Health and Medicine

According to researchers at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA), the odds of 18- and 19-year-old college women experiencing sexual aggression are 19 times greater when they binge drink than when they don't drink.

Children born with hydrocephalus, or "water on the brain" must have shunts implanted to drain the fluid away from the brain to reduce harmful pressure. While shunts do their job well, the rate of shunt infection in children is very high for a variety of reasons. Now a new trial conducted by faculty at the University at Buffalo has shown that using antimicrobial sutures to secure the shunt and close the wound significantly reduces the number of shunt infections arising during the first six months after surgery.

Over the last decade, energy drinks -- such as Red Bull, Monster and Rockstar -- have become nearly ubiquitous on college campuses. Although few researchers have examined energy drink consumption, a researcher at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) has been investigating links between energy drinks and public health concerns like substance abuse and risky behaviors.

Attendees at the 2008 Olympics a half-a-world away, Aug. 8-24, will experience a cultural jolt and may have some concerns about their health. Richard Lee, M.D., University at Buffalo professor of medicine, is a specialist in geographic medicine and travels frequently to China. He returned from there recently and offers suggestions for international travelers headed for Beijing.

A unique nanoparticle system developed by University at Buffalo scientists takes advantage of the versatility of bioconjugated quantum rods to ferry novel diagnostic and therapeutic agents across the blood-brain barrier, according to recent in vitro findings.

Linda M. Harris, M.D., associate professor of surgery at the University at Buffalo's School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the Society for Vascular Surgery at the society's 62nd Vascular Annual Meeting held June 5-8 in San Diego, Calif.

With females accounting for between 10 and 15 percent of all U.S. engineers, high school can sometimes get lonely for young women who are interested in engineering and technology. But that won't be the case this week when 16 tech-minded young women entering grades 10-12 attend the University at Buffalo's 2008 Fisher-Price Cyber Engineering Workshop for Young Women.

Pharmaceutical researchers at the University at Buffalo have joined forces with scientists from several of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies to tackle fundamental research questions that need to be answered to advance development of promising protein-based drugs.

Researchers at the University at Buffalo -- the first to identify the anti-inflammatory and cardioprotective properties of insulin -- now have discovered one pathway through which the hormone produces this effect.

It's well documented that children of obese parents are at risk of becoming obese early in life, and that obese children are at risk of becoming obese adults. Now, in the first study of its kind in the U.S., University at Buffalo researchers, who have been at the forefront of the fight against childhood obesity for nearly three decades, will test a family-based weight-control intervention in three large pediatric practices in Western New York, funded by a $2.58 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.