Health and Medicine

The Department of Veterans Affairs Western New York Healthcare System and the University at Buffalo today dedicated a new Positron Emission Tomography (PET) camera at the veterans' facility, 3495 Bailey Ave.

University at Buffalo biomedical engineers have acquired a rapid-prototyping machine to aid their groundbreaking efforts to manufacture living tissues and organs, and fabricate customized implants and prostheses, among other projects.

The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology Transfer (T2RERC) at the University at Buffalo has received a $4.75 million five-year grant from the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation Research to research, evaluate, transfer and commercialize assistive devices for persons with disabilities.

A computing division is teaching students how to put their computers to "sleep." A chemistry department found ways to reduce fume hood use without affecting classes or research. A library department found a way to recycle microfiches and microfilms. These are just a few of the University at Buffalo's environmental efforts being celebrated this Earth Day (April 22) as part of the new Green Partners program, organized by faculty, staff and students of UB's Environmental Task Force.

Blood tests to determine the amount of cholesterol and triglycerides in the bloodstream are nearly always conducted after a 12-hour fast. Increasingly, however, researchers are interested in levels of cholesterol and other lipids, particularly triglycerides, in the bloodstream after eating, which has been shown to be associated with the development of atherosclerosis. Researchers at the University at Buffalo have shown that one way to counter this destructive rise in blood lipids after eating is to include soy products in the diet.

"Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me: Narrative Poetry From Black Oral Tradition," a book collected and compiled by SUNY Distinguished Professor Bruce Jackson of the University at Buffalo, is back for a second go 'round.

The sitcom "Friends," which is ending its 10-year run on TV next month, will be remembered as one of those rare shows that marked a change in American culture, according to a pop-culture expert at the University at Buffalo.

A breakfast of Egg McMuffin and hash browns may taste good, but its high-fat, high-carbohydrate content wreaks havoc in the body's blood vessels, University at Buffalo endocrinologists have found.

Results of the clinical trial of estrogen supplementation for postmenopausal women who have had a hysterectomy, an arm of the Women's Health Initiative, show there is no overall health benefit to taking the hormone.

A patient who is losing large amounts of blood presents a medical emergency, requiring proper blood-typing and immediate access to multiple units of compatible blood. Health workers must hope that a transfusion doesn't add to the emergency and that the patient has no objection to receiving blood products. Then there are the cost and logistics of maintaining large stocks of blood at the ready. The solution to these problems may lie in an inorganic compound being developed as a blood substitute at the University at Buffalo.