COVID-19 and Cardiovascular Health.

In late February 2020, a time when severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19) still felt like an abstraction in the United States, New York City's first infected patient was admitted to Mount Sinai Hospital's emergency room. Working a few doors down was Sean Pinney, the Director of Advanced Heart Failure and Transplantation. Little did he know, but "that night was the beginning of hell," he said.

Reproductive Health in the Time of COVID.

In spring 2020, the pandemic began shutting down the world-restaurants, colleges, even entire cities felt emptied and closed. A cloud of uncertainty lingered over most parts of the world and altered our daily schedules and tasks. But for a wide segment of society, it wasn't the toilet paper, or the masks, or the isolation from their families that hurt the worst-it was the sudden uncertainty around one of the most fundamental aspects of our lives: reproduction.

New Advances in Transplants and Bioengineering Aid in Replacing the Womb.

When Kayla Edwards turned 13, she began to wonder if she was different. It started as a seed of suspicion when her friends began their menstrual cycles, and hers never arrived. Her grandmother was late, she learned, but for Edwards, it still seemed odd. She had hit puberty's other benchmarks-the hormones, the breasts-just no cycle.

The Brain on COVID-19.

In March 2020 -still the early days of the U.K.'s COVID-19 crisis-Rhys Thomas, a neurologist at Newcastle University, got a call at home from a concerned colleague. The colleague's cousin was hospitalized, critically ill with COVID-19, and had developed brainstem encephalitis, a severe inflammatory condition of the brain causing a suite of symptoms, from eye problems to balance problems and drowsiness. He wanted to know if Thomas knew anything about these conditions. At the time, the research coming out of Wuhan, China, only suggested a mild whiff of neurological symptoms-headache, dizziness, and the loss of taste and smell. Clearly the virus could affect the brain in some ways, but it wasn't, Thomas thought then, anything serious. But this report sounded much more concerning. Symptoms like this patient's would mean the virus was accessing more of the nervous system than scientists originally thought.

Tracking COVID-19: There's an App for That.

In March 2020, before COVID-19 laid claim to the United States, Vice President Mike Pence briefed the press about the coronavirus outbreak, which at the time was a threat to passengers aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship moored off the coast of California [1]. At the time, cases had spiked in Iran, Italy, and Spain, but the disease was still an abstraction to most Americans. When asked about a potential outbreak in Washington, D.C., Pence called on Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, and a member of the U.S. Task Force, to address the question. Fauci replied that any individual who tested positive for the disease would undergo contact tracing, which he deemed "the public health weapon" for catching outbreaks before they start. Not long after, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, and the virus began spreading across the country.

Treating Postpartum Depression: Beyond the Baby Blues.

Amanda Bumgarner knows about babies. As a pediatric nurse in Richmond, VA, she's spent her working life consoling sleep-deprived parents, administering shots to screaming infants, and tenderly attending to the needs of fragile premature babies, often in the most heartbreaking and dire circumstances. When she gave birth to a little girl of her own, she wasn't expecting any surprises but two weeks into motherhood, she knew something wasn't right. At first, it was the tears-she couldn't get through a single day without crying. Then it was the debilitating anxiety-the overwhelming panic that once overcame her when her best friend, herself a mother and infant nurse, held her baby. She recognized that her feelings were far from rational. "How do you turn those things off?" she wondered, far too often. Breastfeeding was also a problem. "My daughter wouldn't latch without just destroying me," she said. "I was feeling like a failure, because this is supposed to be the most natural thing ever."

Modification of the host ubiquitome by bacterial enzymes.

Attachment of ubiquitin molecules to protein substrates is a reversible post-translational modification (PTM), which occurs ubiquitously in eukaryotic cells and controls most cellular processes. As a consequence, ubiquitination is an attractive target of pathogen-encoded virulence factors. Pathogenic bacteria have evolved multiple mechanisms to hijack the host's ubiquitin system to their advantage. In this review, we discuss the bacteria-encoded E3 ligases and deubiquitinases translocated to the host for an addition or removal of eukaryotic ubiquitin modification, effectively hijacking the host's ubiquitination processes. We review bacterial enzymes homologous to host proteins in sequence and functions, as well as enzymes with novel mechanisms in ubiquitination, which have significant structural differences in comparison to the mammalian E3 ligases. Finally, we will also discuss examples of molecular "counter-weapons" - eukaryotic proteins, which counteract pathogen-encoded E3 ligases. The many examples of the pathogen effector molecules that catalyze eukaryotic ubiquitin modification bring to light the intricate pathways involved in the pathogenesis of some of the most virulent bacterial infections with human pathogens. The role of these effector molecules remains an essential determinant of bacterial virulence in terms of infection, invasion, and replication. A comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms dictating the mimicry employed by bacterial pathogens is of vital importance in developing new strategies for therapeutic approaches.

The Danger of Sleep Deprivation.

Late one spring night in 1986, around 1:30 a.m., the residents of Pripyat, a Ukrainian city of 50,000 people at the northern tip of the Dnieper River, were shaken from sleep by a giant explosion originating in the nuclear reactor of the nearby power plant in Chernobyl. It was an event that would forever change the course of their lives, and that of human history. Hundreds of people died, both directly and indirectly from the explosion, which is now regarded as the worst nuclear power plant catastrophe in history. Today, the Chernobyl power plant and Pripyat are completely abandoned, unsafe due to nuclear contamination. Within a 19-mile radius in every direction of the plant, the landscape is considered unfit for human life for the next 50,000 years. And the cause? Well, when the dust settled, it was a simple condition we all suffer from time to time: an error caused by a worker with too little sleep.

Combating Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Just 2 Miles northeast of sleek downtown skyscrapers, across the Buffalo Bayou River from the Houston Astros' Minute Maid Park, lies a landscape greener than most of the urban sprawl, but absent the charm of typical Southern suburbia. The Fifth Ward of Houston, TX, is dotted with a patchwork of homes with screenless windows, many desperately clinging to their beams, surrounded by twisted chain link fences patrolled by trotting packs of skeletal stray dogs. Broken roads are lined with piles of abandoned tires, and pools of stagnant, dirty water. It is here that Dr. Peter Hotez (Figure 1) illustrates one of the wealthiest countries in the world is not immune to poverty and its associated medical crises.

AI Tackles Hospital Infections: Machine Learning Is Helping Clinicians.

For Ashley Zappia (Figure 1), getting her hands dirty was part of her job. Even though she always tried to remain as clean as possible, her work as a nursing aide at a Southern California hospital required a lot of diapering, changing, and other hands-on tasks. She was mostly in the ER, where physical contact with bodily fluids from sick patients was normal. She was careful to wash her hands frequently, even though she almost always wore gowns and gloves with all patients. Every time she left or entered a room, she lathered her hands in hand-sanitizer gel. Just 27 years old, she was young and healthy. On paper, she was at low risk for infection. That?s why, at first, she thought little of a urinary tract infection (UTI) that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

The Future of Fat: As Obesity Grows to Epidemic Proportions, Researchers Are Trying to Halt the Trend.

At first, Ahmed El-Sohemy was puzzled by his data-they were the complete opposite of what they should have been. It was supposed to be a straightforward study of cholesterol metabolism in rats and merely replicate the protocol from another, previously published study. El-Sohemy initially assumed the discrepancy had something to do with the rat chow; but, no, he had fed the rats the very same high-cholesterol feed as in the previous study, and the blood levels of cholesterol reflected that. Had he skipped a step? Taken the wrong measurement? He leafed through his lab notes, but, again, no, he had followed the previous study precisely.

A Time of Forgetting: Menopause May Hold a Key to Understanding the Development of Alzheimer?s Disease.

One day in the mid-1980s, at New York City's Rockefeller Hospital, two scientists met at opposite poles of their careers. Roberta Diaz Brinton (Figure 1) was a newly minted Ph.D. and a postdoctoral researcher at the hospital, where she was studying the molecular and cellular mechanisms of learning and memory. Dr. Rowena Ansbacher was a patient who'd spent her working life at the University of Vermont as a passionate scholar of Adlerian psychology. The pair clicked immediately, playfully bantering at times or expounding on Alfred Adler's ideas, which shaped much of the field of psychology in the 20th century. Afterward, Brinton walked Ansbacher back to her room and bid her goodnight. Half a minute later, she knocked on the door and entered her room.

Technology You Can Swallow: Moving Beyond Wearable Sensors, Researchers Are Creating Ingestible Ones.

Around 6 p.m. each evening, the streets of Boston's suburbs come alive with the physically fit and those aspiring to be. They are runners, bikers, walkers, and scooter riders of all different body shapes and ages who would seem to have little in common except one thing-an electronic band wrapped around their wrist. For many of these people, it's hard to imagine life without the daily nagging from a personal health device to meet their daily prescript of 10,000 steps.

Imaging Depression: New Biological Markers May Mean More Targeted Treatments are Just over the Horizon.

On a balmy evening in mid-May 2017, Chris Cornell, the legendary head of the internationally renowned rock band Soundgarden, strummed his last chord at the Fox Theater in Detroit and headed to the MGM Grand Hotel. According to the police report, he swallowed a few tablets of the antidepression drug Ativan in his room and called his wife. "I'm just tired," he said and hung up the phone. Later that night, at the request of his concerned wife, his bodyguard forced open Cornell's door to discover him on the bathroom floor, an exercise band tied around his neck. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging, the conclusion of a life riddled with drug abuse and a depression he'd never managed to shake.

Fertile Ground: Work at MIT?s Center for Gynepathology Research is Revealing How Tissue Engineering Can Help Address Gynecological Disorders.

At the age of 14, Linda Griffith experienced such abnormally painful periods that her doctor had already put her on birth control pills. They helped but only a little. In graduate school, a boyfriend convinced her to go off the pills, and her periods became so painful, she couldn't walk.

A Balancing Act: Scientists Seek to Reduce the Risk of Falls in the Elderly.

It was the inaugural day of the study in 2005 when Brad Manor went out into the hot Louisiana sun to meet his first patient, a gentleman we'll call James. Manor, now director of the Mobility and Brain Function Lab at the Harvard-affiliated Institute for Aging Research, was, at that time, a Ph.D. student at Louisiana State University (Figure 1). James, a man in his early 70s, suffered from peripheral neuropathy, a condition that caused significant nerve damage in his legs and feet. James got out of his car, carrying his cane in his hand, and walked with Manor to the lab. It wasn't until they were standing still and talking in the exam room that James leaned on his cane with its tip on the floor to stabilize himself. Manor was surprised. "That's opposite to what we typically think," he remarks, looking back on the incident. "Intuitively, standing seems simpler than walking." But James had much more difficulty standing and was actually quite competent while in motion.

Women's Health Is Personal: More technologies by and for women are moving into the mainstream--thanks, in part, to personalized medicine.

One fall day in Boston, Ridhi Tariyal sat on an examination table in her primary care doctor's office. Her doctor sat across from her, hurriedly transcribing notes as Tariyal responded to the doctor's questions. It was the end of Tariyal's physical, and the waiting room was full. "Do you have any questions?" the doctor asked, not turning away from the computer screen.

More Than Just Monkey Business: What the Primate Microbiome Might Say About the Human One.

The science of the microbiome is arguably one of the hottest topics in medicine, and rightfully so. A deeper understanding of the ecology of the flora in our bodies is providing revolutionary insight beyond the simple form and function of our major parts. This new frontier is dauntingly complex, and most studies focus on details, failing to place these microbial ecosystems within the larger context of evolutionary time and environment.

The real world: BME graduates reflect on whether universities are providing adequate preparation for a career in industry.

Let's face it: In the United States, a college degree isn't what it used to be. These days, 46% of recent college graduates consider themselves underemployed and in jobs that do not require their college degrees--degrees that have already cost many of these grads and their families hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, with no promise of a job and salary to pay those loans back. But engineering majors are said to be outliers. Engineering as a field is widely considered one of, if not the most, lucrative academic paths for students seeking well-paid employment immediately following college. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that nearly 40% of the 45 most highly paid professions that require only a bachelor's degree are in engineering. Salaries for all biomedical engineers, entry level or not, are among the highest, with a median pay of US$86,960. And engineering departments at colleges are not shy to advertise these numbers: the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Texas, Austin, declares on its Web page that, "electing to graduate with a major in biomedical engineering opens the door to an ever-growing amount of job opportunities," citing a 72%, ten-year job growth forecast. Boston University's program cites U.S. News and World Report's claim that BME is the country's fastest-growing occupation.

The great divide: some worry of a gap between what is being taught in American university undergraduate BME programs and the job market.

For decades, BME has been touted worldwide as the rising star in engineering disciplines. The number of technological advancements that can be credited to the field since the 1950s is staggering, ranging from new biomedical diagnostics and therapeutics to sensors, imaging technology, and orthopedics. In the United States, job numbers are on a steady rise and expected to grow by 27% within the next ten years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In those terms, "there has never been a better, more exciting time to enter the field," says Bruce Wheeler (Figure 1), former president of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and a BME professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville.