POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, is an autonomic nervous system disorder that affects blood flow in between 1 million and 3 million Americans, typically women and young adults. Those numbers are growing as POTS and other forms of dysautonomia have been diagnosed as long-term impacts from COVID-19. The symptoms include fainting spells, seizures, respiratory issues and digestive trouble.Nina Kikel-Coury, a graduate student in Professor Cody Smith's lab, suffers from POTS which placed her at a higher risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. She needed to remain completely isolated during the pandemic and could no longer work alongside others in her research lab. But the team rallied around her.Her lab mates designated hours when Nina could work alone, and they continued her experiments when she couldn’t be present sending results via email or FaceTime. With all this support, Nina made a scientific breakthrough, discovering a new cell in the heart—cardiac nexus glia—which may help explain and treat conditions like hers.“Identifying cardiac nexus glia could have a huge impact, not only with the neuroscience field but also the cardiovascular field,” she says. “Currently no one knows why dysautonomia occurs in a lot of people. And so personally it’s really exciting to know that maybe we’re just one step closer to figuring out the cause of dysautonomia, and in particular, long term down the road maybe even POTS.”Read more: https://go.nd.edu/ResearchThatMattersWWYFF

For parents of a child with Type 1 diabetes, stress is relentless. There’s a constant need to monitor blood sugar levels, and that need doesn’t stop once the child goes to sleep.Professor Matt Webber ’06 was inspired when a colleague mentioned she and her husband slept in shifts while the other monitored their diabetic child through the night. Since then, he has been devising material technologies that could be easily applied on or beneath the skin before bedtime. If blood sugar drops, the material automatically releases medication to stabilize levels. While distribution is still years away, Professor Webber hopes that in the future, his work will help take some of the burden off worried parents and serve as an extra measure of safety for millions with Type 1 diabetes worldwide.Read more: https://go.nd.edu/DiabetesWWYFF

Back in the 1960s, the Apollo missions to the moon ushered in awe and wonder as astronauts seemed to push the boundaries of human capability. This spring, when NASA astronauts took flight with SpaceX, many of us tuned in once again to witness the possibilities of imagination and ingenuity. Space provides endless opportunities for exploration, from Mars to long-term living on the moon but there are risks to such endeavors, chief among them radiation. Physics professor Jay LaVerne is working with a team to redesign the Apollo-era-style space suits still worn by astronauts to make them safer, less cumbersome, and more capable.

Across America, service providers are doing great work to tackle the complexities of poverty, but there is little data to prove what’s working and why. Notre Dame's Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) helps service providers apply scientific evaluation methods to better understand and unleash effective poverty interventions.In 2012 Catholic Charities of Chicago approached LEO to assess its programming to determine if it was effectively keeping people off the streets. The problem, the charity explained, is that the success of call centers is often measured by the number of calls, rather than the number of people successfully kept in their homes. Could LEO researchers measure the call center’s effectiveness rather than volume?In 2016, Professor Bill Evans and his team found that people who received emergency funds from Catholic Charities were 76 percent less likely to become homeless, and to date, more than 700 families have been kept in their homes because of the program. This affirmative assessment proved the emergency grants were not just a temporary solution and were a cost-effective use of funds. Now other cities across the country are using Notre Dame’s work to inform their own strategies on homelessness prevention.Learn more: https://go.nd.edu/WWYFFHomelessness

When a brachial plexus injury occurs, it tears the connection between the central and peripheral nervous systems. This can happen during childbirth or during car or motorcycle accidents. Unfortunately, after such an injury, the recovery rate is very low.Biology Professor Cody Smith's lab researches the development and repair of the nervous system. His lab is full of students working on issues that could impact a range of diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and POTS. As an undergraduate, Evan Nichols ’19, whose brother was born with a brachial plexus injury, asked to test a theory about this type of injury and made a radical discovery - a common chemotherapy agent might be able to help regenerate the connection if administered shortly after injury.Learn more: https://go.nd.edu/RepairTheBody

In 2018, in the midst of a heatwave in Mati, Greece, wildfires broke out and quickly engulfed the seaside town. Tragically, more than 100 people died, thousands of properties and homes turned to ash, and the once idyllic tourist destination sat in ruin.In the wake of the disaster, Notre Dame architecture professor Michael Lykoudis received a call asking if he would assess the town and help design a plan for rebuilding. Moved by the devastation and motivated by his Greek heritage, he sprang to action. In the fall of 2019, Lykoudis and a group of fifth-year students traveled to Mati to meet with local residents and help determine the architectural needs of the town.Learn more: https://go.nd.edu/FFResilientCommunities