Amazing Things Podcast LIVE Congressional Briefing

11/15/17 • 62 min

A special live episode of UMR's Amazing Things Podcast broadcast from Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., on Wednesday, November 15, 2017. Host Adam Belmar is joined by four NIH-funded scientists: Dr. Ed Damiano of Boston University, Dr. Natalia Trayanova of Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Vadim Backman of Northwestern University and Dr. Li-Heui Tsai of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The program includes remarks from U.S. Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan and U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho.

Previous Episode

Li-Huei Tsai: A Ray of Hope in the Fight Against Alzheimer's Disease

The statistics on Alzheimer’s disease are daunting. More than five million Americans are living with the disease and by 2050 this number could be as high as 16 million. Dr. Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, and her team of researchers have discovered that LED lights, flickering at a specific frequency, substantially reduce the beta amyloid plaques seen in Alzheimer’s disease, in the visual cortex of mice. Their work was published in the journal Nature in December 2016. If this finding bears out in humans, it is a game-changer.

Next Episode

Jean Bennett: A Gene Therapy to Treat Blindness

Hear the story of the first gene therapy approved in the United States to target a disease caused by mutations in a specific gene. In this case, the RPE65 gene, which affects vision. For Dr. Jean Bennett, the physician scientist behind this medical breakthrough, being able to change the prognosis for people who are blind or losing their vision — and to see the profound impact that this has on their life — has been a career well spent.