The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has awarded a two-year, $6 million grant to a team at the USC Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics and the USC Roski Eye Institute advancing a new treatment for one of the leading causes of blindness in older adults. The funding will enable the researchers to conduct preclinical studies needed before launching human trials. The investigators aim to accelerate progress in fighting dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which affects about 16 million people in the U.S. The disease is rooted in damage to the eye’s retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), the cells that support the photoreceptors of the retina. RPE cells protect, feed, and restore the rods and cones that convert light into signals readable by the brain. Dry AMD, which typically manifests in people 50 and older, is currently incurable and can eventually render those suffering legally blind. The USC strategy supported by CIRM takes a new approach - an injection containing a mixture of the restorative, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds that are released by stem cell-derived healthy RPE.

Historical policies shaping educational attainment have enduring benefits for later life memory and risk of dementia, according to a study led by a Rutgers Health researcher.

The study, published in Epidemiology, compared the differences in years of education based on variations in state schooling mandates with cognitive performance outcomes in residents decades later.

Today, Nature and other Nature Portfolio journals published a collection of more than 40 peer-reviewed papers marking a milestone toward researchers’ understanding of the human body in health and disease and the development of the first draft of the Human Cell Atlas (HCA). The Human Cell Atlas is an international community whose mission is to align groups engaged in creating comprehensive reference maps of all human cells — the fundamental units of life — as a basis for understanding human health and for diagnosing, monitoring, and treating disease. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is one of the HCA’s first and largest funders and provided support for a third of the papers included in this landmark release. The research papers cover an impressive variety of tissues, cell types, and organs, such as the brain, immune system, thymus, and endometrium. These papers advance scientific research by introducing novel methods and frameworks for improving the analysis, integration, and visualization of complex, high-dimensional single-cell and multi-omics datasets, enabling more accurate cell type identification, spatial mapping, and understanding of cellular heterogeneity across various biological contexts and diseases.

University Hospitals Brain Health & Memory Center is now treating patients with KISUNLA™ (donanemab), a Food and Drug Administration-approved medication for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. UH is the only health system in Northeast Ohio currently offering these infusion treatments. Donanemab has shown promise in clinical trials and may be a treatment option for patients with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease.