Science Market Update

Emory University has created an intriguing new online news center that collects diverse, captivating multimedia content on a single web-based platform. The Emory News Center launched on January 26th and will be able to reach audiences through a variety of media channels. The approximately 4 million annual visitors to Emory’s website will be able to access exciting new online features and services now that the site has launched.

New research from Columbia University’s Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain shows that silent strokes may be the cause of memory loss in aging people. Dr. Adam M. Brickman, Ph.D. and Herbert Irving Assistant Professor of Neuropsychology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, told Neurology that what’s new about his research is that it “examines silent strokes and hippocampal shrinkage simultaneously.” In the past, experts believed memory loss in the elderly was a result of deterioration in the hippocampus. While there’s truth in this logic, Dr. Brickman says that silent strokes (strokes so small they may go unnoticed) also contribute to the problem of memory loss in older people.

Researchers say they may have made a science research breakthrough in the fight against cancer by discovering how to keep tumor cells alive in the lab. Up until recently, scientists haven’t been able to keep cells alive in a way where they look and act like they would in the body. Doctors previously had to freeze or set in wax biopsied tissue to make a diagnosis.

An anonymous gift of $16 million in science research funding to the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania will fund the establishment of the Neuroscience of Behavior Initiative, which aims to strengthen Penn’s program in basic, translational, clinical and population research into the areas of addiction, depressive disorders and neurodegenerative disease. The gift is the single-largest donation for neuroscience research in the school’s history.

The new Leiden Ranking 2011/2012 measures the scientific impact and collaboration of 500 major universities worldwide. The new university scientific ranking system is based on 25 years of bibliometric work done at the Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of Leiden University. The system aims to provide measurements that are less subjective than those of other methods. For example, the Leiden Ranking does not use surveys and data provided by the universities themselves to determine a school’s scientific rank.

On November 9^th,, 2011, Weill Cornell Medical College celebrated the dedication of its new Belfer Research Building. Until that morning, the man behind a $100 million gift that will make the facility’s construction possible was a mystery. The ceremony, which took place on Weill Cornell’s East 69^th street campus, revealed that oilman Robert Belfer donated the large sum.

In the beginning of August, we published an article about Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to encourage 27 interested universities to come up with innovative ideas for high-tech campuses and compete for space in one of three areas in New York City. While Manhattan local news website DNAinfo.com  reports that at an unrelated press conference, Mayor Bloomberg said he is not rejecting the idea that more than one school may win the competition, he also said that up to $100 million in public funding for the project is on the line, so the city will probably work with just one school to begin with.