Health Sciences In The Media

Colorectal cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among Native Americans, prompting calls for increased screenings to improve detection and treatment of colorectal disease. The University of Arizona Cancer Center is working to address this problem. The program was recently awarded $3 million by the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative, which aims to accelerate cancer research and prevention.

Q&A with Environmental microbiologists and public health researchers at the University of Arizona: Kelly Reynolds, professor and chair of the Community, Environment and Policy Department at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and Charles Gerba, an environmental microbiologist from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Payson now has a state-of-the-art, high-tech telemedicine clinic, with the opening of the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix Rural Health Clinic. The clinic will train medical students and also offer treatment for everyone regardless of medical insurance status, taking advantage of the latest technology to run tests, talk to specialists and manage the care of complex medical issues.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can relieve pain, according to a new study by University of Arizona Health Sciences researchers. The finding may explain why nearly half of people who get COVID-19 experience few or no symptoms, even though they are able to spread the disease, according to the study's senior author Rajesh Khanna, PhD, a professor in the College of Medicine -- Tucson's Department of Pharmacology.

Joe Gerald, a researcher at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health who tracks the coronavirus in Arizona, said it is too early to detect spread from campus outbreaks in the state, but it may be that the overlap between students and locals is minimal enough to prevent that.

Dr. Lisa Grimaldi, an associate professor in the Division of Cardiovascular ICU at the University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix, said most children who have tested positive for COVID-19 do not have symptoms or have only a very mild disease. Grimaldi also is pediatric critical care physician at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. She said there are reports out of New York and Europe that children are being hospitalized with a new disease that appears to be tied to Coronavirus. Called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).

Concerns over the spread of the coronavirus as the U.S. enters its ninth month of the pandemic has prompted one city to ban Halloween trick-or-treating. Leila Barraza, an associate professor at University of Arizona in the College of Public Health and a Senior Consultant at the Network for Public Health Law says that recommendations, not outright bans, is likely the preferred approach by health officials. “There is always a balance of constitutional protections and potential for infringement on an individuals’ right versus protection of a community, just like with isolation and quarantine or vaccination laws,” she told McClatchy News. “That’s what some of these local jurisdictions are trying to do by giving these recommendations — giving people safer, lower risk options to follow.”

The causes of cerebral palsy have long been debated and often are attributed to in utero infections, premature birth, or brain injury to the baby near or during delivery, usually from a lack of oxygen. But many young children diagnosed with cerebral palsy have not experienced such events. New research, the largest genetic study of cerebral palsy, supports previous findings and provides "the strongest evidence to date that a significant portion of cerebral palsy cases can be linked to rare genetic mutations, and in doing so identified several key genetic pathways involved," said co-senior author Dr. Michael Kruer, a neurogeneticist at Phoenix Children's Hospital and the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

Members of the MJH Life Sciences COVID-19 Coalition weighed in on the latest pandemic information in a recent survey. Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist and adjunct professor at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, is one of the 10 coalition experts.

Interview with Dr. Murtaza Akhter, an emergency physician at Valleywise Health Medical Center and assistant professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix.