Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have shed light on the function of the synapse the gap between nerve cells where information is passed from one cell to the next and solved a 30-year puzzle on how exactly nerve cells transmit signals.

Physician-scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia and Weill Cornell are taking part in two important clinical trials designed to treat the epileptic seizures that curtail life for one in every 100 Americans. The trials are known as the "RNS Trial" and the "Intercept Trial," and although their goal is identical, how each gets there is quite different.

A $950,000 grant to fund the study of a new treatment approach for mantle cell lymphoma was recently awarded to Weill Cornell Medical College by the Lymphoma Research Foundation (LRF). Lymphoma is the most common blood cancer and the third most common childhood cancer. Mantle cell lymphoma is a less common but particularly aggressive form of the disease.

American TeleCare, Inc., was re-selected by the Informatics for Diabetes Education and Telemedicine (IDEATel) Consortium as the primary telehealth technology provider for another four-year, $4.5 million project serving rural and inner-city New York residents with diabetes.

Physician-scientists in the Department of Public Health at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center have created the first nationwide planning guide for community-based response to bioterrorism and other infectious disease outbreaks since the 2001 anthrax attacks. The document and accompanying computer planning model will help communities ensure that all Americans have needed drugs and vaccines in the event of a natural epidemic or bioterrorist attack.

U.S. blacks with high blood pressure are about twice as likely to have an enlarged heart and a thicker heart muscle wall than their white counterparts independently of the degree of hypertension, report NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center researchers in the American Heart Association's journal Hypertension.

If more than three hours pass between the time a patient experiences a stroke and when they arrive at the hospital, it is too late for the only FDA-approved treatment for acute stroke -- intravenous tPA, a clot-busting drug. Now a new device called the Merci Retriever -- a tiny corkscrew designed to physically remove the source of the stroke, a blood clot in the brain -- is giving hope to patients who arrive late. The device is offered to patients as part of an ongoing clinical trial offered at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

James McKiernan, MD, the George F. Cahill Professor of Urology, has been named chair of the Department of Urology of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and urologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia. As department chair, he will be nominated to become the John K. Lattimer Professor of Urology.