By Mark Richardson Wayne State University has received an $11 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate how volatile organic compounds contribute to preterm births. The five-year grant will be used to fund the Center for Leadership in Environmental Awareness and Research, where scientists will study the link between volatile organic compounds and preterm births in the City of Detroit. One goal is to create new ways to pinpoint the sources of industrial pollutants, and develop ways to mitigate their negative health effects. Carol Miller, professor of civil and environmental engineering and co-leader of the program at Wayne State University, said the ultimate goal is healthier moms and babies. "Very specifically, we're looking at how those contaminants impact women of childbearing age, and may be a factor influencing the high preterm birthrate in the Detroit area," Miller explained. Preterm births occur before 37 weeks, often leaving infants with breathing and feeding issues, developmental delays, or problems with seeing and hearing. According to the March of Dimes, among large American cities, Detroit has the highest rate of preterm births, at 14.6%. Volatile organic compounds are toxic vapors or gases, mostly generated by industrial sites. There are hundreds of contaminated sites in Detroit, and researchers theorize the effects of the compounds contribute to Detroit's high preterm birthrate. Dr. Melissa Runge-Morris, professor of oncology at and co-leader of the program, said preterm births most often occur in marginalized communities. "We are particularly plagued by environmental health disparities that affect and impact the most vulnerable members of our urban community," Runge-Morris emphasized.

By Kara Berg The baby court program functions as a combined problem-solving court and a typical family court, where most neglect, abuse and custody cases are handled. Judges handle cases and decide what services parents need, and when parents are able to regain custody of their children. The program is for parents of children up to age 4 who are either already in foster care or are at risk of going into foster care due to abuse or neglect. The 0-3 age group is overrepresented in Michigan's child welfare system; 27% of kids in foster care for abuse and neglect are aged 0-3 years old, despite making up 14% of the state's population. Michigan received a $3.125 million, five-year federal grant in December to add baby court programs in two counties and continue funding Wayne County's program, bringing the state's total number to four, including Wayne and Midland counties, said Michigan Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Bob Wheaton. The two new counties have not yet been chosen. Wayne County has had a baby court docket for more than a decade, said Wayne County Juvenile Referee Kathleen Allen, who oversees the program. The program has been funded by many sources, including a federal grant through Wayne State University; the Flinn Foundation, which focuses on improving mental health services; and a Michigan Health Endowment grant.  

A Wayne State University researcher has received a $1.7 million, five-year award from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health for the study, “Targeting nitrative stress for treatment of cisplatin ototoxicity.” The research aims to address the critical gap that exists in understanding how nitrative stress caused by cisplatin treatment alters cochlear protein signaling causing apoptosis – or death of cells – in cisplatin-induced ototoxicity. The study, led by Samson Jamesdaniel, Ph.D., assistant professor of family medicine and public health in Wayne State’s School of Medicine and in the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, stated that cisplatin and its analogs are prescribed to 10 to 20% of all cancer patients, causing hearing loss in up to 80% treated with the drug. "Cisplatin is a first-generation platinum-based anti-neoplastic drug that is the backbone of combination therapies to treat cancers of the bladder, cervix, lung [non-small cell], head and neck [squamous cell], testicle, mesothelium and some other solid tumors,” said Jamesdaniel. “The ototoxicity caused by treatments using cisplatin can significantly affect the quality of life in cancer survivors and lead to devastating consequences in children, with impacts on speech and language development, education and social integration.”

By Jena Brooker Detroit is a national leader for the most preterm births – and Wayne State University is setting up a new research center to collect more data on why. WSU in September received an $11.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate how one type of air pollution – volatile organic compounds, or VOCs – contribute to preterm births. The five-year grant has funded the formation of the Center for Leadership in Environmental Awareness and Research (CLEAR), where researchers will study the link between VOCs and adverse birth and health outcomes. “There really hasn’t been a significant body of work that’s been done till this point in time trying to understand the environmental link to that [preterm birth] rate,” said Carol Miller, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Wayne State and co-leader of the new center. Melissa Runge-Morris, a physician and co-leader of CLEAR, said the medical field is lagging in its understanding of how environmental factors contribute to health outcomes compared to lifestyle and genetic factors. “As far as environmental exposures, all of medicine is playing catch up,” she said. “We’re no different here in Detroit.”

Data show that Generation Z youth are coming out at earlier ages than previous generations of sexual- and gender-diverse individuals. However, little is known about LGBTQ youth’s perspectives on how or if parent-child discussions at home about health and sexuality sufficiently meet their sexual education needs. A new study led by Dalmacio Flores from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, co-authored by Lloyd Allen of Wayne State University’s School of Social Work and Jacqueline A. Bannon of Northwestern University, has explored the perspectives of gay, bisexual, and queer cisgender males about inclusive parent-child sex communication. It underscores the importance of inclusive sexuality conversations between parent and child for closeted, questioning, or even heterosexual youth.  

Two Michigan universities and a California-based marijuana research group are using about $40 million in Michigan marijuana tax revenue to research the therapeutic effects of cannabis on veterans suffering from suicidality and post-traumatic stress disorder. Wayne Stathe University, the University of Michigan and a marijuana research organization called MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) will spend the next three to five years studying hundreds of veterans using cannabis. They will examine variances in the effectiveness of pot use based on factors such as CBD and THC ratios, use prolonged exposure therapy and the inhalation of cannabis flower. The research, a requirement of the 2018 ballot initiative that legalized recreational marijuana in Michigan is rare nationally because cannabis remains illegal at the federal level and is considered a schedule 1 drug on par with heroin, ecstasy and peyote. The same federal laws that make such funding a rarity also make the research funded by state money all the more challenging as the groups struggle to comply with federal research standards involving a controlled substance. “I could go to a dispensary tomorrow two blocks from my office to buy whatever I need, but I’m prohibited by the FDA to give that to anyone in my laboratory,” said Leslie Lundahl, the lead principal investigator for Wayne State University’s research project. “We’ve identified a supplier who can give us exactly what we need and they’ve begun the process of getting approval,” she said. “But it could take a while.” Wayne State University received the most funding of any one group, raking in nearly $19.6 million between the two grant funding periods in 2021 and 2022. WSU researchers are working on a series of three areas to study marijuana’s effect on combatting veteran suicidality and PTSD. The study will work to determine the lowest dose of THC that still retains effectiveness in order to find ways for veterans to maintain concentration, memory or function while using cannabis. A second trial will examine whether cannabis use improves outcomes of prolonged exposure therapy, a common treatment for PTSD that includes discussions of trauma, triggers and reminders to decrease its debilitating effect. 

Dr. Leslie Lundahl, associate professor in the department of psychiatry and neurosciences at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, and her team are launching a new study to find out whether CBD and THC can help with PTSD. The study is looking to enlist the help of 350 veterans. The study will test cognitive function and monitor vitals while also testing blood, urine, and saliva samples. When studying regular cannabis users, they’re hoping to find lower levels of THC that can produce effective results. “Public opinion has really outpaced science in terms of cannabinoid therapeutics,” said Lundahl. “There are animal data that suggest it might be helpful, there are anecdotal reports that it might be helpful for pain or for PTSD or mood or anxiety, but we don’t really have any hard scientific data to really support that…Specifically, we’re looking at PTSD symptoms severity and then frequency and severity of suicidal thoughts and behavior.  

By Lily Bohlke  A new study found an association between what researchers are calling the biological age of sperm and reproductive success. While age is a major factor for women thinking of becoming pregnant, it is not often considered in male reproductive health, because men continually produce sperm throughout their lives. Dr. Rick Pilsner, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Wayne State University School of Medicine who led the study, said chronological aging – or the normal passage of time – does not always capture the aging process of the sperm. “Chronological age does not take into account the intrinsic [makeup of] your genes and how they function,” Pilsner explained. “As well as external factors such as environmental exposures, smoking, diet.” Pilsner reported initial findings showed a new measure, referred to as a “sperm epigenetic clock,” could be a way to predict biological fitness of a person’s sperm, and thus could be useful in predicting reproductive success. 

By Sabine Bickford Last June, many residents of Detroit faced massive structural, economic, and health issues when flooding caused by heavy rainfall overwhelmed many of the city’s aging and unrepaired storm and wastewater systems – particularly in East Side neighborhoods such as Jefferson Chalmers. Researchers say that a combination of inadequate local infrastructure and global climate change meant that neither the storm nor the damage should have come as too much of a surprise. “There have been several news articles out there saying ‘Well, we’re having 500-year events every year,’” says Wayne State University civil and environmental engineering department chair William Shuster. “But really it’s off the scale, and there’s no way to really characterize these rainfall events.” May resident have been facing similar struggles for years. A collaborative study by WSU, the University of Michigan, Eastside Community Network, and several other local organizations found that over 40% of Detroit households surveyed between 2012 and 2020 reported household flooding. “This is something that everybody’s been struggling with around the country, around the world,” said Shuster. “If you’ve got a city, you’re struggling with stormwater or wastewater.” In April, Shuster joined several other researchers for a roundtable discussion at the Wayne State campus on Detroit’s recent flooding and infrastructure issues. The conversation was a part of the University Research Corridor’s Hidden Health Threats tour that brought together researchers, policymakers, and other community leaders to discuss some of the most pressing environmental issues facing Michigan communities.

The most effective intervention to preterm birth is the administration of a natural hormone, progesterone, in patients at risk for premature delivery. Two categories of patients have been eligible for this treatment: those with a short cervix and those with a previous preterm birth. But research published this week by researchers of the Perinatology Research Branch at the Wayne State University School of Medicine indicates that progesterone is not effective in reducing the rate of preterm birth in women with a history of such birth. “We have advocated that vaginal progesterone reduces the rate of preterm birth in women with a short cervix. This evidence is solid and derived from multiple studies including randomized clinical trials, meta-analyses and implementation research,” said Roberto Romero, M.D., DMedSci, chief of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Perinatology Research Branch and professor of molecular obstetrics and genetics at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. “Some people believe that vaginal progesterone is effective not only in women with a short cervix but also in patients with a prior history of preterm birth. We have completed a systematic review and meta-analysis that shows that this is not the case.” 

By Jennifer Hart Jennifer Hart, associate professor of history at Wayne State University and chair of the university’s general education oversight committee and a planning and implementation fellow for gen ed assessment, wrote an opinion piece about the steps colleges can take to create more intentional, intelligible general education programs in light of recent survey results that show disconnects and how institutions can invest in general education. “At a base level, it would require viewing gen ed less as a series of requirements (the language used in the survey) and more as a coherent program with dedicated personnel drawn, in part at least, from the faculty and committed to program improvement. An intentional program requires, at minimum, curriculum management, assessment and policy development. A general education program that cuts across multiple departments and engages all undergraduate students is highly complex and requires unique and often much more intensive forms of communication and coordination than a traditional academic department or program,” she writes. Hart says that thinking about different program elements carefully and investing in personnel and support creates opportunities to further engage faculty and highlight the intentionality of a program. Hart writes that the survey results also raise questions about marketing in the event that that students don’t necessarily understand the value of gen ed. “At Wayne State University, we’ve worked with key campus offices to craft materials and share messages about gen ed before and during orientation and crated a new website called “Engaged Gen Ed” with expanding resources to support students, advisers and instructors. These efforts set a foundation and provide support for ongoing conversations students have with their advisers as they advance through their first year and beyond. Early, ongoing and consistent messaging is critical,” said Hart. She also references WSU’s annual award recognizing instructors for their contributions to the general education program as a way of creating a culture of recognition and appreciation, the celebration of student learning outcomes, and ongoing assessment and improvement efforts to support this vital teaching work.

A novel technique to measure the age of male sperm has the potential to predict the success and time it takes to become pregnant, according to a newly published study by researchers at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. “Sperm epigenetic clock associates with pregnancy outcomes in the general population,” published in the journal Human Reproduction, found that sperm epigenetic aging clocks may act as a novel biomarker to predict couples’ time to pregnancy. The findings also underscore the importance of the male partner in reproductive success. “Chronological age is a significant determinant of reproductive capacity and success among couples attempting pregnancy, but chronological age does not encapsulate the cumulative genetic and external – environmental conditions – factors, and thus it serves as a proxy measure of the ‘true’ biological age of cells,” said J. Richard Pilsner, Ph.D., lead author of the study. Dr. Pilsner is the Robert J. Sokol, M.D., Endowed Chair of Molecular Obstetrics and Gynecology and director of Molecular Genetics and Infertility at WSU’s C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development. “Semen quality outcomes utilizing World Health Organization guidelines have been used to assess male infertility for decades, but they remain poor predictors of reproductive outcomes. Thus, the ability to capture the biological age of sperm may provide a novel platform to better assess the male contribution to reproductive success, especially among infertile couples.”

By Lily Bohlke  Michigan researchers have received a $3.1 million grant to study potential new sources of rare earth metals and how to process them. Rare earth metals are a set of 17 elements found in the earth’s crust, and are a key component of many high-tech processes from military technology to electronic devices, batteries for electric cars and magnets in wind turbines. The U.S. relies on China for 80% of our rare earth metals, and the prices have spiked over the last year. The lead researchers for the project are Matthew Allen, chair and professor of chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Timothy Dittrich, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering at Wayne State University. “After we recover the rare earth elements, instead of just putting them in a hazardous-waste landfill, we’re also looking at ways to use those for building materials and other uses so that we don’t have these other problems that we’re creating as we’re recovering rare earth elements,” said Dittrich. 

Health care disparities in Black, Brown and impoverished populations are well documented, but the outcomes have never been as obvious as during the pandemic. For instance, in 2020, Black people were 2.1 times more likely than white people to die from COVID-19 in the U.S. In Michigan last year, roughly 30 out of every 1,000 Black people living in Michigan could expect to die from COVID-19, according to data published by Brookings Institution last March. To improve access to health care, the system must go mobile, said Dr. Philip Levy, professor of emergency medicine at Wayne State University and chief innovation officer for Wayne Health. Levy's practice is attempting to reinvent the model by putting primary preventive care on wheels and meeting patients where they live in an attempt to overcome systemic problems by treating chronic conditions like high blood pressure. The pandemic has also led to the most critical staffing crisis the industry has ever faced. Nationally, roughly 30 percent of nurses have either quit or been terminated during the pandemic. 

Avoiding fast foods, soda pop and processed foods can help prevent a condition called metabolic syndrome, or MetS for short. Diet changes often are far more powerful for preventing disease than the treatments we get when problems such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes are fully developed. The old saying is true: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A syndrome means we diagnose a condition by a constellation of findings without a single definitive test. These are factors for MetS: Abdominal obesity Low HDL cholesterol High triglycerides Elevated fasting blood levels of glucose Elevated blood pressures This syndrome is present in an estimated 30 percent of the U.S. population. and probably more than that among Detroiters. Those with MetS have a fivefold increase in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) and twice the risk for heart disease over five to ten years. While there are obese individuals who don't show MetS, the diagnosis has become more common with a rise in the percentage of people worldwide who are overweight or obese.

Christine Kivlen, assistant professor (clinical) of occupational therapy in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, wrote an article for The Conversation detailing the benefits of therapy dog programs for college students. As the demand for mental health counseling continues to increase, more colleges are using therapy animals as a way to improve student mental health. Such programs, more formally known as canine-assisted interventions – can improve student well-being while helping students achieve a stronger sense of belonging, cope with being homesick and lonely, and lessening their anxiety and stress. College students who spent even just ten minutes petting a dog or cat saw significantly decreased cortisol levels, which are known to indicate stress.

A newly published study found that women who contract COVID-19 during pregnancy are at significantly higher risk of developing preeclampsia, the leading cause of maternal and infant death worldwide. The research, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, shows that women with SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy had 62% higher odds of developing preeclampsia than those without the infection during pregnancy. The research was led by Roberto Romero, M.D., DMedSci, chief of the Perinatology Research Branch and professor of molecular obstetrics and genetics at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, and Agustin Conde-Agudelo, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., adjunct professor of obstetrics and gynecology. “This association was remarkably consistent across all predefined subgroups. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy was associated with a significant increase in the odds of preeclampsia with severe features, eclampsia and HELLP syndrome,” said Dr. Romero.

We’ve all been there: whether it's pulling a late-night study session, nursing a newborn baby at 4 a.m., or working long hours to meet a deadline, a lot can come between you and your pillow. You may chalk up sleep debt as an inescapable part of life. But a growing body of sleep-medicine research is shedding light on just how much damage too little sleep can cause. New research suggests that recovery from sleep deprivation (many days of it, in particular) may not be so easy. The effects of sleep deprivation on the brain’s attention and cognitive processing abilities may linger as long as a week after we’ve returned to a regular sleep routine, warns a new study, published September 1 in the journal PLoS One. Ultimately, you should think twice before you pull another all-nighter. While you may feel refreshed after a subsequent good night’s rest, your body may still feel the effects of your late nights, says James Rowley, MD, a professor of critical care and sleep medicine at Wayne State University in Detroit. This research is more evidence that you can’t quickly make up for lost sleep if you’re chronically sleep deprived, he says. “In the long run, it’s better to avoid the sleep debt in the first place and try to get seven hours of sleep consistently seven nights per week.” 

By Jake Bekemeyer  The State of Michigan has awarded Wayne State University in Detroit a $7 million grant to investigate the potential therapeutic effects of cannabis to improve military veteran patients’ quality of life and reduce post-traumatic stress disorder and depressive symptoms that can precede suicide. The grant was awarded as part of the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs’ Marijuana Regulatory Agency’s 2021 Veteran Marijuana Research Grant Program. Leslie Lundahl, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at the WSU School of Medicine, is the lead principal investigator on the five-year project — Wayne State Warriors Marijuana Clinical Research Program: Investigating the Impact of Cannabinoids on Veteran’s Behavioral Health.