Dr. Barbara DiCicco-Bloom, assistant professor of family medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, has been named a finalist in the 2008 New York Times Tribute to Nurses, which recognizes nurses who have made a significant difference in patients’ lives and in the nursing profession.
She is director of the Primary Care National Research Services Award Fellowship – the first and only nurse to hold the position nationally – and co-investigator on a study to improve diabetes care in primary care settings, funded by the NIH-National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Read more.
Researchers at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School have identified the protein MG53 as a key initiator of membrane repair in damaged tissue. The study, released today in Nature Cell Biology, is the first to specifically pinpoint a protein responsible for promoting cell repair. Led by Jianjie Ma, PhD, professor of physiology and biophysics, the discovery has the potential to be used as a therapeutic mechanism to repair tissue in humans, transforming treatment for patients who suffer from severe complications of disease and aging.
This work was performed in collaboration with Professor Hiroshi Takeshima at Kyoto University, Japan. The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan and the American Heart Association. Read more.
The UMDNJ-School of Nursing is among the first institutions in the country to receive funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its New Careers in Nursing Scholarship Program, which aims to help alleviate the nation’s nursing shortage by dramatically expanding the pipeline of students in accelerated nursing programs.
The Foundation of UMDNJ received the grant for $300,000 on behalf of the school. The first recipients are Dorelis Cambero of Perth Amboy and John Dawkins of Ozone Park, New York; each will receive $10,000. Future scholarships will be awarded to students from under-represented groups in the nursing profession. Read more.
Living in an affluent neighborhood with a more highly educated population and higher-valued homes may play a protective role against obesity for older men and women, according to researchers at UMDNJ-School of Public Health. However, men residing in neighborhoods with a high immigrant concentration and women living in areas with little residential turnover may be more likely to be obese, they reported.
Those are some of the connections between “Neighborhoods and Obesity in Later Life” reported in a recent issue of the American Journal of Public Health by UMDNJ researchers who examined the relationship between the economic, social, and other aspects of neighborhoods and weight among men and women ages 55 years and older. Their study was funded by the National Institute on Aging, one of the 27 Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health. Read more.
