With bright futures of their own, dozens of Alpert Medical School students every fall mentor local teens from disadvantaged high schools to help them plan their paths. Each January, mentees present the health and medical research guided by their mentors, who introduce them to health care careers and encourage them to thrive in other ways, too.

The Zika virus, best known for its strongly suspected link to fetal birth defects, has become a major health crisis in Central and South America. On Weds. Feb. 10 at 12:30, Brown University experts will gather to “separate fact from fiction” concerning the emergency.

Earthquakes that happen deep beneath the earth's surface have long been enigmatic to geologists. Now researchers from Brown University have shown strong evidence that water squeezed out of a mineral called lawsonite could trigger these mysterious quakes.

Brown University epidemiologist Joseph Braun has shown that prenatal exposure to PFAS chemicals is associated with greater adiposity in children. With a new $2-million grant from the National Institutes of Health, he will examine how the chemicals may have that effect and when exposure is most crucial.

A newly published review article finds that use of infertility treatments in the United States, ranging from medicines to in vitro fertilization, is likely hindered by widespread gaps in insurance coverage of reproductive services and technology.

Aaron Held’s research merges and draws on the expertise of two of the labs in Brown’s broad effort to combat ALS. That role has given him several opportunities to learn novel skills and new science during graduate school.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — ALS — can arise from aberrant genes. A group of five Brown University professors proposes that a cure may also come from aberrant genes — genetic mutations that suppress ALS. A new research grant supports their comprehensive investigation of ALS in flies, worms, mice and human cells.

The idea of legalizing physician assistance in the planned death of terminally ill patients is rapidly gaining political traction across the United States, write Eli Adashi and Ryan Clodfelter in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Doctors have no approved medicine to help treat marijuana dependence and abuse, but in small new clinical trial topiramate reduced the amount of cannabis heavy smokers used when they lit up. The results also show, however, that many volunteers couldn’t tolerate the drug’s side effects.

Among HIV-positive patients with Hodgkin lymphoma, a new study finds that blacks are significantly less likely than whites to receive treatment for the cancer, even though chemotherapy saves lives.