Kennesaw State University’s Lei Shi, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, is working to change how doctors diagnose and treat gastrointestinal disorders with virtual replicas of human stomachs.

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS) in Japan have discovered why smoking tobacco helps people suffering from ulcerative colitis, a chronic disease typified by inflammation of the large intestine. The study shows that smoking produces metabolites that encourage bacteria from the mouth to grow in the large intestines where they trigger an immune response that suppresses the inflammation. These findings imply that protection against ulcerative colitis can be achieved through prebiotics like hydroquinone or probiotic therapy with bacteria like Streptococcus mitis, thus eliminating the need to smoke and all the associated risks for other diseases.

A team of scientists led by the Institute for Glial Sciences (IGS) at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine has discovered a built-in “brake” that controls when key brain cells mature.