As part of a clinical trial, surgeons Garth Jacobsen, M.D., and Santiago Horgan, M.D., were able to repair a painful weak spot in a patient’s abdominal wall using the vagina as the path to the surgical site. The minimally invasive hernia repair is believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S. and abroad. According to Horgan, if research proves that this ‘natural orifice’ technique is ideal for patients, more than 50,000 women in the U.S. may be eligible for this innovative hernia surgery. The process of performing surgery through a natural opening is known as Natural Orifice Translumenal Endoscopic Surgery or NOTES.

Researchers have identified a critical metabolic “switch” in fruit flies that helps oxygen-deprived cells survive. Hypoxia-induced injury occurs in the case of heart attack, stroke or other neurological or respiratory conditions which diminish the supply of oxygen to vital tissues and organs. Scientists know that most life forms are able to somehow suppress non-essential activity in order to survive oxygen deprivation, but they didn’t know why or how this metabolic slowdown occurred. According to Dan Zhou, Ph.D., and Gabriel G. Haddad, M.D., a transcriptional suppressor called hairy is crucial for reducing the mismatch between supply and demand of oxygen.

UC San Diego School of Medicine has been awarded nearly $38 million by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part of the National Institutes of Health, to continue leading “LIPID MAPS,” a national consortium studying the structure and function of lipids – cellular fats and oils that serve as building blocks for cells or as energy sources for the body. Lipids are implicated in a wide range of disorders, including heart disease, stroke, arthritis, cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. The five-year competitive renewal grant will enable the continuation of this ambitious national effort that brings together the work of dozens of researchers at 16 universities, medical research institutes and companies across the United States. Genes and proteins are often the focus of biomedical research, but lipids have a more direct impact on disease, according to the consortium’s principal investigator Edward Dennis, Ph.D.

A clinical trial led by Paul S. Aisen, M.D. , showed that high-dose vitamin B supplements did not slow the rate of cognitive decline in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. The Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS), a multi-center network spanning the United States and Canada, conducted the clinical trial to determine if reduction of an amino acid called homocysteine would reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease or slow its progression. Homocysteine is known to be involved in neurological disease, including Alzheimer’s, and its metabolism is affected by B vitamins. Therefore, it was thought that B vitamin supplements might offer a new therapeutic approach in treating Alzheimer’ disease.

Building on mounting evidence that implicates infection-fighting cells found in obese fat tissue in the growing problem of insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes, researchers led by Jaap Neels, Ph.D. , and Jerrold Olefsky, M.D. , have identified a particular subset of cells that are linked to obesity-associated insulin resistance, and that offer a promising new target for the treatment of diabetes. They showed that depletion of these cells, called CD11c-positive, in obese mice resulted in a reversal of obesity-associated insulin resistance.