JCI’s Conversations with Giants in Medicine: Nora Volkow

In this episode, Ushma Neill interviews Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), about her work with trailblazing imaging studies of the brain’s frontal cortex and its dopamine-driven circuitry. Volkow has helped to reveal the neurobiological underpinnings of addiction and how drug-induced changes in brain chemistry contribute to its trademark craving, compulsion, and loss of control. Watch to hear more of Volkow’s views on the value of being an effective communicator and lessons learned from the double pandemic of opioids and COVID-19.

Tertiary lymphoid tissue expansion and kidney injury are promoted by CD153/CD30 signaling

In this episode, Motoko Yanagita and Yuki Sato explain that CD153-CD30 signaling is required for tertiary lymphoid tissue expansion and represents a therapeutic target for kidney diseases in the elderly.

COVID-19 outcomes in African American patients using ACE inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers

In this episode, Li Li explains that in-hospital use of angiotensin receptor blockers was associated with a significant reduction in mortality among COVID-19-positive African American patients.

Complement C3 inhibitor AMY-101 in adults with periodontal inflammation – clinical trial

In this episode, the authors explain that local delivery of the complement C3 inhibitor AMY-101 in patients with gingivitis was safe, well tolerated, and led to significant and sustained reduction of clinical indices of gingival inflammation.

Hallmarks of the immunometabolic imbalance in COVID-19

In this episode, Marina Kreutz and colleagues discuss how their findings provide evidence of an immunometabolic dysregulation in COVID-19, which can be mitigated by dexamethasone treatment.