Virginia Tech has released its latest rating of football helmets, based on scientific evaluations of how they absorb hits taken on the gridiron.

The results are the latest in a project, started in 2011, that uses sensors placed in the helmets to measure the magnitude of an impact to the head, and how well the helmet reduces the risk of a concussion.

“Our research focuses on identifying helmets that reduce concussion risk so that athletes can make informed decisions based on independent data when purchasing equipment, which in turn incentivizes helmet manufacturers to design helmets that better reduce head acceleration,” said Tech engineering professor Stefan Duma.

Duma is the director of the project, undertaken by the Tech-Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences.

This year, 18 helmets were evaluated through an analysis of more than 2,000 laboratory tests. The tests were based on more than 2 million head impacts recorded in high school and college football games.

To see how the helmets rated, click here.

To read some of our previous coverage of the  project, click here and here.

A patent was recently issued for the design of an online tool developed by Attention Point, a Roanoke-based company that helps doctors better evaluate children suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Patent no. 8,340,752 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was the third and likely final patent associated with the production of  DefiniPoint, an online assessment tool that assists with the diagnosis of ADHD.

The traditional process is heavily paper-based, requiring parents and teachers to fill out assessment forms.

DefiniPoint features an algorithm that reads the results of the assessments and yields a single score. The product was launched last year.

“While the technology underneath DefiniPoint is not obvious, the benefits of integrating multiple pieces of medical data are certainly clear,” said Sam English, founder and CEO of Attention Point.

Co-inventors of the product are Daniel Cox, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Behavioral Medicine Research, UVa professors Kim Penberthy and Boris Kovatchev, and Sweet Briar professor Raina Robeva, according to a news release from Attention Point.

Patients recieve free dental care inside the Roanoke's annual Mission of Mercy Project Friday, March 30, 2012. (Photo by Sarah Bruyn Jones)

A new study says many Virginians don’t have access to dental care because of costs and a lack of dentists, according to the Associated Press.

Virginians in the rural western and southern regions of the state are less likely to have received dental care than residents living in the highly urbanized northern and eastern regions, according to a news release about the study. Read more »

Among small metros, Roanoke ranked in the top third for being positioned to help seniors remain healthy and age in place, according to an analysis by the Milken Institute.

Roanoke was 77th of 259 small metros ranked in the think tank’s “Best Cities for Successful Aging” study.

Roanoke scored highest on indicators that looked at health care and general quality of life factors like crime, cost of living and weather. Read more »

Jamie Tyler has been working with his team at Neurotrek to develop a helmet that people will want to wear regularly to improve brain function.

The idea is that the helmet would stimulate the brain by using non-invasive ultrasound technology.  The company is working to commercialize Tyler’s research of using ultrasound to treat neurological diseases including depression, Parkinson’s and epilepsy.

But the potential for the helmet reaches beyond helping treat diseases to helping improve the working memory of any individual, Tyler said.

Tyler, an assistant professor at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and Neurotrek’s chief scientific officer, revealed his early work in developing the helmet during a talk last week to the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council. Read more »

Members of the Virginia Tech Center for Drug Discovery (Photo courtesy of Virginia Tech)

Seeking to speed up research that could lead to new disease fighting pharmaceuticals Virginia Tech has established The Center for Drug Discovery.

With about $250,000 in start-up funding, the new center has purchased equipment that will allow researchers to test various compounds that may be useful in the early stages of drug development, said University Distinguished Professor David Kingston, who was name the center’s director.

Without the robotic technology, Virginia Tech researchers have had to test compounds by hand, limiting the number of tests that could be run, Kingston said. The new equipment will allow for up to 1,000 compounds to be screened and analyzed in a day.

“The more testing you can do with the more compounds you can test the higher the chances are to find something,” he said. Read more »

Photo courtesy of Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute

Correction: An earlier version of this post gave the wrong date for the lectures. The dates are May 10 and May 11. The post has been corrected.

An expert in stem cells and regenerative biology will be in Roanoke next week as part of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute’s lecture series.

Amy Wagers will talk about the basic properties of stem cells that make them attractive for developing therapies for diseases. She will also share some of the possible ways stem cell research may lead to improved medical treatments.

Michael Friedlander, executive director of the research institute, said Wagers’ talk will be “one of the most provocative and exciting” of the lecture series.

“This will be a particularly interesting series of presentations for the public in light of the keen interest of people of all walks of life and ages in the promise of stem cell therapies for diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, spinal cord injury, aging, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and cancers,” Friedlander said in an email.

Wagers, who is from the Harvard University Medical School Stem Cell Institute, will give two lectures. The first, on Thursday, May 10 at 5:30 p.m., is geared for the general public. The Friday, May 11 lecture, at 1 p.m., is open to the public but more directed at the scientific and medical communities and will be a presentation of her research.

Photo by Stephanie Klein-Davis / The Roanoke Times

A football helmet rating system designed by Virginia Tech engineers has been updated to include new helmets.

The ratings stem from a larger research project to rate the effectiveness of adult-size football helmets to protect players from possible concussion inducing impacts.

The new results include more helmets to receive the top five-star rating.

“Specifically, you can see Riddell and Rawlings using this research to develop the very best helmets,” said project director Stefan Duma, the Harry C. Wyatt Professor and Department Head of the Virginia Tech – Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, in a news release. Read more »

Foster mother Shirley Bryant holds the infant she has nicknamed Tiny Man while she gives him methadone to help him cope with withdrawal symptoms. He was born premature, hooked on cocaine and opiate painkillers.(Photo by Sam Dean / The Roanoke Times)

The number of U.S. babies born with signs of opiate drug withdrawal has tripled in a decade, according to a study released online today.

The uptick in babies born with drug withdrawal comes because of a surge in pregnant women’s use of legal and illegal narcotics, including Vicodin, OxyContin and heroin, researchers say. It is the first national study of the problem, according to the Associated Press.

In March I wrote about the trend in Southwest Virginia and about how Roanoke stands out as the Virginia locale with the second-highest number of drug-dependent newborns reported to social services during the past two years. Read more »

Richard Gibbs (Photo courtesy of Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute)

A geneticists who is among the scientists who placed the entire human genetic code in proper order, unveiling the blueprint for life, will give a public lecture in Roanoke Thursday.

Richard Gibbs directs the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine, which was one of three U.S. academic institutions to place the human genetic code in order.

Gibbs is the latest guests to take the lecture podium as part of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute’s Distinguished Visiting Scholars Series.

He is expected to talk about how people’s individual genomes can be sequenced on an individual basis, and how the cost of doing that is rapidly declining, said Michael Friedlander, executive director of the research institute.

“He will address what we can do to use this information to make health and lifestyle decisions that can affect our heart health, cancer risk and risk for other diseases,” Friedlander said.

“He is leading modern medicine into the age of cancer diagnosis, autism and developmental disabilities with the powerful new generation of tools of modern genomics and computation of which he is a world leader in developing,” Friedlander said.

The lecture is Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at the institute. A public reception will precede the lecture at 4:30 p.m.