Medical research and innovation : Buzz

Baltimore named one of best cities for baby boomers

Forbes Tuesday, July 16, 2013

The Greater Baltimore area is among the best places for baby boomers to settle down, according to a study that recently appeared on Forbes.

Conducted by the finance website NerdWallet, the study took into account affordability, available health care, social activities and accessibility. Its goal was to find locations across the U.S. that provide people in their 50s and 60s with opportunities for an active, social lifestyle, as well as low costs that will ease the transition into retirement.

Baltimore ranked No. 4 on the list due to the proximity of Johns Hopkins Medical Center and activities like life-enrichment classes and entertainment.

Pittsburgh was awarded best city for baby boomers, due to its accessibility, large population of baby boomers and availability of a wide range of activities from architecture classes to events. Third on the list was Cleveland.

You can read the full list here.

Forbes chats with company about designing Baltimore company's mobile app

Forbes Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Forbes recently interviewed the owner of a company that redesigned WellDoc's mobile app. Based in Baltimore, WellDoc has created the first FDA-approved app to manage diabetes.

In an article titled "6 Things You Should Do When Designing for Mobile," Forbes chats with Moment Design Inc. Principal John Payne about redesigning the WellDoc app so it can be commercialized.

Holding a design charette, or a collaborative approach to design, and gathering insights about the user experience, were among Payne's recommendations. Read the entire story here.

Johns Hopkins Dedicates $1.1B Hospital with Michael Bloomberg

Wall Street Journal Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Johns Hopkins University dedicated its new $1.1 billion hospital this month and Hopkins alum and major donor New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was on hand for the ceremony.

"The 205-room Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center features 10 surgical suites, a 45-bed neonatal intensive care unit," the Wall Street Journal writes.

"Bloomberg, 70 years old, graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1964 with a degree in engineering," the Journal writes. "He is the single-largest donor in the university’s history, giving more than $800 million since 1965 and contributing $120 million to the construction of the hospital."

Bloomberg Philanthropies funded 500 works of art, the paper writes. You can read the rest of the story here.

Johns Hopkins Unveils $1.1B Hospital

Baltimore Sun Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Johns Hopkins Hospital has unveiled its $1.1 billion twin towers. The new hospital will open April 29, reports the Baltimore Sun.

"There will be X-boxes and a basketball court for kids, single rooms for all patients, sleeper-sofas for family, an improved dining menu and extensive sound proofing," the Sun writes.

You can read more about the new hospital here.

And you can read Bmore Media's story on the hospital here.

Baltimore Has Nation's Top Hospital Care

U.S. News & World Report Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Baltimore leads the nation in overall hospital care, according to a report from ratings service HealthGrades.

The survey got Baltimore national attention from a variety of news outlets, including U.S. News & World Report, which ran a HealthDay News item on its website.

"Baltimore had nine top-performing hospitals out of 19 eligible hospitals in the city," the website says.

Phoenix, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Richmond, Va.; and Cincinnati rounded out the top five.

You can read the rest of the story here.

Report: Maryland Ranks Middle of the Pack for Healthy States

Baltimore Business Journal Tuesday, December 13, 2011

People in Vermont are the most healthful in the nation while those in Mississippi rank at the bottom. That's according to America's Health Ranking, a report that assesses residents' smoking, obesity, homicide and infant mortality rates, among other factors.

Maryland ranked No. 22 on the list. It scored favorably for a reduction in its smoking rate and a decrease in its violent crime rate. But it has a high infant mortality rate and levels of air pollution, according to the report.

You can read the rest of the analysis here.

Son's Autism Casts Hopkins Researcher in Dual Role

NPR.com Tuesday, December 07, 2010

What happens when you're both father and doctor? NPR tells the tale of a JHU psychologist whose son was diagnosed with autism.

Here's an excerpt:

"When a parent receives a diagnosis that his or her child has a condition with no known cure or treatment, it may be hard to know where to turn � even if the parent is a professional with the expertise to take matters into his own hands.

Dr. Barry Gordon, a neurologist and an experimental psychologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, faced the challenge of both treating and studying his son's condition. And in doing so, he pushed the limits of scientific research � and parental devotion."

Read the entire article.
Listen to the story.

Johns Hopkins Study on Food Gets Mention in Hartford Courant

Hartford Courant Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Food tastes better if you work harder for it. That's according to a study conducted by Johns Hopkins University researchers, highlighted in an article in the Hartford Courant.

"That's the finding of a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University. Their experiment focused on two groups of mice. One group had to push a lever once to get a morsel of food. The other had to push the lever 15 times before getting their reward � a morsel of the same kind of food.The mice that worked harder ate more of the food and seemed to enjoy it more (based on their 'licking behavior')."

You can read the story here.

TEDCO's New Chief Hopes to Expand Agency's Mission

The Washington Post Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Maryland Technology Development Corporation's new head, Robert A. Rosenbaum, took a little time out to talk with The Washington Post about his plans for the agency.

Here's an excerpt:

"Rosenbaum, a former managing director of Baltimore-based Nobska Ventures, also is pushing to close a gap in how the money is handed out. Too often, early-stage companies are left gasping for funds as they mature. If funding permits, he wants Tedco to fill that gap by following up on its seed investments with a second infusion of cash to help promising companies grow."

Read the entire article.

Maryland Joins National Effort to Fight Blood Infections

Infection Control Today ,the Los Angeles Times,Baltimore Sun Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Maryland hospitals are joining the fight to eliminate bloodstream infections. The state's 38 hospitals are adopting preventative guidelines established by Johns Hopkins Hospital physician Dr. Peter Pronovost.

Maryland's effort was featured in Infection Control Today and the Los Angeles Times, which picked up a story thatoriginally appeared in the Baltimore Sun.

Johns Hopkins is No. 1 again in research spending

National Science Foundation Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Johns Hopkins University, Greater Baltimore's largest employer, spends more than any other university on medical, science and engineering research. Johns Hopkins spent $1.85 billion on this research in fiscal 2009, according to the National Science Foundation, which tracked 711 institutions.

Rounding out the top five were the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, Madison; University of California, San Francisco, and University of California, Los Angeles.

You can see the National Science Foundation report here.

Hopkins University researchers get $34.5M to test thought-controlled prosthetic limb system

ScienceDaily Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Scientists at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, based in Laurel, MD, want to get into the minds of amputees who use prosthetic limbs. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded researchers a $34.5 million contract to begin testing a new prosthetic limb system controlled by the amputees' thoughts.

Here's an excerpt:

"APL scientists and engineers developed the underlying technology under DARPA's Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 program, an ambitious four-year effort to create a prosthetic arm that would by far eclipse the World War II era hook-and-cable device used by most amputees. The program has already produced two complex prototypes, each advancing the art of upper-arm prosthetics.

The final design -- the MPL -- offers 22 degrees of motion, including independent movement of each finger, in a package that weighs about nine pounds (the weight of a natural limb). Providing nearly as much dexterity as a natural limb, the MPL is capable of unprecedented mechanical agility and is designed to respond to a user's thoughts."

Read the entire article here.

Hopkins study helps Charm City corner stores go healthy

Physorg.com Tuesday, May 04, 2010

If you can't beat them, join them. That seems to be the philosophy behind a Johns Hopkins study seeking to find a solution to Baltimore's "food deserts." Many Baltimore neighborhoods do not have a local grocery store or supermarket that offer healthy eating alternatives to combat the glut of fast food that is available.

Hee-Jung Song, Ph.D., a researcher in the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, is studying whether Baltimore's ubiquitous corner stores, might just be the solution.

Here's an excerpt:

"In Baltimore, corner storeowners increased their stocking, promotion and sales of healthier foods and customers showed a tendency to buy and prepare more fruits and vegetables through one such program.

"Inner-city Baltimore is a 'food desert" with many fast food restaurants and corner stores, but few supermarkets," said lead author Hee-Jung Song, Ph.D., a researcher in the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. "These food environments result in less availability of and accessibility to healthy food and impact on the kinds of food consumed by low-income residents."

The study appears online in the journal Health Promotion Practice.

The Baltimore Healthy Store program provided monetary incentives or free food to store owners, coordinated education about nutrition and developed guidelines for the owners to follow to help overcome language and cultural barriers. This is important, since most corner storeowners in Baltimore are Korean-American, while the customers largely are African-American."

Read the entire article here.

Prof wins Stockholm Water Prize

Mother Nature Network Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Swedes have been at it again, handing out prizes to American researchers. It ain't a Noble Prize, but the work of Rita Colwell, a professor at the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Heath has won the Stockholm Water Prize for her research that has helped solve many water-related public health problems including cholera.

Here's an excerpt

"Colwell, 76, received the award for her "numerous seminal contributions towards solving the world's water and water-related public health problems," the jury of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.

Her work, especially on preventing the spread of cholera, "has established the basis for environmental and infectious disease risk assessment used around the world" and "is of the utmost global importance," it added in a statement.

The 76-year-old professor at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health was also honoured for being one of the first to study "the impact of climate change on the spread of disease," SIWI scientific director Per-Arne Malmqvist told a gathering in Stockholm where the prize was announced."

Read the entire article here.

Dorothy Hamill and Kennedy Krieger I-Skate program makes Today's Good News

Today Show Tuesday, February 02, 2010

A new partnership teaming Olympic Gold Medalist Dorothy Hamill with Kennedy Krieger's I-Skate program was featured in the Today Show's "Good News Today" segment.

Watch the video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Part of the Physically Challenged Sports Program at Kennedy Krieger, I-Skate offers children with physical disabilities the unique opportunity to learn how to ice skate�not only improving their health and independence, but providing important social interaction with their peers.

Launched in November 2009, the I-Skate program is open to children ages 5 to 18 with a wide range of physical disabilities that can include cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, limb differences and paralysis. Specially designed adaptive ice skates, walkers, ice sleds and helmets make it possible for these children to participate in weekly skating sessions. The program participants range from children who may eventually become independent skaters to those who may always use a walker for support.