Researchers found that mitochondrial dysfunction in the blood-brain barrier (BBB) may lead to neuropsychiatric disease in some patients with 22qDS. The researchers also demonstrated that a class of FDA-approved cholesterol drugs could potentially be repurposed to treat this dysfunction.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute researcher Catherine Whittington has been awarded a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation to develop three distinct laboratory models for the study of fibrosis in pancreas, skin, and uterine fibroids.

A collaboration between Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital’s Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) has produced a breakthrough in how to study and classify complex diseases. The new method, called the Causal Pivot, gives researchers a powerful way to detect hidden genetic drivers and subgroup patients by true biological causes of their illnesses using new computational tools developed in the research, paving the way for major advances in personalized genetic medicine. The research was recently published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.