the University at Buffalo has received $720,000 from the American Cancer Society to study how the RTK signaling pathway functions.

To tackle an increasing global infectious disease burden and rising rates of drug-resistant infections, University at Buffalo philosophers are working with medical researchers to develop the first-ever infectious disease ontology.