University of Arizona Health Sciences researchers were awarded a $6.6 million National Institutes of Health grant to develop the Center of Excellence in Addiction Studies to improve addiction research and develop therapies that can stem the opioid epidemic and impact other substance abuse disorders.

Opinion piece by Geoffrey Boyce, PhD, academic director of the Earlham College Border Studies Program in Tucson and Sam Chambers, PhD, a researcher in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

A new initiative seeks to unite global experts from universities, government agencies, nonprofits and industry to develop solutions to future pandemics.

Some Pennsylvania cannabis companies are using misleading claims to promote marijuana as a treatment for opioid addiction, potentially putting patients' lives at greater risk. The article cites a paper by Beth Wiese, a neuroscience doctoral candidate in the UArizona Graduate Interdisciplinary Program. Wiese works in the labs of Todd Vanderah, PhD, interim director of the UArizona Health Sciences Comprehensive Pain and Addiction Center and Tally Largent-Milnes, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology in the College of Medicine – Tucson.

Michel Corban, MD, a board-certified interventional cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at the UArizona Sarver Heart Center, explains the causes and symptoms of spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD). “Four percent of all heart attacks are related to SCAD and in particular, up to 35 percent of heart attacks in women less than 50 years of age are related to SCAD,” Corban said.

The All of Us Research Program is creating one of the world’s largest and most diverse resources of health information so researchers can study better ways to prevent, manage and treat disease. Francisco Moreno, MD, associate vice president for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the UArizona Health Sciences and a professor of psychiatry at the College of Medicine – Tucson, and Yann C. Klimentidis, PhD, associate professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, are interviewed.

Though it sounds logical, a bar of soap itself isn't necessarily self-cleaning. "Believe it or not, there have been quite a few peer-reviewed, published studies on this exact topic," said Kelly Reynolds, PhD, a professor of environmental health sciences at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

The infant formula Abbott recall was announced after four infants developed bacterial infections after consuming the formula. “In infants, Salmonella can cause infection of the gut, bloodstream infection, infection of the bones/joints, and meningitis,” said Kareem Shehab, MD, associate professor of pediatrics at the College of Medicine – Tucson.

The article cites a study by researchers at the University of Arizona Health Sciences that found the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 92% effective at preventing COVID-19 in children between the ages of 12 and 17. The lead author Karen Lutrick, PhD, an assistant professor at the College of Medicine – Tucson, is quoted.

Malawi health officials have declared an outbreak of wild poliovirus type 1 after a case was confirmed in a three-year-old girl, the first case in Africa in five years, according to the World Health Organization. Kacey C. Ernst, PhD, MPH, a professor and infectious disease epidemiologist at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health in Tucson, is interviewed.