In a story about new research in nonhuman primates revealing lower levels of fatty acids in the brains of monkeys given a popular antidepressant, Bita Moghaddam, Ph.D., says disruption of fatty acid levels in an adolescent brain “could have long-term sustained effects on how [their] brain is wired."

OHSU Casey Eye Institute’s Elks Children’s Eye Clinic building is named among the area’s top three new health care buildings of the year by Daily Journal of Commerce Oregon.

A new collaboration with TriMet will allow many patients at OHSU Hospital to be transported home or to skilled nursing facilities as soon as they’re ready for discharge, freeing up space during a period of extreme demand.

The Oregon Poison Center at OHSU, Rob Hendrickson, M.D., support the FDA’s recommendation to not use the antiparasitic therapy ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19; there is no data that supports its use and its intentional misuse can cause health problems.

The lead scientist responsible for the report — OHSU's Peter Graven, Ph.D. — said the forecast isn’t all bad news.

Mark Slifka, Ph.D., explains how different vaccines provide protective immunity and why we’re not yet sure how long individuals will be protected after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination: “We’re fortunate with tetanus, diphtheria, measles and vaccinia. We have identified what the threshold of protection is. You track antibody decline over time, and if you know the threshold of protection, you can calculate durability of protection. With Covid, we don’t know."

An OHSU-authored Pediatric Dermatology case study involving the dominant form of the genetic skin condition dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa describes how it led to disproportionally short big toes in a baby.

In regard to the toll the pandemic is taking on health care workers, Esther Choo, M.D., says: “I think we all reached exhaustion maybe a wave or two ago. And at this point, I don’t think there are words for what people are feeling. We’ve lost so much of our workforce, particularly our nursing workforce because the type of work we’re doing for so long has been unsustainable.”

A professor of obstetrics and gynecology from OHSU, Alison Edelman, M.D., explains the study to help understand whether COVID-19 vaccination and changes to menstrual cycles are related.

In a story about how creating vaccines that provide 100% protection against infection is difficult to achieve, Mark Slifka, Ph.D., says such sterilizing immunity is also “almost impossible to prove,” and notes vaccines that protect against serious disease are also valuable.