This image by graduate student Quan Do (CAMED’26) of a brightly stained cross section of a rat brain won the inaugural Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering’s research photo contest. Image by Quan Do

Research News

Brink Bites: From Microscopic Worlds to Cancer Disparities

Other research news, stories, and tidbits from around BU, including a glimpse inside a songbird’s brain and a study tracking a cancer trial equity decline

The Brink’s latest collection of news nuggets, short stories, and other thought-provoking snippets from the world of Boston University research—including a study of social isolation among gender and sexual minorities, how physics might help encrypt data, and tracking a decline in cancer trial equity.

Helping Older Adults in the Witch City

As the population ages—with close to one in six Americans now over 60—more cities are thinking about how to better help older residents maintain their well-being. Among them, Salem, Mass. The “Witch City” is collaborating with the BU School of Social Work’s Center for Aging & Disability Education & Research (CADER) on a new three-part program that aims to focus attention on and support older adults’ behavioral health. According to SSW’s Network for Professional Education, the first part of the BU-developed program includes a community-wide awareness-raising campaign on topics such as social isolation, substance use, and mental wellness, followed by health and well-being workshops for older adults. The final piece will involve BU experts taking senior center staff, city employees, and other professionals through CADER’s Behavioral Health in Aging training. At the end of the program, the BU team will study its impact and provide recommendations for next steps.

A Glimpse into Microscopic Worlds

Second place in the Kilachand Center’s research photo contest went to this image of a neuron (in green) in a songbird’s brain. Naomi Shvedov

A shot of a skin cell won third place. Emily Davis

The winners of the inaugural Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering’s research photo contest provided colorful glimpses into microscopic worlds, from a single neuron in a songbird’s brain to the structure of a skin cell. First place went to Quan Do (CAMED’26), a graduate student in the Hasselmo Lab, for an image (top) of a brightly stained cross section of a rat brain. The image was taken as part of a project to study—and potentially influence—the locus coeruleus, a part of the brain that Do says may play “a big role in how the brain processes information and makes complex decisions.” Naomi Shvedov (CAMED’26) won second place for her image (above left) of a neuron (in green) in a songbird’s brain. Third place was awarded to Emily Davis (ENG’26) for a snapshot (above right) of a skin cell.

Cancer Trials Are Becoming Less Diverse

Thousands are diagnosed with cancer every day in the United States, but some Americans are more likely to have poorer outcomes than others: Black men die at a higher rate than their white peers; Black women are more likely to die from breast cancer. That’s why groups like the US Food & Drug Administration and National Cancer Institute have made concerted efforts in recent years to increase the diversity of patients involved in clinical trials for pioneering treatments. But according to a new study of head and neck cancer trials by researchers at the BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, BU’s primary training hospital, this push for equity seems to be failing. “These trials are actually becoming less racially and ethnically diverse over time,” reports the medical school’s news site. “The situation of inequitable representation in cancer research has actually worsened in the last 10 years.” The findings were published in Head & Neck. “Tragically, we live in a time when things like your race and gender impact how likely you are to survive your cancer,” says Heather Ann Edwards, a BU medical school associate professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery. “Research like this is striving to overcome these inequities to provide everyone facing a cancer diagnosis with opportunities to access treatments that were shown to be effective in patients like them.”

Convergence Research Award for New Approach to Encrypted Data 

Physicists have helped explain some of the most fundamental rules of matter and the universe, from the laws of gravity to the existence of black holes. But could physics also help make our online world safer? A new National Science Foundation Growing Convergence Research award—shared by a team from Boston University, University of Central Florida, and Cornell University—aims to use physics to inspire new methods for handling encrypted data. BU is represented by physicists Andrei Ruckenstein and Claudio Chamon, as well as computer scientist Ran Canetti. According to the NSF, the multidisciplinary research team hopes “to accelerate the development of trusted, low-overhead tools that enable computation directly on encrypted data so that, for example, confidential data can be shared with an untrusted party who can extract insights from the data without having access to the unencrypted data.”

Sexual and Gender Minority Adults More Likely to Report Social Isolation and Stress

A new BU School of Public Health–led study has found sexual and gender minority population adults are more likely to experience isolation, stress, and other social factors that can negatively affect health and well-being. In a paper published in JAMA Health Forum, researchers found those populations “were more likely to report social risk factors than were heterosexual and cisgender adults, respectively, with the largest magnitude of inequity between gender minority and cisgender adults.” They said the findings highlighted “the need for public policies that advance the health and economic well-being of sexual and gender minority individuals.”

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