Health and Medicine

Since 1999, the Uncrowned Queens Institute for Research and Education on Women at the University at Buffalo has collected, preserved and presented the written and oral histories of hundreds of female African-American community builders across Western New York state and southern Ontario. Now, with a $280,000 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the institute is preparing a series of 26 one-hour radio programs derived from its Uncrowned Queens archive that will begin broadcasting in May.

Schizophrenia researchers historically have aligned themselves into two opposing camps: structuralists and functionalists. Structuralists have pursued the idea that the brains of schizophrenics show structural changes in the cortex and brain stem. Functionalists have held to the dopamine antagonist theory: that the neurotransmitter dopamine is malfunctioning, causing the disease's characteristic delusions and hallucinations. UB researchers appear to have broken the stalemate.

Ronald C. Kessler, Ph.D., Harvard University professor and a major figure in the field of mental health in the U.S. and abroad, will present the J. Warren Perry Lecture on Oct. 13 at 3:30 p.m. in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall on UB's North (Amherst) Campus.

When an explosion, accidental cremation or a fire set deliberately to cover a crime destroys a body, precious little may remain to link it to a life once lived. Yet even among the ashes, a team of forensic dental researchers at the University at Buffalo has shown that evidence exists that can help identify human remains when all else -- flesh, bones, teeth, DNA -- is lost.

Western New York women who took part in the landmark 12-year Women's Health Initiative will be celebrated in a "WHI Participant Recognition Day" on Saturday, Sept. 30, from 10 a.m. to noon in front of Farber Hall on the UB South (Main Street) Campus.

Since X-rays were discovered more than a century ago, triggering a revolution in medical imaging, clinicians have sought more powerful ways to "see" into the human body. Now, with a $1.1 million grant from the John R. Oishei Foundation, researchers in the University at Buffalo's Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics are turning their expertise in nanomedicine to the development of new, nanoparticle-based multi-probe systems, launching a new generation of medical imaging.

The University at Buffalo is announcing significant changes in two of the 64 residency training programs that it operates jointly with area hospitals. The formerly suspended training program in otolaryngology (a specialty focusing on the ear, nose and throat) is being reestablished and the residency in radiology will be closed.

Physicians treating refugees and immigrant populations face a minefield of potential cultural gaffes. They should not touch a Muslim man during the initial interview. A nod of the head may mean "no" instead of "yes" if the patient is Albanian. Among Latinos, the head of the family, not the patient, makes treatment decisions. A $604,000 federal grant from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute to the University at Buffalo will help new and experienced physicians avoid such missteps.

Advanced research into the action of receptors involved in carrying chemical messages across certain brain synapses and all human nerve-muscle synapses has received increased momentum through a $4.63 million Jacob Javits Award in the Neurosciences to Anthony Auerbach, Ph.D., of the University at Buffalo.

Researchers at the University at Buffalo studying the effects of alcohol on the brain, using zebrafish as a model, have identified several novel central nervous system proteins that are affected by chronic alcohol exposure.