A new Northwestern University study using patient nervous tissue and lab-grown human neurons has uncovered how a key disease protein, TDP-43, drives overactive nerve cells in the neurodegenerative diseases ALS and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). 

The findings not only explain a long-standing mystery of why nerve cells overfire in ALS and FTD but also highlight a promising new drug to slow or prevent disease progression.

People living with HIV who smoke are more likely to die from lung cancer than HIV. With more than $3 million from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, Hollings Cancer Center researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina will seek to improve access to evidence-based tobacco cessation treatments for people living with HIV by training pharmacists at six Ryan White clinics in South Carolina as tobacoo treatment specialists and working with them to develop processes to ensure lasting success of the program.

Medical University of South Carolina researchers report in iScience the first in-human visualization of an important hub of the brain’s lymphatic drainage system – the middle meningeal artery. The team visualized fluid flow along the MMA and found it to be passive, and so characteristic of lymphatic flow. Findings were confirmed at the cellular level. Understanding waste removal in healthy brains will shed light on what goes wrong in neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases.