School of Medicine

The vast majority of people who overdose on an opioid will survive the experience. Yet scientists know little about how nonfatal overdoses affect the brain and cognition. WVU School of Medicine researchers Erin Winstanley and James Mahoney systematically reviewed journal articles that examined the topic. Overall, the studies supported a link between overdose, brain abnormalities and cognitive impairment, but more research—with more precision—is needed. Their findings appear in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Jonathan Boyd—a West Virginia University School of Medicine researcher—is investigating the inflammatory responses produced by exposure to chemical agents. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency recently awarded him over $2 million for the project.

Exercising in the heat isn’t just miserable. It can even be deadly. Samantha Scarneo-Miller—a researcher with the WVU School of Medicine—and her colleagues at the University of Connecticut investigated the policies that high schools across the country use to protect their student-athletes from the most common safety threats, including heat stroke. The team also traveled from state to state to meet with policymakers and promote life-saving policies. The National Football League and the National Athletic Trainers Association provided $1.4 million for their effort.

Recognizing the transformative potential of education abroad, three West Virginia University students have had their commitment to an international education recognized through the U.S. Department of State’s Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship.

Four West Virginia University students have been awarded the Horace and Geraldine Belmear Scholarship, an honor created by Black alumni to expand opportunities for minority students – specifically Black, Indigenous and people of color.

Based on the latest guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, West Virginia University will distribute $27,271,733 in emergency grants to eligible students during the 2021-22 academic year.

Ajay Aluri, founding director of the Hospitality Innovation and Technology Lab at WVU, has developed a copper-infused mask to help protect employees on the frontlines of customer service.

With a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Samantha Minc, M.D., vascular surgeon and researcher at the WVU Heart and Vascular Institute, is launching a pilot program to prevent amputations in West Virginia. Given that West Virginians face a disproportionate number of risk factors for amputations, the program could save many lives.

Six students pursuing doctoral degrees at West Virginia University are receiving funding through the Ruby Scholars Graduate Fellows Program. This year’s fellows are Kelsey Bentley, Julia Ivey, Anuj Kankani, Claire Kelly, Zoe Pagliaro and Matthew Waalkes.

As the complexity of radiation therapy has grown, so too has the amount of data that goes into treatment machines. With more data comes more opportunity for errors in data transfer. Ramon Alfredo Siochi—WVU’s director of medical physics—is working to make those errors less likely. He led a task group to develop guidelines for checking the data’s accuracy before patients receive treatment.