Alzheimer’s disease

Health October 20, 2020

Researchers eye Alzheimer’s link in 9/11 responders

By GREGORY ZELLER // Biomarkers similar to those found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients are appearing in the brains of first responders to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Stony Brook University researchers are hot on their trail. Funded by a fresh $7.9 million grant from the National Institute of Health’s National Institute on Aging, a collaborative SBU research team – combining sociologists, positron emission tomography experts and others – is embarking on what the…

Genetics April 15, 2019

Honey, I shrunk the shrew (and maybe your kidney)

By GREGORY ZELLER // Cutting-edge evolutionary science meets a Rick Moranis movie in an innovative international study of a surprisingly shrinkable furball. Freshly supported by a three-year grant from the international Human Frontier Science Program, Liliana Dávalos, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution in Stony Brook University’s College of Arts and Sciences, will dive even deeper into the world of the shrew – a remarkable, mole-like mammal known to shrink its mass, including…

Newsletters April 10, 2019

No. 395: On Watson, women in energy and Ming the nonagenarian (and beating Alzheimer’s at its own game)

Picking up speed: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as another busy workweek blurs on by. It’s already April 10 out there, and while it’s not yet an official federal holiday – the Sibling Leadership Network (real thing) is working on that – today is still National Siblings Day. A moment’s paws: It’s also American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Day, commemorating the April 10, 1866, founding of the ASPCA. Attention inventors:…

Health March 5, 2019

Among 9/11 responders, SBU sees PTSD-dementia link

By GREGORY ZELLER // The heroes of 9/11 continue to confront danger, according to a new study by Stony Brook University researchers that sees a potential connection between PTSD and dementia. With cases of post-traumatic stress disorder frequent among the first responders who dealt with the devastating terrorist attacks 18 years ago, a pilot study by Stony Brook Medicine’s World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program “suggests that there may be a link between chronic…

Biotech April 26, 2018

Grant backs NYU Winthrop’s out-of-the-skull thinking

By GREGORY ZELLER // A “surprise grant” from the Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Center will further some promising Alzheimer’s-related research underway at NYU Winthrop Hospital. The Mineola hospital’s Research Institute announced Wednesday that researcher Allison Reiss, head of the institute’s Inflammation Section, has received a $10,000 grant from ADRC – a Bay Shore-based advocacy group – to support her work with human stem cells. Reiss’ team – including NYU Winthrop researchers Aaron Pinkhasov, Irving Gomolin, Joshua…

Startups September 20, 2017

‘Dormant’ biotech wakes on Alzheimer’s fast track

By GREGORY ZELLER // A pre-clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company is being fast-tracked toward a potential Alzheimer’s treatment, after taking a decidedly slow road. Stony Brook-based Avanti Biosciences Inc. actually launched in 2009, but was “dormant for a few years,” according to founder Gian Luca Araldi, “kind of an empty shell.” It was only in the last two years, when “I had some ideas I wanted to develop on my own,” that Araldi – a former senior…

Genetics August 15, 2017

ALZ: Genetic variants can run, but they can’t hide

The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research is targeting genetic risk factors behind Alzheimer’s disease, the first of many steps toward new potential treatments. Feinstein Institute assistant professor Yun Freudenberg-Hua has been awarded a five-year, $600,000 grant by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging, supporting her mission to better understand the genetic causes of a disease that inflicts an estimated 5.5 million Americans. Ultimately, the doctor and her staff hope to develop new…

Economic Development June 2, 2016

United it stands, with help from the Suffolk IDA

A 33-year-old biotech will purchase and renovate its longtime Hauppauge home, thanks to tax breaks approved Thursday by the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency. Synthetic vaccine manufacturer United Biomedical Inc. will undertake an $8.4 million effort to purchase and renovate the 43,000-square-foot facility it has leased since 1992. The IDA’s incentive package will also help the company, which originally launched in Delaware and established its Hauppauge headquarters after seven years, to furnish its renovated facility…