For me, it was Bob Dylan. I was a high school junior, and my sights were set, quite limitedly, on romance, sports and the fretboard of my brother’s hand-me-down guitar. But when I heard “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” among other early Dylan songs, I gained a binocular vision. My adolescent struggle to manifest(...)
BRCA Testing: The Hidden Cost of Knowledge
Posted by Xuan Pham | Perspectives in ResearchIn late March 2015, Angelina Jolie penned a new op-ed, “Diary of a Surgery,” in which she detailed her continued struggles with hereditary cancer risks. After having a preventive mastectomy in 2013, she recently shared her decision to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed, in an effort to prevent a cancer that killed three(...)
Apr 13, 2015
Is Convenience Harming Our Children?
Posted by Sylvia Owusu-Ansah | A Day in the LifeI recently took care of a young infant who was found to have eaten a single-use detergent sac, otherwise known as a laundry pod. The child’s mom called 911 because of vomiting, but by the time the paramedics brought the patient to the emergency department, he was barely conscious, breathing hard and fast, intermittently gasping(...)
Apr 10, 2015
It Is Our Showtime
Posted by Xin Liu | Events and HappeningsOn March 1, a new year ball was held in Washington, D.C., at the Westin. The event was sponsored by the local chapters of the Fudan Alumni Foundation, the University of Science and Technology of China Alumni Association, the Shanghai Jiaotong University Alumni Association and the Zhejiang University Alumni Association. Attendees were dressed formally. Gentlemen(...)
Apr 7, 2015
Johns Hopkins Scientists Discover a Novel Mechanism for β-Lactam Antibiotic Synthesis
Posted by Kevin Monk | Recently PublishedSome oft-prescribed antibiotics, including penicillin and cephalosporin, share a common motif in their chemical structure: a small group of atoms arranged in a ring, called a β-lactam. These β-lactam antibiotics utilize this unusual structure to disrupt the cell wall synthesis in bacteria, greatly inhibiting their ability to spread throughout the body. Unfortunately, how these ring(...)
Apr 6, 2015
Meet Chris Cho: M.D.-Ph.D. and BCMB Student, Plus Ballet Dancer Extraordinaire
Posted by Alisa Mo | A Day in the LifeOne of my favorite things about Johns Hopkins is that I get to count some pretty extraordinary people as my friends and fellow classmates. One of these folks is Chris Cho, an M.D.-Ph.D. student who is also a first-year graduate student in the Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology (BCMB) Graduate Program. Chris graduated from Yale(...)
Apr 3, 2015
Can Tasty Food Reduce Stress?
Posted by Soroosh Solhjoo | Perspectives in ResearchAccording to the World Health Organization, more than 1 billion adults in the world are overweight, making them candidates for chronic disease and disability. Many of these people have one thing in common: They unconsciously start eating sweet and high-calorie foods to deal with stress and anxiety. And though later detriments to health may ultimately(...)
Mar 31, 2015
New Cancer Documentary Sheds Light on Treatment Advances, Patient Lives
Posted by Paul Sirajuddin | Events and Happenings“Her name was Melissa,” Dr. Bert Vogelstein recounts to the packed auditorium. He’s talking about his first patient as a pediatric resident at Johns Hopkins nearly 40 years ago. “I still remember to this day her parents asking me why this happened to their daughter.” Melissa was a young child who was diagnosed with acute(...)
Mar 30, 2015
Effective Communication: How Do Johns Hopkins Scientists Learn to Speak?
Posted by Shannen Cravens | A Day in the LifeDoes anyone remember being asked if they were left-brained or right-brained? That’s how I recall my friends and I attempting to find our academic niche. We had two choices: We were either good at solving equations or writing essays. That may have seemed true when we were young, but as professionals we now know that(...)
Mar 27, 2015
Hopkins MD/PhD student is a Kut above the rest
Posted by Kirstie Keller | Did You See This?While most graduate students are worried about their next exam or an upcoming experiment, Carmen Kut, an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, is quietly immersed in her latest endeavors to create meaningful medical products for those in need. Since her time as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins(...)
Mar 25, 2015