Health and Medicine

The University at Buffalo's School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences today announced a strategic alliance with Pfizer, Inc., that will provide up to $7.5 million to develop at UB a Center of Excellence in Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics and to support training and research in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.

The nearly decade-long dietary modification trial of the national Women's Health Initiative(WHI), which tested the effect of a diet low in total fat and high in fruits, vegetables and whole grains, showed that that diet had no statistically significant effect on rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart disease and stroke.

The School of Dental Medicine at the University at Buffalo has received $3.3 million to participate in the first large-scale prospective clinical study of risk factors that contribute to the development of temporomandibular joint and muscle disorders.

From automatic jar openers to remote controls for washer and dryers, a new program at the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology Transfer at the University at Buffalo is helping major corporations produce next-generation consumer products that are "more usable and accessible to all," including persons with disabilities and the elderly.

The Jacobs Neurological Institute of the University at Buffalo has received a $1.8 million, five-year grant from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society to establish at Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo one of six Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Centers of Excellence that it is creating in the United States.

It is estimated that one person in the United States commits suicide every 17 minutes. Three years ago, one of them was Anthony Barr, the 20-year-old brother of media artist Chris Barr, a student in the Department of Media Study at the University at Buffalo, who has produced a unique performance piece and video blog titled "17 Minutes," in which he invites visitors to consider one of the worst losses possible.

For the 10th year running, the University at Buffalo's Gender Institute will present an International Women's Film Festival as a way of highlighting both worthy artists and worthy issues often ignored in the mainstream of American culture.

Workplace alcohol use and impairment directly affects an estimated 15 percent of the U.S. workforce, or 19.2 million workers, according to a recent study conducted at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) and reported in the current issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol.

For diabetes patients, who can't produce their own insulin, human stem cell-based transplants that produce insulin would be a major breakthrough. But current laboratory methods of culturing human stem cells result in very limited quantities, far short of the quantities necessary for therapeutic applications. For that reason, Emmanouhl (Manolis) Tzanakakis, Ph.D., is striving to boost the numbers of stem cells produced in the laboratory, expanding the pool of cells that eventually can be differentiated into insulin-producing cells.

Being hospitalized can be a traumatic experience, especially for older persons. Hospitals are noisy, disorienting, full of strangers and infections often spread among patients. Now a new study has shown that for older persons with certain acute conditions, hospital-level care can be provided at home for less money and with fewer clinical complications than in-hospital care.