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Today: Summit tackles a contentious issue in science

Medical researchers, data scientists, and patients are convening today for a meeting centered around the idea of sharing clinical trial data — a contentious, complicated issue in research. The two-day summit will be hosted by the New England Journal of Medicine, which has come under fire in the past for taking a stance against data sharing. Last year, the editors of the prestigious journal warned that some researchers thought data sharing would make it easier for scientists to leech off the work of their peers. Proponents of data sharing saw that as being selfishly concerned with personal gain, rather than furthering scientific knowledge.

In the year since, NEJM has started a new campaign to promote the sharing of clinical trial data. The winners of the SPRINT data analysis challenge — which gave individuals access to data from a blood pressure control study and asked them to discover a new scientific finding from it — will be talking about their findings at the meeting. You can sign up to watch live online here.

Early-career cancer researchers score big funding

Ten cancer researchers early in their careers are being awarded this morning with $750,000 each to foster their work in immuno-oncology. The grants come from Stand Up to Cancer, a nonprofit that’s working to promote cancer research. It’s part of a push to clear away career barriers that make it more difficult for young scientists to get grant funding and advance their work. Here’s a peek at a few of the winners — find the full list here later today.

§ Dr. Jennifer Wargo, a surgical oncologist who is looking to understand the role of a tumor’s microbiome in how cancer cells respond to treatment.

§ Dr. Marcela Maus, who’s using genetic engineering to create CAR-T cells. The goal: Steer those immune cells toward tumors to kill them without harming healthy tissues.

§ Dr. David Barrett, a pediatric oncologist who’s also homing in on T cells. Barrett is studying how to restore the function of those immune cells to treat childhood cancers.

Malnutrition in South Sudan sparks continued concern

Global health officials are stepping up their response to the famine affecting South Sudan in an effort to reduce the spread of disease and curb preventable deaths. In one of the hardest-hit regions of the nation, long known as the Unity State, an estimated 270,000 children are suffering from severe, acute malnutrition. Malnutrition can lead to a compromised immune system, which in turn makes young children and other vulnerable groups more prone to diseases including measles and malaria. The World Health Organization is gearing up for an upcoming measles vaccination campaign across the country, following a cholera vaccination campaign earlier this year.

Collaboration. Now that’s what we call a medical breakthrough

At the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, we seek answers to some of the toughest questions in medicine. We believe nothing is more powerful than collaboration. From early discovery to access and distribution, we seek partners who want the same we do: better outcomes for patients. We are Janssen. We collaborate with the world for the health of everyone in it. Learn more at www.janssen.com.

Inside STAT: Hospitals rush to get resident visas

Nearly 4,000 non-US citizens who went to foreign medical schools have scored coveted spots as residents at US hospitals this year. But right now, it’s still unclear whether they’ll be able to start work when they’re supposed to this summer. The program that allows employers to fast-track the necessary H-1B visa applications has been suspended as of today. Immigration officials announced the change just one month ago, and new residents found out where they’d matched a little over two weeks later. That’s left some hospitals scrambling to figure out who needed the visas and make sure the applications got in before fast-tracking was no longer an option. STAT’s Eric Boodman has more here.

Lab Chat: Pinpointing neurons tied to obesity

a nerve bundle in a mouse's adipose tissue, with the obesity-related neurons in orange. (Roksana Pirzgalska / IGC)

Scientists looking to better understand obesity are zooming in on a particular type of neuron situated inside the body’s fat tissue. Researcher Ana Domingos of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia in Portugal has found that silencing specific neurons creates obese mice — a discovery that could help test out drugs to combat obesity. Here’s what she told me about the findings, published in Nature Communications.

What did you set out to study?

When we activate [these neurons] locally, we can reduce fat mass. But if we get rid of these neurons, we can then try to force obesity in a mouse. It usually takes forever in animal models. Without these neurons silenced, it takes 12 weeks to make a mouse fat. With the neurons silenced, the mouse gets fat in one month. It tells you the biological significance of these neurons in gaining weight.

What’s your next step in using that finding?

The next step is to develop drugs to activate those neurons. And one of the means to validate potential drugs is to inject them into animals that don’t have those neurons to validate their efficacy. In the absence of their target, effective drugs should no longer work. So we developed a new tool to delete those neurons. This tool could be applied to many other diseases and biological systems. If you’re doing pain research, there is a central nervous system component and a peripheral nervous system component. So to tease out which component needs to be targeted with a drug, you could use the same approach.

Food allergy research gets a boost

Food allergy research will be getting a big boost in the coming years thanks to the NIH, which is setting aside $42.7 million over the next seven years for studies on the subject. About 4 percent of adults and 5 percent of kids in the US suffer from food allergies. But despite the prevalence of the condition, the causes of food allergies have largely remained a mystery and new treatments have been difficult to find. The money will go to the Consortium of Food Allergy Research, a crew of scientists who’ve spent more than a decade working on immunotherapy treatments for food allergies. The consortium has previously worked on research that showed exposing an individual with an egg allergy to controlled doses of eggs can help lessen the severity of their reaction. Now, they’re doing similar work on peanut allergies, along with research into the genetic risk factors for some food allergies.

A knowledge gap about fertility and hormone therapy

A new survey of transgender individuals seeking health care in Toronto suggests there might be a knowledge gap about fertility options among those who use hormone therapy or have gender transition surgery. Transgender individuals can have biological children by freezing their sperm or eggs before starting hormone therapy. About 30 percent of those surveyed said they lacked knowledge of their fertility options. And of that group, 77 percent said they hadn’t ever discussed the subject with their health care provider. It was a small survey, and limited to a handful of health facilities. But, the researchers say, it points to the need for a broader look at the issue and possible interventions to narrow that information gap.