Oklahoma City and Tulsa both ranked in the top 20 of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America’s new 2016 list of “Most Challenging Places to Live with Spring Allergies.” If you’ve lived in Oklahoma for any length of time, you’re familiar with the usual seasonal allergy suspects: pollen, dust and mold. But have you […]
Petri Dish
Love and other drugs
As it turns out, all those pop music lyrics and Hollywood one-liners were right on target: in the human brain, love really does function a lot like a drug. So when you’re stocking up on roses, cards and chocolate for your significant other this Valentine’s Day, you’re not just being romantic, said OMRF President Stephen […]
Researchers discover 10 new lupus genes in Asian population study
An international coalition of researchers led by OMRF scientist Swapan Nath, Ph.D., has identified 10 new genes associated with the autoimmune disease lupus. The findings were published in the Jan. 25 issue of Nature Genetics. Nath and his colleagues analyzed more than 17,000 human DNA samples collected from blood gathered from volunteers in four countries: […]
Drink Up – or Not?
We’ve all heard orders like this: “I’ll have a double cheeseburger, large fries and an ice cream cone. And a diet soda.” In a study of the dietary habits of more than 22,000 Americans, University of Illinois researchers linked diet soda consumption to an increased intake of foods loaded with cholesterol, fat, sodium and sugar. […]
Turning Back Time
The National Institutes of Health has awarded researchers at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, OMRF, and the Veterans Administration Medical Center a five-year, $3.8 million grant to establish the state’s first Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in Basic Biology of Aging. “This grant is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of […]
A tiny fly yields answers about the heart
For more than a century, researchers have relied on Drosophila, the common fruit fly, to help them answer questions about human health. Why use a fruit fly? For OMRF scientist Dr. Hui-Ying Lim, the answer is simple: Flies are small and easy to maintain, and about 75 percent of their genes mirror those in humans. […]
