Spine surgeon Ali Baaj, MD, is the inaugural chief of spine surgery at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix and Banner-University Medical Center Phoenix. As spine surgery chief, Dr. Baaj will build a new academic spine program at UArizona-Banner.

The debate continues over the practice of mass screening of healthy men with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood tests for the early detection of prostate cancer. The article cites Richard Ablin, PhD, of the University of Arizona College of Medicine, who discovered PSA in 1970. He stressed that PSA testing was not intended for use for mass screening but rather to follow men with advanced disease.

Researchers at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson have found that people who have had COVID-19 develop long-lasting immunity. Their study appears in the journal Immunity.

A clinical trial at the University of Arizona Health Sciences designed to study the safety and effectiveness of a personalized cancer vaccine in combination with the immunotherapy drug Pembrolizumab will expand its cohort after promising preliminary data was presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says wearing cloth masks not only keeps people from unknowingly transmitting the virus, it keeps people from inhaling the virus from the air. Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Arizona, tweeted, "We know that even fabric masks offer some variable protection for the wearer, but I think the bigger issue is that the CDC has to reiterate this to get people to wear a mask."

A study published in the journal "Nature" suggests reducing restaurant capacity even further to slow down the spread of COVID-19. Dr. Shad Marvasti, with the University of Arizona's College of Medicine, says he is not surprised the study identified restaurants as high risk when they are operating at normal conditions. But he says Arizona leaders should take drastic action to stop the current spike in cases.

Give yourself the gift of good health! The University of Arizona Health Sciences is offering an uplifting program to improve health and reduce stress.

For future nurses and pharmacists, opportunities for service learning combine community outreach with hands-on education.

Health Sciences students sharpened their skills and learned to build rapport with patients as they provided flu shots to other students.

Researchers at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson have developed a method of using ketamine in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. The university has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with Pharmather Inc., a subsidiary of Newscope Capital Corporation, for the development and commercialization of the method.