Emory in the News: Addressing Georgia’s Maternal Mortality, How Virtual Reality Helps Prevent Athletes’ Injuries, At-Home Lung Cancer Therapy, and More

Ravi Thadhani, MD, executive vice president for health affairs at Emory University, recently joined other health care leaders at Emory’s inaugural Symposium to Address the Maternal Health Crisis in Georgia to discuss solutions for recent data on Georgia’s high maternal mortality rate.

Philip Santangelo, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering at Emory University, has received $24 million in funding as part of the Biden Administration’s Cancer Moonshot initiative. He discusses his research, which uses the same mRNA technology in COVID-19 vaccines to help the immune system fight cancer. 

Emory University Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing Dean Linda McCauley, PhD, RN, and assistant clinical professor Chelsea Hagopian, DNP, APRN, discuss the school’s new partnership with the Georgia Nursing Leadership Coalition and how its new workforce center will address the nursing shortage in Georgia.

A recent study found Hispanic women diagnosed with high blood pressure for the first time during pregnancy face a higher risk of heart abnormalities later in life. Maria Carolina Gongora Nieto, MD, a cardiologist at Emory Heart & Vascular Center, suggests adjustments to care that include more monitoring and awareness to help counter these findings.

Ticiana Leal, MD, director of the Thoracic Medical Oncology Program at Emory University School of Medicine, speaks about a new tumor-treating therapy for lung cancer patients that can be used at home. The therapy is currently in stage III of clinical trials and has shown an improvement in survival rates when combined with chemotherapy or immunotherapy.

Ami Klin, PhD, division chief of autism and developmental disabilities at Emory University School of Medicine, discusses the results of two studies he co-authored featuring a recently FDA-cleared tool that can detect autism in eye movements of children as young as 16 months old.

Gregory D. Myer, PhD, director of the Emory Sports Performance and Research Center, discusses how newly launched program Georgia Initiative for Virtual Reality, Education and Sport (GIVES) is using virtual reality technology to help prevent Georgia high school student-athletes from getting injured while playing. 

Travis Blalock, MD, director of dermatologic surgery at Emory Healthcare, discusses the unusual signs, symptoms and treatments for the rare skin cancer Merkel cell carcinoma, the disease that recently killed famed singer Jimmy Buffett.

Sagar Lonial, MD, chief medical officer of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, explains why survival and life expectancy have increased for patients receiving the latest treatments for the blood cancer multiple myeloma.

Joe Depa, Emory’s first-ever chief data and analytics officer, sits down for a Q&A to discuss his plans to use data, analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the patient and health provider experience as well as help improve the overall health community.