The Virginia Tech media relations office has the following experts available for interviews this week surrounding issues in the news. To schedule an interview, please contact mediarelations@vt.edu.

Virginia Tech experts available to discuss headlines in the news

Historic trial of former President Trump continues

Former president Donald Trump’s Manhattan hush money trial is heading into the final stretch. Today, Michael Cohen, former attorney for Trump, will face cross-examination. Trump has suggested he wants to take the stand but there are still questions as to whether that will happen. The judge announced this morning that he expects closing arguments to begin next Tuesday, after Memorial Day. The former president is facing 34 counts of falsifying business records, interfering with the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign to retake the presidency. Political science expert Karen Hult can speak to the unprecedented trial, while public relations expert Cayce Myers should shed light on how the trial hurts and helps Trump’s reelection efforts. Read more here. ***Hult is not available for interviews until Tuesday***

What the sudden death of Iran’s president means for the Middle East

The sudden death of Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, and foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahia, in a helicopter crash has shocked the country during a time of rising tension within its borders and escalating hostilities with Israel. Raisi was the protege of Iran’s longest-ruling supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who is in declining health. Middle East economics expert Djavad Salehi-Isfahani can discuss the repercussions of these events in the region.

Baltimore bridge demo to begin Monday

After being stuck on the ship for more than seven weeks, the crew of the Dali cargo ship are finally set to move on Monday for the first time since the craft collided with and destroyed part of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge. Stefano Brizzolara is an expert in ship design and dynamics and can speak to the challenges of getting the ship moving once again, as well as what we’ve learned so far about why this accident happened.

Summer travel season, expert offers tips on how to plan ahead

Memorial Day Weekend is the unofficial beginning of summer, and the launch of the summer travel season, with nearly 44 million Americans expected to travel at least 50 miles over the holiday. If you’ve got travel plans, Mahmood Khan preaches patience above all, and has tips on how to navigate crowds and delays, as well as how to best plan ahead to avoid headaches. 

Food safety tips for Memorial Day cookouts

As we prepare for Independence Day celebrations, Virginia Tech food safety specialist Melissa Wright has advice for those hosting or attending backyard cookouts and potlucks. To protect yourself, your family, and your friends from foodborne illness during warm-weather months, safe food handling when eating outdoors is critical. Consider these four guidelines: CLEAN, SEPARATE, COOK, CONTROL. More here.

Sun safety tips for Skin Cancer Awareness month 

Dr. Stephanie Lareau with the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine can discuss the many ways to protect yourself from too much ultraviolet radiation outdoors with tips ranging from how to choose sunscreen, how to dress for the best sun protection, and more.  

2024 Summer Olympic Games

The Olympic Games in Paris are rapidly approaching, and there is no shortage of stories. Did you know that the gold medals are also, really, silver medals? Or whether we should all be eating as much protein as Olympic athletes? Experts can speak to all that and more as the Games approach. More here.

Research Highlights

Researchers reveal promising treatment target for resistant brain cancer

For many patients with a deadly type of brain cancer called glioblastoma, chemotherapy resistance is a big problem. Current standard treatments, including surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy using the drug temozolomide, have limited effectiveness and have not significantly changed in the past five decades. Although temozolomide can initially slow tumor progression in some patients, typically the tumor cells rapidly become resistant to the drug.

But now, Virginia Tech researchers with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC may have moved a step closer to a solution. 

Working with glioblastoma cell cultures, including glioblastoma stem cells derived from patient specimens, and laboratory mouse models harboring human cancer cells, scientists have pinpointed an effective molecular signaling pathway that is thought to be crucial for cancer cell survival during temozolomide treatment. The findings are now online in iScience, an open-access journal of Cell Publishing. More here.

Virginia Tech researchers join together on cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment

May is both Brain Tumor Awareness Month and National Cancer Research Month. Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC is dedicated to advancing health through a better understanding of cancer and brain tumors and developing new ways to treat and prevent them. The institute’s teams of investigators are working on research that extends from childhood cancers to breast cancer to glioblastoma, one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer. In addition to looking toward new treatments, labs are also working to make existing treatments more effective by making cancer cells more vulnerable. Learn more here.

Virginia Tech scientist studying the link between diet, diabetes, and heart disease

The relationship between a high-fat diet and increased risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease is well-known. But what is the connection and how does it work?

In Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease globally, cells become insensitive to the hormone insulin — including those in the heart. That insensitivity impairs heart cells’ ability to function, leading to diabetic heart disease and a doubling of the risk for heart failure and death. Heart disease is the most common cause of death from diabetes.

Jessica Pfleger, assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC and its Center for Vascular and Heart Research and her lab will study that connection with funding from a new, five-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. More here.

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