The Arizona Republic looks back on 15 pivotal moments during the last two years of Arizona's COVID-19 pandemic. Joe Gerald, MD, PhD, associate professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, says health experts advocated for Arizona to do more to contain the spread of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic.

A new paraprofessional program trains people to become family support specialists and help address the needs of loved ones with substance use disorders.

Paleontologists have discovered a fossil belonging to an ancient saber-toothed creature thought to be the first cat-like predator to exist in the U.S. Shawn Zack, PhD, assistant professor of basic medical sciences at the College of Medicine – Phoenix, is quoted.

Data from an ongoing study at the University of Arizona Health Sciences, in combination with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's PROTECT study,show the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has been a moderately effective tool for preventing COVID-19 spread and reducing the severity of infection among children and adolescents.

A new CDC study of COVID-19 vaccination rates shows the nationwide gap between urban and rural areas more than doubled in the past year, with urban counties beating rural ones everywhere — except in Arizona. Daniel Derksen, MD, a public health professor and director of the Arizona Center for Rural Health at the University of Arizona, was not surprised Arizona's rural counties did well, despite the state's failure to curtail preventable deaths.

Dongkyun Kang, PhD, assistant professor of optical sciences and biomedical engineering, received a $1 million National Eye Institute grant to support his work to develop a portable device that could be used to detect corneal ulcers. Dr. Kang, a research member at the UArizona Cancer Center, previously worked on a smartphone confocal microscope to diagnose cancer in rural settings.

Gabe Martinez, a program aide at the Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities at the College of Medicine – Tucson, will advise President Joe Biden as a member of the Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, the White House announced Friday.

A new study in the journal Nature found that even mild cases of COVID-19 can cause shrinkage in certain regions of the brain. Kathleen Rodgers, PhD, professor of pharmacology and associate director of translational neuroscience at the UArizona Health Sciences Center for Innovations in Brain Science, says this study was impressive because researchers were able to look at MRI scans from before the pandemic. The Health Sciences Office of Communications assisted with this story.

UArizona Health Sciences researchers contributed to a report showing the COVID-19 vaccine provides children ages 5-15 moderate protection against infection.