Medical research and innovation : Buzz

What happens when you're both father and doctor? NPR tells the tale of a JHU psychologist whose son was diagnosed with autism.

Here's an excerpt:

"When a parent receives a diagnosis that his or her child has a condition with no known cure or treatment, it may be hard to know where to turn � even if the parent is a professional with the expertise to take matters into his own hands.

Dr. Barry Gordon, a neurologist and an experimental psychologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, faced the challenge of both treating and studying his son's condition. And in doing so, he pushed the limits of scientific research � and parental devotion."

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The final design -- the MPL -- offers 22 degrees of motion, including independent movement of each finger, in a package that weighs about nine pounds (the weight of a natural limb). Providing nearly as much dexterity as a natural limb, the MPL is capable of unprecedented mechanical agility and is designed to respond to a user's thoughts."

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"Inner-city Baltimore is a 'food desert" with many fast food restaurants and corner stores, but few supermarkets," said lead author Hee-Jung Song, Ph.D., a researcher in the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. "These food environments result in less availability of and accessibility to healthy food and impact on the kinds of food consumed by low-income residents."

The study appears online in the journal Health Promotion Practice.

The Baltimore Healthy Store program provided monetary incentives or free food to store owners, coordinated education about nutrition and developed guidelines for the owners to follow to help overcome language and cultural barriers. This is important, since most corner storeowners in Baltimore are Korean-American, while the customers largely are African-American."

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The Swedes have been at it again, handing out prizes to American researchers. It ain't a Noble Prize, but the work of Rita Colwell, a professor at the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Heath has won the Stockholm Water Prize for her research that has helped solve many water-related public health problems including cholera.


Here's an excerpt

"Colwell, 76, received the award for her "numerous seminal contributions towards solving the world's water and water-related public health problems," the jury of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.

Her work, especially on preventing the spread of cholera, "has established the basis for environmental and infectious disease risk assessment used around the world" and "is of the utmost global importance," it added in a statement.

The 76-year-old professor at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health was also honoured for being one of the first to study "the impact of climate change on the spread of disease," SIWI scientific director Per-Arne Malmqvist told a gathering in Stockholm where the prize was announced."

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Part of the Physically Challenged Sports Program at Kennedy Krieger, I-Skate offers children with physical disabilities the unique opportunity to learn how to ice skate�not only improving their health and independence, but providing important social interaction with their peers.

Launched in November 2009, the I-Skate program is open to children ages 5 to 18 with a wide range of physical disabilities that can include cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, limb differences and paralysis. Specially designed adaptive ice skates, walkers, ice sleds and helmets make it possible for these children to participate in weekly skating sessions. The program participants range from children who may eventually become independent skaters to those who may always use a walker for support.