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Scientists at Johns Hopkins take a closer look at how zebrafish regenerate eye tissue

Mon, 17 Jul 2017 08:45:00 -0400

Johns Hopkins researchers report evidence that the natural ability of zebrafish to regenerate retinal tissue in their eyes can be accelerated by controlling the fishes' immune systems.

The new findings may one day advance efforts to combat degenerative eye disease damage in humans, the scientists say, because evolution likely conserved this mechanism of regenerative potential in other animals. A report on their experiments was published in April in Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences.

"Humans have an evolutionary block on our ability to regenerate certain tissues. But humans still have the genetic machinery needed to regenerate retinal tissue, if we can activate and control it."

Jeffrey Mumm

Associate professor of opthalmology

"At the cellular level, zebrafish and human eyes are remarkably similar," said Jeffrey Mumm, associate professor of ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Both human and zebrafish eyes contain Müller glia, an "inducible" stem cell type that gives zebrafish their remarkable regenerative abilities. The researchers say they found evidence that microglia, a cell type found in most vertebrae innate immune systems, affect the Müller glia's regenerative response and can be harnessed to accelerate the growth of new tissue in the retina.

For the study, researchers created a model of the human degenerative retinal disease retinitis pigmentosa in zebrafish by incorporating a gene for a specialized enzyme into the rod cells of the fish retina. The enzyme has the novel ability to convert a chemical (metronidazole) into a toxin, allowing researchers to selectively kill the cells expressing it.

After initiating photoreceptor loss in the fish retinas, the researchers monitored the immune system's response by tracking the activity of three types of fluorescently labeled immune cells in and around the eye: neutrophils, microglia, and peripheral macrophages. They were able to follow the activity of the immune cells using time-lapse 3-D microscopy imaging of fish retinas.

They found that neutrophils, the type of immune cells that are typically the first responders to tissue injury, were largely unresponsive to photoreceptor death. They also observed that the peripheral macrophages sensed the injury but were unable to penetrate the blood-retinal barrier to access the dying cells.

Image caption: Zebrafish larvae and fluorescently marked immune cells allow researchers to track immune system activity in a model of retinal degeneration.

Image credit: David White / Hopkins Medicine

Microglia were the only cells the researchers saw that were able to both respond to the injury and reach the injured cells.

"We could see the peripheral macrophages wanted to do something, but could not gain access," Mumm said. "Neutrophils didn't even detect that something had happened, but the microglia were at the right place at the right time."

Building on that evidence, the researchers conducted tests in zebrafish with the specialized enzyme incorporated into both rod cells and microglial cells, removing both cell types to ask what role microglia play during regeneration. They found that when microglia were also lost, Müller glia showed almost no regenerative activity after three days of recovery, compared with approximately 75 percent regeneration in the control population.

The researchers hope that by harnessing the ability to improve regeneration in zebrafish, they can better understand how to induce regeneration in human eyes, which share many of the same mechanisms for controlling regenerative potential. In the future, the researchers hope to improve their imaging techniques to build a more comprehensive understanding of how immune cells impact the regeneration process.

"Humans have an evolutionary block on our ability to regenerate certain tissues," Mumm said. "But humans still have the genetic machinery needed to regenerate retinal tissue, if we can activate and control it."

Funding for this research came from the National Eye Institute and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

Note: The value of Luminomics' products could be impacted by the outcome of this study. Mumm is a founder of Luminomics, and his spouse, Meera Saxena, owns shares of Luminomics' stock. This arrangement has been reviewed and approved by Johns Hopkins University in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.

Fresh take on 'The Freshman': Peabody alum adds organ accompaniment for slapstick silent movie

Fri, 14 Jul 2017 09:45:00 -0400

Michael Britt has a general idea of the music he'll play during his performance this year at Artscape.

But then again, things could change.

Britt, who received a bachelor's degree in Organ Performance from the Peabody Institute in 1984, will improvise the accompaniment to The Freshman, a silent movie starring actor and stuntman Harold Lloyd. No organ score was ever released to go along with the 1925 slapstick comedy classic, so Britt has made up his own cue sheet to track the timing of different effects and featuring a few lines of original melodies. The rest he'll make up as he goes.

Image caption: Britt performs on the famed Skinner organ at Brown Memorial

Image credit: Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church

"When I accompany a silent film, my goal is to do it in the way it was originally done in the teens and the '20s—meaning there was basically no accompaniment given to the silent film organist," Britt said. "You're basically composing on the spot. It's a real thrill."

Although this is only the second time Britt will perform The Freshman, he is an accomplished silent movie accompanist who has been performing music for silent movies since he was 13 years old.

"Every film is unique," Britt said.

Adding to the spectacle, Britt will perform on a grand, four-keyboard E.M. Skinner church pipe organ among the Gothic architecture and Tiffany stained glass windows in the sanctuary of Baltimore's Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church. The performance will take on Friday, July 21 at 7 p.m.

"The pipe organ at Brown is a renowned organ—it's a fabulous instrument," Britt said. "But it's not a theatre organ, so it doesn't have bird calls and sirens like the old organs that were built for silent films have. It has chimes, it has a harp—which I'll use—but I'm basically taking a church instrument and trying to make it sound theatrical. It takes a little work. Luckily it's a very orchestral organ—it has a lot of stops, or sounds, that realistically imitate clarinets, french horns, tubas—so it works very well. It just doesn't have all the bells and whistles."

A literal whistle might have come in handy for Britt for this particular film—there's an iconic sequence in which the lead character fills in as his college football team's tackling dummy. Britt will have to work around this with some of the organ's available stops.

"It's a different bag of tricks!" he says.

The performance is one of a number of concerts featuring alumni from the Peabody Institute that will take place throughout Baltimore during Artscape weekend. The annual free arts festival—the largest of its kind in the U.S.—regularly attracts more than 350,000 attendees over the course of three days for music, crafts, and food vendors.

For the third year in a row, Johns Hopkins University will sponsor the Station North Stage, located on Charles Street near North Avenue. The stage will feature performances by Baltimore City Public Schools students as well as local indie rock groups and DJs.

Confronting the real problems of fake news and media backlash in the digital age

Wed, 12 Jul 2017 14:55:00 -0400

With the 24-hour news cycle, the ease of sharing and spreading information via social media, and the increasing democratization of publishing tools, journalists and media consumers alike face a growing dilemma: fake news.

Image caption: Alan Rosenblatt (left) and Jack Speer

In a webinar discussion Tuesday, NPR broadcaster Jack Speer and digital and social media strategist Alan Rosenblatt outlined the growing threat posed by fake news and discussed ways both journalists and the public can combat the phenomenon.

The event, sponsored by the Master of Arts in Communication program at Johns Hopkins University's Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, brought together an audience of students and journalists from across the country.

The first step in combating fake news, the presenters said, is to understand what it is.

"Fake news is to me something that is patently untrue," said Speer, who is an adjunct professor in JHU's Carey Business School in the areas of crisis communications and media convergence. "It is spread more now via the Internet than in the past, but also at times it's spread by the 'traditional' kind of press. There have been talk show hosts who have spread some incendiary kinds of things that have turned out to be not true, so there are ... degrees of fake news."

Rosenblatt, who teaches digital political strategy at Johns Hopkins, added: "It is a deliberate effort to misinform people, and if you cannot show a deliberate effort—either because it's meant to be satirical or it's meant to be as truthful as possible and when mistakes are made corrections are issued—those are not fake news. It's a deliberate effort to present something in the format of news that is not news."

Also see

Inside the Macedonian fake-news complex

/ Wired

Sean Hannity, a murder and why fake news endures

/ The New York Times

CNN takes on Donald Trump's 'fake news' label

/ The Atlantic

This means, he said, that media consumers should be skeptical of accusations made against major media outlets when they make mistakes in their reporting.

"We are seeing, for example, in this case President Trump using mistakes to accuse news outlets that criticize him as fake news, but those are not examples of fake news," he said.

There are ways for the public to stop false news stories from circulating, Speer and Rosenblatt said. The key is in adopting media literacy strategies.

"You want to look at the source—where are you getting your news from? Are you getting your news from a credible media outlet?" Speer said. "As a consumer, you have to be somewhat skeptical about why this [information] is out there. Clickbait is pretty obvious: you click on something and buy something. Fake news has a somewhat different directive."

It is also important to understand how corroboration works, said Rosenblatt.

"You have to be able to identify that it is indeed a story that's being covered by multiple outlets, that they're not all reprinting the same story or paraphrasing the same press release," he said.

He added that it can be difficult to discern when two separate news organizations corroborate reporting because media outlets with different names and titles might be owned by the same parent company with the same mission, or entertainment news and commentary might masquerade as journalism.

But the onus for combating fake news does not rest solely on the readers, the presenters noted. Journalists must adhere more strictly than ever to industry ethics, said Rosenblatt, an effort that includes making disclosures about conflicts of interest, biases, or underlying political or social values in their reporting.

Speer noted that rather than shrink away from conflict, journalists must continue to push to report on difficult stories, despite the dangers or backlash against them.

"Journalists are not the most popular people at the moment," he said. "The fact that some barriers in terms of civility seem to have come down is also making it harder and more dangerous to be a journalist. ... My primary duty is to inform. My primary duty as a journalist is to speak truth to power, to ask questions of politicians who don't want to answer those questions—to try in any way I can to get them to commit to answering questions that people in a free society need the answers to."

Russell Passarella, Johns Hopkins University's first 'young trustee,' dies at 69

Wed, 12 Jul 2017 11:24:00 -0400

Russell Passarella, a member of the Johns Hopkins University Class of 1970 and the first person to serve in the position of young trustee on JHU's board of trustees, died July 8 in Tucson, Arizona. He was 69.

Image caption: Russell Passarella (left), with former Johns Hopkins roommate Charles S. Fax, both of whom graduated in 1970.

Image credit: Courtesy of Neil A. Grauer

Born in 1948 in Milford, Connecticut—a self-described "Connecticut Yankee"—Passarella was an independent financial consultant, member of the advisory board for the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, and a devoted Hopkins lacrosse fan.

Milton S. Eisenhower—JHU's president from 1956 to 1967, and again from 1971 to 1972—knew Passarella as an outstanding undergraduate student, said Ross Jones, former vice president and secretary of the university. Eisenhower nominated Passarella to serve as the inaugural young alumni member of the board of trustees—a four-year, nonrenewable position Eisenhower negotiated when he temporarily returned to Johns Hopkins to serve as president. Passarella also served on the board's finance committee because he had a "special gift for understanding financial matters," Jones said.

The young trustee position, first created in 1971, was eliminated by the board in 2011 in favor of including a more diverse group of current students on the board's Student Life Committee.

Passarella had a long and distinguished career in international finance. He earned his MBA at Harvard Business School in 1972 and began working for the asset management firm Paine Webber. He then worked for the Chase Manhattan Bank, and when he left in 1998, he was the chief financial officer for global private banking and asset management.

His next position was in Hong Kong with American Express International, where he served from 1999 to 2001 as the chief financial officer in the Pacific Rim. He returned to the U.S. as CEO of a biomedical startup in Tucson before ending his career as an independent financial consultant.

As a Blue Jay, Passarella was president of the student council during his junior year and an organizer of the first MSE Symposium, in 1967. He was a brother of Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity and later served on its national advisory board.

"Russ was a great friend and great exemplar of what Johns Hopkins is," said Neil A. Grauer, assistant director of editorial services for Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Passarella sent Grauer detailed analyses of every Hopkins lacrosse game each season, Grauer said, demonstrating his knowledge of the team, players' stats, and their abilities. He also sent updates and analyses about all of Division I lacrosse.

He is survived by his daughter Chase, former wife Margo Harrison, brother Roger Passarella and sister-in-law Clare, nieces Susan and Christine Passarella, and nephew Peter Passarella.

Passarella told Charles Fax—a roommate of several years while at Johns Hopkins—that he wished for any donations in his memory to go to the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.

Accelerator program for health, fitness startups launches in East Baltimore

Wed, 12 Jul 2017 10:00:00 -0400

A new 16-week accelerator program for fledgling health and fitness businesses will be located in the FastForward East innovation hub on Johns Hopkins' East Baltimore campus and receive support from Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures.

This Baltimore-based accelerator program will select health and fitness startups from across the U.S. and provide them with funding, mentorship, and networking and business services.

M-1 Ventures will challenge startups selected from a national applicant pool to validate their business models, engage with customers, and build on traction they have already generated.

Technology Ventures was joined in announcing the program today by Plank Industries, the University of Maryland through UM Ventures, Brown Advisory, and the Abell Foundation. Additional support comes from the Maryland Department of Commerce and Village Capital.

"By focusing this accelerator on connected health and fitness, M-1 Ventures takes advantage of our regional strengths to provide startups in this vertical with a clearer path to success," says Christy Wyskiel, leader of Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures and senior adviser to the president of Johns Hopkins University. "M-1 participants will receive specialized support and resources from top industry researchers, entrepreneurs, and innovators that will help them develop health and fitness solutions that will drive real impact."

The program will run under the direction of Paul Singh, an entrepreneur, angel investor, and co-founder of the investment firm 500 Startups; and former Wells Fargo, UBS, and Bank of America executive Tony D'Agostino, a serial entrepreneur currently working with ZyGood, a medical device startup developing an external neuromodulation device to treat chronic pain. Experts from Johns Hopkins University, Plank Industries, the University of Maryland, Brown Advisory, and several other dedicated and experienced mentors will provide guidance to the M-1 entrepreneurs.

The M-1 Ventures program will launch with its first cohort Sept. 5 and run for 16 weeks. A Demo Day in mid-December will give investors and potential partners and collaborators an opportunity to get to know M-1's first cohort.

Interested teams can apply now through Aug. 4. Startups selected to the M-1 Ventures program receive:

$25,000 in equity funding
One-on-one mentorship from investor/entrepreneurs Paul Singh and Tony D'Agostino
Co-working space in FastForward East, an innovation hub on the Johns Hopkins medical campus
Access to and mentorship from connected health and fitness experts at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland, as well as an array of other speakers
Pro bono legal/accounting services and additional business resources
Access to the industry's and region's top investors at a Demo Day
The opportunity to win one of two additional $25,000 investments

Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures is Johns Hopkins University's intellectual property administration center, serving Johns Hopkins researchers and inventors as a licensing, patent, and technology commercialization office, and acting as an active liaison to parties interested in leveraging university research or materials for academic or corporate endeavors. In 2016, JHTV secured more than $58 million in licensing revenue, possessed more than 2,454 active issued patents, and created 22 new startup companies.

Football: Johns Hopkins ranked among nation's top DIII teams in three preseason polls

Wed, 12 Jul 2017 08:21:00 -0400

The Johns Hopkins football team received a third top 15 preseason national ranking this week, checking in at No. 13 in D3football.com's preseason poll.

Earlier this summer the Blue Jays were ranked No. 5 nationally by Lindy's—the highest preseason ranking in the program's history—and No. 12 by Street & Smith's.

Hopkins posted an 11-1 record in 2016, won an eighth consecutive Centennial Conference title, and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Division III playoffs for the fourth time in the past five years. The 11 wins matched a school single-season record. The Blue Jays ended the 2016 season ranked No. 9 nationally by the AFCA and No. 11 by D3football.com.

Over the past six season, Hopkins has compiled a 63-7 record.

The Blue Jays will open the 2017 season on Sept. 1 when they visit Washington & Lee at 7 p.m.

How old are your cells? New method determines cell age more accurately

Tue, 11 Jul 2017 12:00:00 -0400

Sure, you know how old you are, but what about your cells? Are they the same age? Are they older, younger? Why does it matter?

Led by scientists at Johns Hopkins University, a team of researchers is reporting progress in developing a method to accurately determine the functional age of cells, a step that could eventually help clinicians evaluate and recommend ways to delay some health effects of aging and potentially improve other treatments, including skin graft matching and predicting prospects for wound healing.

The more accurate system could eventually enable clinicians to see aging in cells before a patient experiences age-related health decline, or help clinicians produce more successful skin grafts by matching cell characteristics of the donor and the graft site.

In the current issue of Nature Biomedical Engineering, lead author Jude M. Phillip, who conducted this research while completing his doctorate in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Johns Hopkins, reports success in creating a system that considers a wide array of cellular and molecular factors in one comprehensive aging assessment.

These results show that the biophysical qualities of cells, such as cell movements and structural features, make better measures of functional age than other factors, including cell secretions and cell energy.

The multidisciplinary team of engineers and clinicians examined dermal cells from just underneath the surface of the skin taken from both males and females between the ages of 2 and 96.

The researchers from Johns Hopkins, Yale University, and the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health hoped to devise a system that, through computational analysis, could take the measure of various factors of cellular and molecular functions. From that information, they hoped to determine the biological age of individuals more accurately using their cells, in contrast to previous studies, which makes use of gross physiology, or examining cellular mechanisms such as DNA methylation.

"We combined some classic biomolecular hallmarks of aging, and sought to further elucidate the role of biophysical properties of aging cells, all in one study," said Phillip, now a post-doctoral fellow at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Researchers trying to understand aging have, up until now, focused on factors such as tissue and organ function and on molecular-level studies of genetics and of epigenetics, meaning heritable traits that are not traced to DNA. The level in between—cells—has received relatively little attention, the researchers wrote.

This research was meant to correct for that omission by considering the biophysical attributes of cells, including such factors as the cells' ability to move, maintain flexibility, and structure. This focus emerges from the understanding that changes associated with aging at the physiological level—such as diminished lung capacity, grip strength, and mean pressure in the arteries—"tend to be secondary to changes in the cells themselves, thus advocating the value of cell-based technologies to assess biological age," the research team wrote.

Older cells, for example, are more rigid and do not move as well as younger cells, which, among other consequences, most likely contributes to the slower wound healing commonly seen in older people.

For example, older cells are more rigid and do not move as well as younger cells, which, among other consequences, most likely contributes to the slower wound healing commonly seen in older people, said Denis Wirtz, the senior author and Johns Hopkins' vice provost for research. Wirtz and Phillip conducted their research in the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology.

From the analysis, they were able to stratify individuals' samples into three groups: those whose cells roughly reflected their chronological age, those whose cells were functionally older, and those whose cells were functionally younger. The results also showed that the so-called biophysical factors of cells determined a more accurate measure of age than biomolecular factors such as cell secretions, cell energy, and the organization of DNA.

Phillip explained that this better accuracy from the biophysical factors most likely results from the orchestration of many biomolecular factors. He compared it to the more complete picture you get looking at a forest from a distance without binoculars.

"With binoculars you can see details about the individual trees, the color and shapes of the leaves, the roughness of the bark, the type of tree, but without the binoculars you can now see the density of the trees, and whether there is a barren plot, or a group or dying trees," Phillip said. "This is something you may miss with the binoculars, unless you are looking at the correct spot."

The more accurate system could eventually enable clinicians to see aging in cells before a patient experiences age-related health decline. This in turn could allow doctors to recommend treatments or changes in life habits, such as exercise or diet changes, Wirtz said. Phillip said the work could potentially help clinicians produce more successful skin grafts by matching cell characteristics of the donor and the graft site. Other potential applications range from toxicology screening for cosmetics and topical therapeutics to predicting progression of some age-related diseases.

The researchers acknowledge that the system needs further testing with a larger cell sample, but the results are robust and encouraging. Conducted along with clinicians such as Jeremy Walston, the Raymond and Anna Lublin Professor of Geriatric Medicine, and co-director of the Biology of Healthy Aging program at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, this work promises to allow clinicians to measure a person's health in the present and the future.

"It opens the door to finally be able to track how a person is doing at the cellular level," Wirtz said.

Added Phillip: "This platform is also more than just a cellular age predictor; it has the ability to do so much more in terms of assessing an individual's cellular health."

Aspiring doctor is first Johns Hopkins student to earn Astronaut Scholarship

Tue, 11 Jul 2017 09:50:00 -0400

Rising senior Alfred Chin is the first Johns Hopkins University student to receive the Astronaut Scholarship, an award founded by the first U.S. astronauts, collectively dubbed the Mercury Seven.

Image caption: Alfred Chin at work in the Solomon Snyder lab

Established in 1984, the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation encourages students to pursue scientific education in order to keep America a leader in technology. The Mercury Seven astronauts who founded the foundation—Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Walter Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton—were test pilots who were among the first Americans recruited by NASA for space missions in 1959.

Chin, 21, is a neuroscience and biophysics double major. He works in a lab at JHU's Department of Neuroscience, where his research focuses on the ways proteins communicate with one another, particularly those proteins related to neurodegenerative diseases and cancer biology.

"I always knew I wanted to be a doctor, but my passion for research actually started in my senior year of high school," Chin says.

Around that time, Chin, who was born and raised in Singapore, first read about the renowned Hopkins neuroscientist Solomon Snyder in an AP biology textbook.

"I didn't know I'd go to Hopkins at the time, but when I was accepted, the idea of working in Sol's lab was a big factor in my decision to come here," Chin says. "... Once I got around to doing research, something about discovering things was just so captivating. That transformative experience made me want to pursue an MD/PhD and research as a career."

In April of this year, Chin was also named a Goldwater Scholar for academic merit in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics field. He says he hopes to one day lead his own research lab—although that wasn't always his plan.

"Aside from being a doctor, my other dream when I was a little kid was to become a NASA astronaut," he says.

For more information about applying for the Astronaut Scholarship at Johns Hopkins, visit http://studentaffairs.jhu.edu/fellowships/.

Scientists bring back extinct horsepox virus in lab, raising important biosecurity questions

Tue, 11 Jul 2017 08:50:00 -0400

In a laboratory in Alberta, Canada, a team of scientists recently pieced together overlapping segments of mail order DNA to form a synthetic version of an extinct virus.

Their ominous milestone—successfully synthesizing horsepox, a relative of the deadly smallpox virus, which was declared eradicated in 1980—has raised a conundrum in the scientific community: What are the implications of conducting research that has the potential to grow biological knowledge, but also harm public health and safety?

"Creating new risks to show that these risks are real is the wrong path."

Tom Inglesby

Director, Center for Health Security

In a blog post for the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health, Tom Inglesby, the center's director, weighs in on the debate. Inglesby—an expert in public health preparedness, pandemic and infectious diseases, and response to biological threats—discusses the issues raised by the study, the difficulty in publishing this kind of science, and the potential regulatory fallout now that biological synthesis on this scale has been proven possible.

What is the value of a study like this?

"The first question is whether experimental work should be performed for the purpose of demonstrating something potentially dangerous and destructive could be made using biology," writes Inglesby.

These kinds of studies are called dual use research, because they can potentially add to scientific knowledge, but they can also be misappropriated and have global health consequences. The researchers say that the synthetic horsepox, which is harmless to humans, could be used to develop better smallpox vaccines or cancer therapies. Critics say the methodologies could lead to the synthetic construction of smallpox, which is among the deadliest diseases in human history, having killed about 30 percent of those infected.

In the case of the horsepox synthesis, the question was never whether it could be accomplished, so the actual benefit to scientific knowledge is debatable.

"The important decision going forward is whether research with high biosafety or biosecurity risks should be pursued with a justification of demonstrating that something dangerous is now possible," Inglesby says. "I don't think it should. Creating new risks to show that these risks are real is the wrong path."

What are the implications of printing this research in a scientific journal?

The journal Science reports that David Evans, the virologist who led the researchers at the University of Alberta, concedes that publishing the team's findings could be interpreted as disseminating "instructions for manufacturing a pathogen." It's little surprise then that, according to The Washington Post, no journal has accepted the study for publication.

"It is one thing to create the virus; it's another thing altogether to publish prescriptive information that would substantially lower the bar for creating smallpox by others," Inglesby says. "The University of Alberta lab where the horsepox construction took place is one of the leading orthopox laboratories in the world. They were technically able to navigate challenges and inherent safety risks during synthesis. Will labs that were not previously capable of this technical challenge find it easier to make smallpox after the experiment methodology is published?"

What effect does this kind of research have on scientific regulations?

Despite World Health Organization rules against possessing more than 20 percent of the smallpox genome, the University of Alberta group was able to reconstruct its equine cousin. This fact raises questions about the limitations of regulations that are in place to monitor synthetic biological research, says Inglesby.

"The researchers who did this work are reported to have gone through all appropriate national regulatory authorities," he writes. "While work like this has potential international implications—it would be a bad development for all global citizens if smallpox synthesis becomes easier because of what is learned in this publication—the work is reviewed by national regulatory authorities without international norms or guidelines that direct them. This means that work considered very high risk and therefore rejected by one country may be approved by others."

Inglesby adds: "There clearly needs to be an international component to these policies. We need agreed-upon norms that will help guide countries and their scientists regarding work that falls into this category, and high-level dialogue regarding the necessary role of scientific review, guidance, and regulation for work that falls into special categories of highest concern."

Testing Ecstasy pills at concerts and raves could reduce risks for users

Mon, 10 Jul 2017 08:48:00 -0400

Data collected by volunteers who tested pills free of charge at music festivals and raves across the United States suggest that at least some recreational drug users may choose not to take them if tests show the pills are adulterated or fake, Johns Hopkins scientists report.

Their findings, published online today in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, also revealed that pills purported to be a purer and safer version of the illegal stimulant drug MDMA known as Molly contained as many harmful additives as the version known as Ecstasy. And, unlike older analyses that found different results, the most common adulterants in this study were chemicals commonly known as "bath salts."

"Our results suggest that some people will reject taking a pill to get high if it doesn't contain what they thought it did, or has harmful additives."

Matthew W. Johnson

Johns Hopkins Medicine

The researchers say their study adds critical evidence that on-site pill-testing services may be a valuable public health and safety tool.

"People would be safest not taking any street drugs at all, but if free, no-fault testing can reduce deaths and other catastrophic consequences, it may be a service worth having," says Matthew W. Johnson, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Our results suggest that some people will reject taking a pill to get high if it doesn't contain what they thought it did, or has harmful additives."

MDMA is a drug with both stimulant and psychedelic properties favored by music festival and rave attendees to induce euphoria and heightened sensations. On its own, MDMA carries risks ranging from nausea, hyperthermia, dehydration and chills to, more rarely, seizures. Additives and fillers such as caffeine and forms of amphetamine can lead to overdosing and even death.

In 2014, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration conducted a survey reporting that almost seven percent of the U.S. population over age 12 had used Ecstasy at least once, which translates to 20 million people. The Drug Abuse Warning Network reported that visits to emergency rooms from 2004 to 2011 rose by 120 percent because of Ecstasy toxicity. The pills are often sold for $10 to $20 on the street or at dancing events.

Between July 2010 and July 2015, volunteers for the nonprofit DanceSafe tested samples of pills or powder believed by music festival and rave attendees to be MDMA. The testing was free and advertised by word of mouth.

To test the pills, the volunteers were equipped with chemical kits and a means of scraping about one milligram off the pill or collecting it out of a capsule. The sample was added to multiple chemicals that changed color in the presence of specific pill components.

The resulting colors of the tested sample were matched up with a color chart of 29 known substances, such as cocaine, caffeine, or sugar. Those not matching a listed substance were reported as unknown. The color test isn't sensitive enough to detect minute quantities of chemicals, nor can it provide information on concentration.

Of the 529 total samples collected, 318 (about 60 percent) actually contained MDMA or the closely related drug MDA. The chemical adulterants weren't identifiable using the color test in 90 of the 211 adulterated samples, but the most common ones found were compounds better known as bath salts—specifically methylone in 35 and other cathinones in 21 of the adulterated samples. After these, methamphetamine was the next most common additive in 13 of the adulterated samples. Three samples contained a dangerous form of amphetamine known as PMA, which is associated with overdoses and death.

"People who take pills and first responders need to know that no matter how the pills are branded or what name they are sold as, they almost always contain a mix of ingredients," Johnson says. "Our results should discourage a false sense of security about the purity and safety of so-called Molly."

After the volunteers reported the results of the test to the festival-goers, the participants were asked if they still intended to take the pill or powder. Of the 168 participant responses, 46 percent of those whose substances contained MDMA said they intended to take their drug, compared with 26 percent of participants whose substances tested negative for MDMA.

The investigators caution that the volunteers weren't able to confirm whether participants took or didn't take the pills, and it is possible some gave them away, sold them or failed to dispose of them safely.

They also underscore the ongoing debate about the legality and value of pill-testing services, given the weaknesses in such studies and the resources pill testing requires. Music festival hosts can be reluctant to allow pill-testing on site because it may make them liable to prosecution for knowingly allowing people to use drugs on their property, the researchers say.

Johnson says his team's research highlights the potential public health value of reducing the risks of illegal drug use, and he says the development of additional ways to assess more dangerous street drugs—such as fentanyl and carfentanil—might offer a means of reducing the growing epidemic of fatalities associated with them.

Additional authors include Sarah Saleemi and Steven Pennybaker of Johns Hopkins and Missi Wooldridge of Healthy Nightlife, LLC. Johnson is part of the Behavioral Pharmacology Unit at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

10 Johns Hopkins lacrosse players named Big Ten Distinguished Scholars

Fri, 07 Jul 2017 15:55:32 -0400

Ten Johns Hopkins University lacrosse players—six from the women's team and four from the men's team—have earned Big Ten Distinguished Scholar awards, the Big Ten Conference announced this week.

The list of distinguished scholars includes student-athletes from every Big Ten institution and 38 different sports who recorded a minimum grade-point average of 3.7 for the 2016-17 academic year. Lacrosse is the only sport in which Hopkins competes in the Division I league.

JHU women's lacrosse honorees

Maddie Bodden: Senior, Economics, 3.83 GPA for the 2016-17 academic year
Eden Epner: Junior, Psychology, 3.88
Alexis Maffucci: Senior, Public Health Studies, 3.86
Annie Schindler: Junior, Public Health Studies, 3.87
Haley Schweizer: Senior, Psychology, 3.88
Emily Verica: Junior, Political Science, 3.77

JHU men's lacrosse honorees

John Crawley: Senior, Economics, 3.77 GPA GPA for the 2016-17 academic year
Kieran Eissler: Senior, Public Health Studies, 3.79
Ryan Feit: Senior, Economics, 3.91
Brock Turnbaugh: Junior, Psychology, 3.75

Handwritten opioid prescriptions contain more mistakes than those that are electronically generated

Fri, 07 Jul 2017 14:45:00 -0400

In a small study of opioid prescriptions filled at a Johns Hopkins Medicine outpatient pharmacy, researchers found that handwritten orders for the drugs contribute to a disproportionate number of prescribing and processing errors compared to prescriptions created electronically.

Of the 510 prescriptions studied, 42 percent of prescriptions contained some error, researchers found.

The quality improvement study, described in a report published in the January/February issue of The Journal of Opioid Management, aimed to determine whether and how prescription processing methods contribute to variations, inconsistencies, and errors in opioid distribution.

Overall, the investigators found that 92 percent of handwritten prescriptions either failed to meet ideal practice standards, contained such errors as the absence of at least two patient identifiers, or failed to comply with federal opioid prescription rules.

"Mistakes can be made at any point in the prescribing, transcribing, processing, distribution, use, and monitoring of opioids, but research has rarely focused as we have on prescribing at the time of hospital discharge or on written prescriptions prescribed for adults," says Mark Bicket, assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, and the paper's lead author. "There are the normal legibility issues you would suspect with a handwritten prescription, but we also commonly found things like missing patient identification information and errors in abbreviations."

For the study, the researchers reviewed all prescriptions for opioid medications for patients 18 and older processed at an outpatient pharmacy at The Johns Hopkins Hospital for 15 consecutive days in June 2016. In total, 510 prescriptions were evaluated based on three criteria:

Their compliance with "best practice" guidelines for prescription writing compiled from past studies at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, including criteria such as legibility, date, and pill quantity
The presence of at least two patient identifiers, including medical record number, Social Security number, and date of birth
Compliance with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's rules regarding prescriptions of controlled substances, which require the patient's full name and address

Of the 510 prescriptions studied, 42 percent contained some error, researchers found. While both the handwritten prescriptions, which made up 47 percent of the total, and prescriptions created by the electronic health system failed to properly meet the DEA's standard at the same rate, all prescriptions that violated best practice or did not include at least two patient identifiers were handwritten.

Overall, 89 percent of prescriptions written by hand deviated from "best practice" guidelines or were missing at least two forms of patient identification information. Not a single prescription created by the hospital's electronic prescribing system showed these errors. Because the computer prints prescriptions using a template that aligns with "best practices," the only step the prescriber must do after reviewing the prescription is sign the prescription.

Bicket emphasizes that errors in prescriptions rarely result in patients getting the wrong drug or dosage because other safety measures are in place, such as pharmacists double checking the prescription information including the drug name, indication, and amount.

"What we hope our results do is get more practitioners to adopt electronic prescribing systems," Bicket says, "because we have a duty to practice in a way that has the lowest chance of harm to our patients."

With powerful new technique, scientists can clone thousands of genes at once

Wed, 05 Jul 2017 12:10:00 -0400

Scientists at Johns Hopkins, Rutgers, the University of Trento in Italy, and Harvard Medical School report they have developed a new molecular technique that can be used to isolate thousands of long DNA sequences at the same time, more than ever before possible.

According to the researchers, the new technology—known as LASSO cloning—speeds up the creation of proteins, the final products of genes, and is likely to lead to far more rapid discovery of new medicines and biomarkers for scores of diseases.

Historically, figuring out what a gene does by cloning its DNA and expressing its protein was done one gene at a time. The new technology simultaneously clones and expresses thousands of protein-coding DNA sequences in a single reaction.

In a report on the technique's development, published online June 26 in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the researchers describe their novel molecular approach to simultaneously clone and express thousands of protein-coding DNA sequences in a single reaction. Historically, figuring out what a gene does by cloning its DNA and expressing its protein was done one gene at a time.

"Our goal is to make it cheap and easy for any researcher in any field to clone and express the entire set of proteins from any organism," says Ben Larman, an assistant professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the study's co-senior author. "Until now, such a prospect was only realistic for high-powered research consortia studying model organisms like fruit flies or mice."

The new paper describes a new type of captured DNA strand, a tool the authors refer to as a LASSO probe; LASSO stands for long adapter single-stranded oligonucleotide. Collections of these LASSO probes can be used to grab desired DNA sequences—much like a rope lasso is used to capture cattle—but in this case thousands at a time in a single effort.

Each target gene sequence can be up to a few thousand DNA base pairs long, which is the typical size of a gene's protein-coding sequence. The new technique is an improvement on an older method called molecular inversion probes, which is able to capture only about 200 bases of DNA, Larman says.

In a proof-of-concept study, LASSO probes were used to simultaneously capture more than 3,000 DNA fragments from the E. coli bacterial genome. The team successfully captured at least 75 percent of the gene targets. Importantly, the researchers say, these sequences are captured in a way that permits scientists to analyze what the genes' proteins do, as demonstrated by conferring antibiotic resistance to an otherwise susceptible cell.

"We're very excited about all the potential applications for LASSO cloning," Larman says. "Our hope is that by greatly expanding the number of proteins that can be expressed and screened in parallel, the road to interesting biology and new therapeutic biomolecules will be dramatically shortened for many researchers."

34 early-career faculty members earn Johns Hopkins Catalyst Awards

Wed, 05 Jul 2017 11:00:00 -0400

Thirty-four early-career faculty members representing seven divisions of Johns Hopkins University have been selected to receive support for their work from the university's Catalyst Awards program.

Recipients include faculty composing new musical work inspired by undiscovered islands, studying blindness to better understand human brain plasticity, and simulating the atmospheres of exoplanets to predict their habitability.

"Progress requires our brightest minds to pursue big ideas that extend the horizons of human knowledge. At a time when research funding is more competitive than ever, Johns Hopkins is thrilled to support these promising faculty as they embarking on novel research and creative projects."

Ronald J. Daniels

JHU president

Others are investigating treatments and interventions for depression, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV, and Alzheimer's disease. One awardee is developing spray-on photovoltaics for solar energy harvesting, while another is developing an effective communication model to increase the number of students utilizing school-based vision care programs.

These experts represent dozens of fields—including ophthalmology, mental health, chemistry, computer science, management, and composition. Nearly 75 percent are assistant professors, and more than half are women.

"Progress requires our brightest minds to pursue big ideas that extend the horizons of human knowledge," said Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels. "At a time when research funding is more competitive than ever, Johns Hopkins is thrilled to support these promising faculty as they embarking on novel research and creative projects."

The 2017 honorees—selected based on their accomplishments to date, creativity and originality, and their academic impact—each will receive a $75,000 grant for their research and creative endeavors. They will also have the opportunity to participate in mentoring sessions and events designed to connect these colleagues at similar stages in their careers.

The Catalyst Awards program was launched in early 2015, as was the Discovery Awards program for interdivisional collaborations. Together the two programs represent a $15 million university commitment to faculty-led research by university leadership along with the deans and directors of JHU's divisions.

The program is open to any full-time faculty member appointed to a tenure-track position within the past three to 10 years. More than 80 senior faculty members from across the university served on the committee that selected the awardees from a pool of nearly 150 submissions.

This is the third year of the Catalyst Awards program; a combined 71 faculty were recognized during the program's first two cycles. Recipients are celebrated alongside the winners of the Discovery Awards at an event each September.

"Each year, we are amazed by the talent and creativity evident in the Catalyst Award applications," said Denis Wirtz, JHU's vice provost for research. "These faculty represent the future of their fields and the future of our institution. We look forward to working with this cohort over the next year as they reach new milestones that transform the trajectory of their careers."

2017 Johns Hopkins Catalyst Award recipients

Steven An, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Alexis Battle, Department of Computer Science, Whiting School of Engineering
Marina Bedny, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Wendy Bennett, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine
Oscar Bettison, Department of Composition, Peabody Institute
Frank Bosmans, Department of Physiology, School of Medicine
Megan Collins, Wilmer Eye Institute, School of Medicine
Erika Darrah, Department of Rheumatology, School of Medicine
Mounya Elhilali, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering
Elana Fertig, Department of Oncology, School of Medicine
D. Brian Foster, Division of Cardiology, School of Medicine
Jemima Frimpong, Management and Organization, Carey Business School
Christine George, Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Fernando Goes, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine
Erin Goley, Department of Biological Chemistry, School of Medicine
Michael Harrower, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Sarah Horst, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Christian Kaiser, Department of Biology, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Rebekka Klausen, Department of Chemistry, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Benjamin Langmead, Department of Computer Science, Whiting School of Engineering
Jeffrey Leek, Department of Biostatistics, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Xin Li, Department of Computer Science, Whiting School of Engineering
Meredith McCormack, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine
Kelly Pate, Department of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology, School of Medicine
Jennifer Pluznick, Department of Physiology, School of Medicine
Jennifer Schrack, Department of Epidemiology, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Rebecca Schulman, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering
Adam Spira, Department of Mental Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health
J. Webster Stayman, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine
Jennifer Stewart, Department of Community and Public Health, School of Nursing
Susanna Thon, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering
Fengyi Wan, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Kenneth Witwer, Department of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology, School of Medicine
Vadim Zipunnikov, Department of Biostatistics, Bloomberg School of Public Health

NASA plans to test asteroid deflection technique designed to prevent Earth impact

Mon, 03 Jul 2017 11:00:00 -0400

NASA is moving forward with a plan to develop a refrigerator-sized spacecraft capable of deflecting asteroids and preventing them from colliding with Earth.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, is being designed and would be built and managed by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. NASA approved a move from concept development to the preliminary design phase on June 23.

Image caption: Artist concept of NASA's DART spacecraft, part of NASA’s first mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defense.

Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL

DART would use what is known as a kinetic impactor technique—striking the asteroid to shift its orbit. The impact would change the speed of a threatening asteroid by a small fraction of its total velocity, but by doing so well before the predicted impact, this small nudge will add up over time to a big shift of the asteroid's path away from Earth.

A test with a small, nonthreatening asteroid is planned for 2024.

"DART is a critical step in demonstrating we can protect our planet from a future asteroid impact," said Andy Cheng, who is co-leading the DART investigation at APL along with Andy Rivkin. "Since we don't know that much about their internal structure or composition, we need to perform this experiment on a real asteroid. With DART, we can show how to protect Earth from an asteroid strike with a kinetic impactor by knocking the hazardous object into a different flight path that would not threaten the planet."

Small asteroids hit Earth almost daily, breaking up harmlessly in the upper atmosphere. Objects large enough to do damage at the surface are much rarer.

The target for DART's first test is an asteroid that will have a distant approach to Earth in October 2022, and then again in 2024. The asteroid is called Didymos—Greek for "twin"—because it's an asteroid binary system that consists of two bodies: Didymos A, about one-half mile in size; and a smaller asteroid orbiting it called Didymos B, about 530 feet in size. DART would impact only the smaller of the two bodies, Didymos B.

The Didymos system has been closely studied since 2003. The primary body is a rocky S-type object, with composition similar to that of many asteroids. The composition of its small companion, Didymos B, is unknown, but the size is typical of asteroids that could potentially create regional effects should they impact Earth.

Video: NASA

After launch, DART would fly to Didymos and use an APL-developed onboard autonomous targeting system to aim itself at Didymos B. Then the spacecraft would strike the smaller body at a speed about nine times faster than a bullet, approximately 3.7 miles per second. Earth-based observatories would be able to see the impact and the resulting change in the orbit of Didymos B around Didymos A, allowing scientists to better determine the capabilities of kinetic impact as an asteroid mitigation strategy.

Objects larger than 0.6 miles in diameter—large enough to cause global effects—have been the focus of NASA's ground-based search for potentially hazardous objects with orbits that bring them near the Earth. About 93 percent of these sized objects have already been found, NASA says.

DART would test technologies to deflect objects in the intermediate size range—large enough to do regional damage yet small enough that there are many more that have not been observed and could someday hit Earth. NASA-funded telescopes and other assets continue to search for these objects, track their orbits, and determine if they are a threat.

To assess and formulate capabilities to address these potential threats, NASA in 2016 established its Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which is responsible for finding, tracking, and characterizing potentially hazardous asteroids and comets coming near Earth; issuing warnings about possible impacts; and assisting plans and coordination of U.S. government response to an actual impact threat.

Johns Hopkins School of Nursing launches DNP/PhD dual degree program

Mon, 03 Jul 2017 08:46:41 -0400

The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing has launched a new Doctor of Nursing Practice/Doctor of Philosophy dual degree program that combines the competencies and practice opportunities of the DNP degree with the clinical research and scientific rigor of the PhD.

The program aims to develop nurses whose research and practice are intimately interconnected. Graduates will be prepared to conduct clinical research, teach, mentor, and implement innovations to improve patient outcomes.

"This new degree ... will prepare nurses to find and implement solutions that will improve the future of care."

Patricia Davidson

School of Nursing dean

"This is an opportune time in health care for nurses to receive such a degree," says Patricia Davidson, dean of the School of Nursing. "Nurses are at the forefront of leadership, and the demand for more highly qualified nurses is evident with the rise of chronic diseases, aging populations, and complex health system issues. This new degree meets the demands and will prepare nurses to find and implement solutions that will improve the future of care."

Through the five-year curriculum, students will have the opportunity for mentorship from both DNP- and PhD-prepared faculty; guidance in clinical placements and development of an evidence-based practice project; and residencies in teaching, clinical competency, and research.

As a hallmark of the program, students will work with clinical preceptors to manage the health care of more than 25 patients over a 12-month period. This extended time will facilitate mastery of clinical skills while allowing students to collect, analyze, and disseminate research directly within the clinical practice setting.

"There are so many unique facets and advantages to this degree," says Jason Farley, an associate professor at the School of Nursing and the DNP/PhD program director. "The coursework takes five years to complete, which is significantly shorter than most current courses of study for both degree programs, and it speaks directly to national needs for clinical investigators and ... recommendations for more doctorally prepared nurses."

The application process is set to open in late August for Summer 2018, and those with a prior nursing degree are eligible to apply. For more information, visit the DNP/PhD program overview at nursing.jhu.edu.

These Johns Hopkins grads got into top med schools; now they want to show others how it's done

Fri, 30 Jun 2017 13:45:00 -0400

As they were going through the daunting process of applying to medical schools last year, two friends from Johns Hopkins University learned to lean hard on each other.

The two premed students—Melaku Arega and Haziq Siddiqi—were picking up insights on the admissions process as they went along, and they found value in exchanging that knowledge.

The idea behind White Coat Strategists is that peer wisdom—from those with personal experience navigating through all the paperwork, interviews, essays, and general stress of the med school admissions process—is the most valuable resource an applicant can find.

"Haziq and I talked often, asked for advice on interviews and how to go about things," Arega says. "A lot of times I really relied on him, and he relied on me. We felt there weren't a lot of other resources out there."

Now, a year later, both students are preparing to attend Harvard Medical School in the fall. They're also putting their consulting experience to good use with a new service to help others achieve their med school ambitions.

Their firm, White Coat Strategists, offers personalized support through every layer of the admissions process, from brainstorming initial strategies to eventually selecting the right program.

Arega and Siddiqi launched the concept this spring with fellow Johns Hopkins graduate Lamin Sonko, who will attend the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. They've now built up a team of nine consultants, eight of them Hopkins alums.

White Coat's consultants can also point to their own successes with this process, after winning acceptance to some of the nation's top medical programs. Arega, for example, was accepted to all 10 of the schools he applied to, raking in more than $2 million in total scholarship offers.

With White Coat, clients can expect between five and 20 hours of one-on-one support, usually through emails and Skype. The firm's services include mock interviews, editing personal statements, and guidance on letters of recommendation. They work with students who have already taken their MCATs and are moving through the primary and secondary rounds of the application process, then into school selection.

The firm has priced these services to be affordable for any applicant (packages begin at $399), filling a void the three founders identified during their own experiences.

"What I looked for were any commercial services to provide me more extensive support," Siddiqi says, "but there wasn't any affordable admissions consulting out there."

Image caption: White Coat Strategists co-founders (from left) Lamin Sonko, Haziq Siddiqi, and Melaku Arega.

They're also making free consulting available to clients eligible for the Fee Assistance Program through the Association of American Medical Colleges, which supports students who couldn't otherwise afford the costs of med school applications.

A forward-thinking strategy guides this pro bono option: White Coat views its own clients as potential consultants.

"Once we work with our students and they get into good schools, we know who's good at writing, who's good at interviews—we can have them join us and continue this process," Arega says.

In addition to acknowledging financial disparities, White Coat is interested in working with clients from different ethnic and racial backgrounds, to help promote greater diversity in the medical profession.

"In medicine, people like me are underrepresented," says Arega, who was born and raised in Ethiopia. "We want to help open up this premed path to more people from all walks of life."

Arega won a full scholarship to attend Johns Hopkins as a Gates Millennium Scholar; he graduated in May with degrees in neuroscience and molecular and cellular biology. Both Siddiqi and Sonko graduated from Hopkins in May 2016 with degrees in molecular and cellular biology.

Siddiqi, who was born in Pakistan, has spent the past year on a Fulbright Scholarship in Spain. Sonko, who's from Gambia, has been working for health care firm Remedy Partners.

So how will the consultants juggle their White Coat services along with the demands of the first year of med school?

First, Siddiqi notes the timing of applications works in their favor, with the busiest phase during summer break. Second, the firm's founders hope to bring in more team members, so each client gets personalized attention.

Beyond that, they're exploring ideas to expand offerings, such as a podcast, a blog, or even a book.

"Long term," Siddiqi says, "I see us diversifying the ways we can provide affordable consulting."

Editor's note: The Johns Hopkins Office of Pre-Professional Advising offers medical school admissions advising and consulting services at no cost to Johns Hopkins students and alumni.

With Whole Foods acquisition, Amazon could 'change the grocery shopping experience forever'

Fri, 30 Jun 2017 12:11:00 -0400

Earlier this month, Amazon announced plans to acquire upscale grocery chain Whole Foods Market, sending shockwaves through the retail industry and signaling a reboot of Amazon's effort to sell groceries online.

The move has also raised questions about the future of brick-and-mortar retail and the role machine-learning and artificial intelligence will play in the future of the grocery business.

"Amazon epitomizes a tech company's relentless pursuit of disrupting traditional businesses and comes with a strong historical track record."

Jim Kyung-Soo Liew

Carey Business School assistant professor

Jim Kyung-Soo Liew, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School who specializes in entrepreneurial finance and hedge fund strategies, said the deal could be a game-changer for the grocery industry.

"Amazon epitomizes a tech company's relentless pursuit of disrupting traditional businesses and comes with a strong historical track record," Liew said. "Amazon has made the online purchasing experience second to none, with low prices for goods and fast delivery, netting a great shopping experience for consumers."

Liew said he expects Amazon to apply the same principles and strategies to Whole Foods, which he said will result in a new kind of grocery experience: "The explosive combination of machine learning and data will change the grocery shopping experience forever," he said.

"Shoppers' behavior will be a key ingredient that will power Amazon's machine-learning algorithms, which will calibrate new recommendation systems using consumers' grocery shopping demands," he added. "If Amazon allows shoppers to make purchases on mobile phones within the store, this will fuel the algorithms even more."

Liew said the market's reaction suggests that investors believe Amazon and Whole Foods will integrate successfully—the price of Amazon's shares has risen slightly since the announcement. He also noted that an increase in the price of Whole Foods shares could signal a second bidder.

"Typically, the acquirer company's price performance is flat to slightly down on a merger announcement date, so Amazon being up is a very good sign," he said. "That Whole Foods prices have drifted higher tells us that lurking behind the scenes could be another bidder or that Amazon may need to raise their original bid to get this deal done. Maybe Walmart will counter after they fully digest how powerful the Amazon/Whole Foods combination will become."

Liew said the move could serve as a serious disruptor to the grocery industry.

"Other retail grocery stores will now have to move, so expect some serious consolidation in this industry," he said. "Look for cash-rich technology companies to make bids for traditional brick-and-mortar stores, then apply their deep set of machine learning and AI algorithms on this newly acquired data set. One day we will look back at this 'retail shopping singularity' event—the deal between Amazon and Whole Foods."

Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Charles L. Bennett receives 2017 Isaac Newton Medal and Prize

Fri, 30 Jun 2017 08:40:00 -0400

Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist Charles L. Bennett is the recipient of the 2017 Isaac Newton Medal and Prize, announced today by the Institute of Physics in London in recognition of research that has had a "transformative effect in cosmology."

Image caption: Charles L. Bennett

Image credit: Will Kirk / Homewood Photography

The IOP specifically cited Bennett's work as leader of NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe space mission. WMAP, which began in 1996 and ended in 2013, produced results that provided important support for what has come to be known as the Standard Model of Cosmology.

"I am so very honored to receive the Isaac Newton Medal and Prize," said Bennett, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Alumni Centennial Professor of Physics and Astronomy, and Gilman Scholar in JHU's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

"This honor is named for a personal hero of mine, for Newton was driven to understand how nature works," said Bennett, who joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins in 2005.

Bennett also directs the Space@Hopkins initiative, an effort to connect an array of Johns Hopkins University divisions, departments, and collaborative institutions in their pursuit of civilian space research.

The Isaac Newton Medal and Prize, to be presented at a ceremony in London in November, is the latest of seven major scientific awards that Bennett has received since 2005 in connection with his work as WMAP's principal investigator. Among them:

In 2015, he received Caterina Tomassoni and Felice Pietro Chisesi Prize in Rome
In 2012, he and the WMAP team received the Gruber Cosmology Prize in Beijing
In 2010, Bennett shared the Shaw Prize in Hong Kong
In 2006, Bennett received the Harvey Prize, an Israeli scientific award

WMAP took precise measurements of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background, the faint relic afterglow left behind by the initial burst of energy that created the universe 13.8 billion years ago. Those measurements, the IOP wrote, helped scientists produce "incontrovertible evidence" of dark energy and dark matter, find the first evidence of the cosmic neutrino background, and narrow the possible physics of the first fraction of a second of the universe.

26 interdisciplinary research teams receive Johns Hopkins Discovery Awards

Thu, 29 Jun 2017 13:35:00 -0400

Investigating the use of advanced hydrogels in post-stroke rehabilitation.

Filming the first documentary about women conductors.

Determining whether metadata from mobile phones can be used to monitor demographic trends—such as births and deaths—in low- and middle-income countries.

"Faced with a challenging landscape for federal funding, it is critical we support these cross-divisional teams and the impact of their creativity and discovery on our world."

Ron Daniels

JHU president

These are among 26 multidisciplinary endeavors that have been selected to receive support this year from Johns Hopkins University's Discovery Awards program. Each project team is made up of members from at least two JHU schools or affiliates who aim to solve a complex problem and expand the horizons of knowledge.

Altogether, the winning project teams—chosen from 188 proposals—include 86 individuals representing nine schools and affiliates.

"This year's proposals are a testament to the remarkable work of Johns Hopkins researchers across so many fields," said Ronald J. Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins University. "Faced with a challenging landscape for federal funding, it is critical we support these cross-divisional teams and the impact of their creativity and discovery on our world."

The Discovery Awards program was announced in early 2015, as was the Catalyst Awards program for early-career researchers. Together the two programs represent a $15 million university commitment to faculty-led research by university leadership along with the deans and directors of JHU's divisions.

Teams can apply for up to $100,000 to explore a new area of collaborative work, or request up to $150,000 in project planning funds if they are preparing for an externally funded large-scale grant or cooperative agreement. The awards are intended to spark new interactions among investigators across the university rather than to support established projects.

Senior faculty members from across the university were called upon to review the proposals, which were due at the end of March. Twenty-three of the teams selected fall within the $100,000 category, while three were chosen for the larger project planning awards.

One of the largest collaborations, led by Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Steven Salzberg, brings together six experts for an effort to prove that DNA sequencing technology can be used to rapidly diagnose infections in the human body, starting with studies on the brain and the eye.

"These awards inspire our researchers to find colleagues across the university ready to work together to pioneer new ideas," said Denis Wirtz, vice provost for research. "Once again, it is exciting to see these team members clearly reaching beyond their original field of expertise to propose novel research and creative projects. We look forward to seeing what they achieve together in the coming year."

The full list of recipients and their projects is available on the Office of Research website.

The recipients of the Catalyst Awards will be announced on July 5.