News & Events

The National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health has awarded a grant to Weill Cornell Medicine to develop a screening tool and intervention for elder neglect in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Approximately one in 10 Americans over the age of 60 have experienced some form of elder abuse, a broad category that encompasses financial exploitation, physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect and more. For this study,...

Cigarette smoking is associated with worse cognitive performance among people 60 years and older, and that association is broadly the same whether or not individuals have hypertension or diabetes, according to a study from investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. The findings, published Dec. 6 in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, underscore smoking’s adverse effect on...

More than 160 faculty and students filled Uris Auditorium Dec. 5 to hear doctoral candidates deliver bite-size presentations of their research in an entertaining way. The catch? They had to deliver their work in three minutes or less.

Oftentimes, the theses presentations were full of puns and good humor. From likening the ability of the blood-brain barrier to block the easy passage of molecules to a strict bouncer standing imposingly at a party’s entrance, and depicting a RAS mutant...

A new method can illuminate the identities and activities of cells throughout an organ or a tumor at unprecedented resolution, according to a study co-led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian and the New York Genome Center.

The method, described Jan. 2 in a paper in Nature Biotechnology, records gene activity patterns and the presence of key proteins in cells across tissue samples, while...

An enzyme that defends human cells against viruses can help drive cancer evolution towards greater malignancy by causing myriad mutations in cancer cells, according to a study led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine. The finding suggests that the enzyme may be a potential target for future cancer treatments.

In the new...

The post-COVID syndrome known as long COVID has four major subtypes defined by different clusters of symptoms, according to a study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

The study, published Dec. 1 in Nature Medicine, was the largest of its kind to examine long COVID. The researchers, who represent clinicians and informaticists, used a machine-learning algorithm to spot symptom patterns in the health...

An artificial intelligence algorithm can determine non-invasively, with about 70 percent accuracy, if an in vitro fertilized embryo has a normal or abnormal number of chromosomes, according to a new study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Individuals who were already pregnant at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic had a 50 percent lower exposure to SARS-CoV-2 compared with those who became pregnant after the pandemic began and the general population, according to a new model created by Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian and University of Oxford investigators.

The findings, published Oct. 30 in the journal Viruses, are some of the most extensive data to...

An experimental therapy showed promise as treatment for an aggressively spreading type of colorectal cancer in preclinical models, according to a new study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

Mesenchymal colorectal cancer (mCRC) accounts for about one-third of all colorectal cancers. Targeted immune therapies aren't effective against this form of cancer because the environment inside the tumor keeps immune cells that would kill the tumor cells at bay. But a team led by...

The long-term immune response to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination was similar in pregnant individuals compared with non-pregnant individuals of reproductive age, according to a study by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. The similarity in protection is noteworthy, given that pregnancy alters the immune system, and potentially the response to vaccination.

The findings, published Nov. 2 in the...

Weill Cornell Medicine has been awarded a five-year, $7.8 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, to study whether the antibiotic doxycycline may slow the progression of the chronic lung disease emphysema in people living with well-controlled HIV.

“There are no available treatments for addressing emphysema progression. Inhalers commonly prescribed to patients with the disease only alleviate airway symptoms,” said co-...

Acinetobacter pittii (A. pittii), a type of bacteria, is evolving to become more resistant to antibiotics and is finding ways to survive in the harsh environment of the International Space Station, according to new research led by Weill Cornell Medicine scientists.

“Studying bacteria found on the space station and their resistance to antimicrobial drugs is critical for astronaut health,” said principal investigator...

A Medicare system that is meant to assess and incentivize healthcare quality with pay adjustments may not be working as intended, according to a study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

In the study, published Dec. 6 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the researchers analyzed data on more than 80,000 primary care physicians enrolled in Medicare’s Merit-Based Incentive Payment...

The Medicaid program allocates nearly $20 billion a year in subsidies to support safety-net hospitals and other health care providers that serve low-income patients. While most of the subsidies are well-targeted — going, as intended, to facilities that disproportionately care for low-income and uninsured patients — potentially up to one-third are not, according to a new study led by Weill Cornell Medicine and University of Pennsylvania investigators.

The...

Dr. Sandhya K. Balaram, a leading adult cardiac surgeon in New York City, has been named chief of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, effective Nov. 15. She was also recruited to Weill Cornell Medicine as an associate professor of clinical cardiothoracic surgery.

In her new role, Dr. Balaram will expand NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist...

Changes in a single gene open the door for harmful gut bacteria to set off the inflammation that drives Crohn’s disease, according to a new study led by Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian investigators. These findings could one day help doctors better select targeted treatments for patients with this immune disorder. 

This particular host gene, called AGR2, encodes part of the cell’s machinery that helps prepare new proteins properly so that they can help repel “bad”...

Dr. Augustine M.K. Choi, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine and provost for medical affairs of Cornell University, plans to return to his research at the end of the calendar year, following his tenure as dean. We sat down with Dr. Choi to discuss the ways the institution had evolved under his six years of leadership.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Weill Cornell Medicine: When you consider where we...

In 2021, a group of scientists led by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian reported that the Moderna mRNA vaccine and a protein-based vaccine candidate containing an adjuvant, a substance that enhances immune responses, elicited durable neutralizing antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 during infancy in pre-clinical research.

Now a follow-up study...

A gene linked to autism spectrum disorders plays a critical role in early brain development and may shape the formation of both normal and atypical nerve connections in the brain, according to a new study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.