The prominent health news site STAT holds an online tournament called "STAT Madness" each year to identify the preceding year's biggest scientific advance, and this year UVA Health has three -- count 'em, three -- contenders for that coveted title.
Your votes will determine the winner of the bracket-style tournament, which is like the scientific equivalent of the NCAA basketball tournament. You can vote daily at https://www.statnews.com/feature/stat-madness/bracket-voting-now-open, and I implore you to do so!
The publication's editors singled out the following UVA findings as some of 2024's most important:
- UVA Health Children’s pediatric pulmonologist Gerald Teague, MD, and collaborators found that nearly a quarter of children with recurrent wheezing have undetected -- or "silent" -- lung infections that would be better treated with antivirals than the steroids now prescribed. These steroids can carry lifelong side effects, such as stunted growth, so Dr. Teague's finding has the potential to immediately improve the care children receive.
- UVA Health infectious disease expert William A. Petri Jr., MD, PhD, and neuroscience student David Tyus discovered that the part of our nervous system responsible for the “fight or flight” response shapes the severity of C. difficile infections. Their discovery suggest that doctors may be able to save patients from the potentially deadly infections – a bane for hospitals and nursing homes – by using drugs to quiet the overactive nervous system.
- School of Medicine researcher Jie Sun, PhD, and collaborators discovered an unknown cause of lingering COVID-19 symptoms long after infection has resolved: Malfunctioning immune cells are preventing the lungs from healing. The discovery could open the door to much-needed new treatments for the respiratory symptoms of long COVID.
Congratulations and good luck to all our contenders! And don't forget to vote UVA every day!