In an interview with The News-Letter, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Jeff Coller discussed his research on the development of a new experimental protein booster that aims to improve the stability of ribonucleic acid and the critical impact of recent federal research funding cuts on the future of biomedical research.
We’re at the home stretch of the academic year! Let’s end the year strong by reviewing some breaking discoveries this week, including the creation of a never-seen-before color, the detection of biosignatures on a distant planet and advances in research for Parkinson's disease.
I like the color purple. The number 22, the season of autumn and definitely cats over dogs. Everytime I try to explain what fuels my affections, I don’t have much to say: I am just drawn to them for no good reason that I can pinpoint.
Senior Maya Mann’s interest in accessible city planning and appreciation for public transportation stems from growing up in New York City. In an interview with The News-Letter, Mann described her research in urban planning as an aspiring systems engineer, which she hopes will inspire city policy makers to make more informed decisions.
On Thursday April 1, the Department of Biology hosted Niels Ringstad, professor in the Department of Cell Biology at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. Ringstad delivered a talk titled “Modulation of Behavior by Host-Microbe Interactions” for the department’s seminar series, highlighting recent findings from his lab about the powerful effects of microbes on the behavior of the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans).
Colton El-Habr was a Whiting School of Engineering (WSE) student for a little over a year before dropping out in 2023 to commit full-time to Orbit Technologies (Orbit). Orbit is the neurotechnology startup El-Habr co-founded with Steven Pang, a former student at Georgetown University. In an interview with The News-Letter, El-Habr discussed his journey with the startup along with the details of Orbit’s technology.
On Thursday, March 13, the Department of Biology hosted Greg Lang, associate professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University. Lang delivered a talk titled “Genome evolution in laboratory populations of yeast” as a part of the Department’s Seminar Series, and explored his lab’s work conducting experimental yeast evolution on the bench.
In the wake of shifting political attitudes towards science, policymaking and advocacy have become critical in guiding the future of science. The Science Policy and Diplomacy Group at Hopkins is an entirely graduate-student-run group aiming to ensure that science and policy remain connected through advocacy, awareness and action.
On Friday, March 7, 2025, Stand Up for Science, a volunteer-based operation designed to protest perceived threats to scientific research and funding, gathered outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The demonstration, which drew approximately 2,000 participants — including Hopkins students, lab groups and over 30 speakers from academia, hospitals and government — highlighted concerns over frozen research grants, the dismissal of government scientists and rollbacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Monday, March 10, that the Trump administration had completed its six-week review of programs within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and will shutter 83% of the programs. The rest of the programs will be folded into the U.S. Department of State. The News-Letter spoke with several faculty and staff members at the School of Public Health whose work has been affected by the termination of USAID grants or reductions in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
A 2023 report from the City of Baltimore Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services estimated that around 1,500 people experienced homelessness on any given night in Baltimore City. While this marks a decrease from previous years, it still affects a significant number of residents.
Epilepsy diagnosis is an imperfect science. Approximately 30% of patients are misdiagnosed after their first visit. Consequences of these misdiagnoses can be severe: Untreated epilepsy increases seizure frequency and can be fatal, but at the same time, false positive results are equally dangerous. Patients who receive false diagnoses of epilepsy can face unnecessary discomfort and receive unnecessary treatments with significant side effects.
With spring break quickly approaching, let’s take a look at some breaking scientific discoveries and news, from a new sickle cell disease cure to continued federal funding cuts.
Despite the hardship the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted on many globally, it sparked immense progress in rapid testing for infectious disease: One could take a test quickly at home to determine whether they were infected, accelerating disease detection, treatment and recovery. Such innovation was partially championed by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Innovative Diagnostics for Infectious Diseases (JHCIDID).
A recent paper published by Johns Hopkins researchers in the Department of Computer Science details the development and use of AbdomenAtlas: an annotated public dataset containing abdominal CT scans from over tens of thousands of patients around the world. This new extensive dataset serves as the training ground for early-detection artificial intelligence programs, which have the potential to greatly improve the efficiency of cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Imagine a bustling metropolis on a weekday morning: vehicles honking, people rushing to work, street vendors setting up shop and delivery trucks weaving through the chaos. Despite the apparent asynchrony, there is order to this chaos. If we shrink this scene down to the microscopic level, we zoom into the gut microbiome, a dynamic and complex ecosystem teeming with trillions of microorganisms checking their own to-do lists to keep us alive.
On Tuesday, Feb. 4, visiting professor Derek A.T. Cummings at the Department of Epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health gave a talk entitled “Challenges in Infectious Disease Dynamics: highlighting work at Johns Hopkins Infectious Disease Dynamics” for the Institute for Computational Medicine.
Carolyn Elya gave a talk titled, "The Last of (Fung)us: Mechanisms of Fruit Fly Behavioral Manipulation by the Killer Fungus Entomophthora muscae" on Feb. 13 as part of the Department of Biology Seminar Series. Elya, an an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University, leads a lab focused on elucidating how parasites manipulate the behavior of their hosts.
As we continue to push through the spring semester, take a break and catch up with some of the latest scientific discoveries, including the transplant of a pig organ into a human and a new tool for pancreatic cancer detection.
"Who are you?" This question, in its many variations, is almost inevitable in school applications, job interviews or introspective moments. We spend years, perhaps our entire lives, unraveling the intricacies of who we are. But there exists another sense of self, of which many are unaware, that stands by 24/7 to protect us. It resides within us, a quiet but essential arbiter of identity: our immune system.
