Obstetrics & Gynecology

News and Events

Programs and providers of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine are often the focus of news stories and features appearing in major national media. We invite you to review some stories that typify the breakthrough accomplishments of our remarkable team and highlight the impact our care has had on patient’s lives.

Lowering Bioenergetic Age May Help Fend Off Alzheimer’s

Seniors exercising

A person’s “bioenergetic age”—or how youthfully their cells generate energy—might be a key indicator of whether they’re at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, new research from Weill Cornell Medicine shows. The study, published Feb. 24 in Nature Communications, suggests healthy living can turn back the bioenergetic clock for some people, helping them fend off Alzheimer’s as effectively as a new drug called lecanemab.

“That’s quite big because it means some people can lower their risk without the uncertain side effects of current treatments,” said senior author Dr. Jan Krumsiek, associate professor of physiology and biophysics and computational genomics in the Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.

The study’s first author, Dr. Matthias Arnold, is head of the computational neurobiology team at Helmholtz Munich. This work was a collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Disease Metabolomics Consortium.

New Targets Needed for Vaccine that Blocks Maternal Herpesvirus Transmission

image of a pregnant woman getting a vaccine

A new Weill Cornell Medicine and Oregon Health & Science University co-authored study provides critical insight for the development of a vaccine that can more effectively block the spread of cytomegalovirus, or CMV, across the placenta to babies before they are born.

CMV is one of the most common viruses and most people don’t even know they’ve been infected. However, it carries significant risks to the developing fetus, including lifelong health complications such as hearing loss, developmental delays and neurological impairment. An effective vaccine would help protect babies from future health impacts.

The new study, published March 12 in Science Translational Medicine, finds that CMV lacking a certain viral protein complex – thought to be a critical vaccine target to prevent cross-placental spread – can still be transmitted and cause significant harm to the developing fetus. These results strongly suggest that additional vaccine targets providing superior protection need to be identified and explored.

Study Discovers Tuberculosis Genes Necessary for Airborne Transmission

image of a cough cloud

Tuberculosis bacteria rely on a family of genes that help them survive the challenging journey from one person’s lungs to another person’s during coughing, sneezing or talking, according to researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The findings provide new targets for tuberculosis therapies that could simultaneously treat infection and prevent the spread of bacteria. 

Until now, very little was known about this transmission process—when bacteria-laden droplets are expelled into the air, where they must withstand changes in temperature, oxygen levels, humidity and chemical composition. The study, published March 7 in PNAS, revealed for the first time that tuberculosis bacteria don’t passively endure these transitions but actively engage hundreds of genes to adapt and survive.

A man posing for a photo

Dr. Carl Nathan. Credit: John Abbott

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