Dr. Joann Sweasy discusses what inspired her to become a cancer researcher, how research has evolved and what the future looks like for the UArizona Cancer Center.

UArizona College of Nursing has received a new $30,000 grant to support students in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program.

While Caucasions are 20 times more likely to develop melanoma than people of color, the reality is when it's diagnosed in people of color it’s typically in the deadliest of stages. "The rate for melanoma is now 30 per 100,000 in Arizona compared to 22.7 per 100,000 in the United States as a whole," said Robin Harris, a professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and co-director of the Skin Cancer Institute at the UArizona Cancer Center.

Menopause’s effects on the brain are often temporary, according to a new study. But there’s a caution for women at risk of Alzheimer’s.

Mean sleep duration increased in 2020 by 5 to 11 minutes in nearly all groups studied, according to an analysis of Fitbit data from more than 163,000 users in six major U.S. cities "particularly hard hit" by the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was also interesting to see that the degree of change in sleep was correlated with the degree of improvement in resting heart rate," said Michael Grandner, PhD, director of the Sleep and Health Research Program and associate professor at the College of Medicine – Tucson.

Frank A. von Hippel, a professor of environmental health sciences in the Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, and Joe Schwarcz of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society, discuss the unknown environmental and health ramifications from harmful chemicals.

The Novavax vaccine differs from other Covid-19 vaccines because it already has the spike protein of the virus but it cannot cause the actual disease. ”I would love to see that vaccine here, it’s much more easily stored and transported, it would make it a lot easier to get that type of vaccine out to the rest of the world as well,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunobiologist at the College of Medicine – Tucson.

A $15.3 million grant will fund research to study Hispanic children’s susceptibility to asthma in Tucson, compared to Nogales, Sonora, where it is much less prevalent. “We have a very significant asthma epidemic in the United States, and many children who develop asthma can be burdened for a lifetime. My goal is to prevent asthma in children by building their immune system,” said Dr. Fernando Martinez, director of the UArizona Health Sciences Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center.

David Harris, professor of immunobiology and executive director of the UArizona Biorepository in the College of Medicine – Tucson, believes that stem cell clinics marketing unproven treatments could hurt researchers who are doing things the correct way. "If it appears that medical professionals are doing this just to make money, it will spur a lot of distrust, not only in the doctors, but also in in this field," said Harris.

New data presented at the annual SLEEP meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies suggests that individuals who used or abused opioids were significantly more likely to receive sedating medications than those who did not use opioids. “At least 9% of the individuals using an opioid had also used a sedating medication despite the increased risk for overdose death with combined use," said Andrew S. Tubbs, an MD/PhD student at the College of Medicine – Tucson.