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.

Study Finds Addictive Screen Use, Not Total Screen Time, Linked to Youth Suicide Risk

teen phone addiction

New research shows that youth who become increasingly addicted to social media, mobile phones or video games are at greater risk of suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and emotional or behavioral issues. The study, published June 18 in JAMA, was led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, Columbia University and University of California, Berkeley.

Unlike previous studies that focused on total screen time at one point in a child’s life, this study looked at how young people’s patterns of compulsive or “addictive” use changed over time. These patterns included feeling unable to stop using a device, experiencing distress when not using it or using it to escape from problems. In contrast, simply spending more time on screens at 10 years old wasn’t associated with worse suicide-related and mental health outcomes.

Dr. Yunyu Xiao

Dr. Yunyu Xiao

Weill Cornell Medicine-Led Consortium Receives $13.5 Million to Expand Patient Data Network

Photo of a woman

The INSIGHT Clinical Research Network (CRN), a database of more than 23 million patient health records, has received $13.5 million in renewed funding from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).

The renewed funding will support efforts to lead and conduct research of national scope over the next four years, increasing capacity for observational studies, retrospective studies, clinical trials, machine learning and more. Additionally, the funding will foster new collaborations and enable investigators to securely pool patient data, upholding the highest level of patient confidentiality, to support research on a specific topic. With this support, researchers can investigate patient-centered ways to understand and treat conditions including depression, diabetes, breast cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

INSIGHT CRN is one of the largest urban clinical networks in the nation, bringing together eight academic centers in New York City and its metropolitan area, as well as Houston, Texas. Led by a team at Weill Cornell Medicine, INSIGHT’s data contributing collaborators include Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Montefiore Health System, Mount Sinai Health System, NewYork-Presbyterian, NYU Langone Health, Houston Methodist and most recently Stony Brook Medicine, which will add approximately 1.3 million patient records to the database.

Immune Tolerance to Gut Microbes Is Initiated by a Key Bacterial Sensor

purple and pink stained intestinal cells

Thousands of bacterial and other microbial species live in the human gut, supporting healthy digestion, immunity, metabolism and other functions. Precisely how these microbes are protected from immune attack has been unclear, but now a study led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators has found that this immune “tolerance” to gut microbes depends on an ancient bacterial-sensing protein called STING—normally considered a trigger for inflammation. The surprising result could lead to new treatments for inflammatory bowel disease and other conditions involving gut inflammation.

In their study, reported June 16 in Immunity, the investigators focused on group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3s), immune cells that dwell in the mucosal lining of the gut. Their previous research revealed ILC3s’ essential role in preventing immune attacks on gut bacteria. In the new study, they showed that this crucial function in ILC3s depends on STING—such that moderate STING signaling induces immune tolerance, whereas higher levels of STING signaling cause the deaths of ILC3s and the loss of tolerance.

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