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cancer research news
UF Health researchers find medication most effective quitting method for cancer survivors who smoke
For years, evidence has shown the negative effects that smoking cigarettes has on cancer patients’ health outcomes, but sometimes quitting is easier said than done. University of Florida Health researchers have found that medications that help people quit smoking are the most effective method used by cancer survivors to stop tobacco use. READ MORE
UFHCC MEMBERS LEADING THE WAY IN COVID-19 RESEARCH
Rapid home-based coronavirus tests are coming together in research labs
Written by Cancer Center member Piyush Jain, Ph.D.
A desperately needed tool to curb the COVID-19 pandemic is an inexpensive home-based rapid testing kit that can detect the coronavirus without needing to go to the hospital.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved a few home sample collection kits but a number of researchers, including myself, are using the gene-editing technique known as CRISPR to make home tests. If they work, these tests could be very accurate and give people an answer in about an hour. READ MORE
UF Health project seeks to measure impact of coronavirus isolation on older adults
“A part of this is a discovery process,” said Todd Manini, Ph.D., an associate professor and faculty member in the UF Institute on Aging and the study’s principal investigator. “We’re trying to understand the trends over time as the pandemic continues to evolve. It’s a unique circumstance to look at the impact of being in a world with limited human contact.” READ MORE
Announcements
Cancer + COVID-19 Webinars
The UF Health Cancer Center’s Community Outreach and Engagement office facilitated two live webinars on cancer and COVID-19 that reached almost 650 people.
Cancer in the Time of Coronavirus, a webinar with Chris Cogle, M.D., and Amar Kelkar, M.D., was hosted by the Florida Cancer Control and Research Advisory Council and North Central Florida Cancer Control Collaborative (NCFCCC) on April 3.
The second event took place on April 15; COVID-19: What People with Cancer Need to Know was co-sponsored by the Community Outreach and Engagement office, NCFCCC, and Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered (FORCE). Merry-Jennifer Markham, M.D., FACP, FASCO, was the speaker and discussed how to navigate cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. READ MORE
Register: Healthcare worker exposure response & outcomes (HERO) initiative
UF Health is participating in a new research program to understand the effect of COVID-19 on health care workers. The Healthcare Worker Exposure and Outcomes, or HERO, initiative has two parts — a registry and a clinical trial.
The HERO program is a special opportunity to learn how COVID-19 affects health care workers and to potentially study hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness as a preventive measure, said Elizabeth A. Shenkman, Ph.D., a professor and chair of the UF College of Medicine’s department of health outcomes and biomedical informatics. She is also the principal investigator for the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium, which includes the HERO sites in Florida.
To read more about UF Health’s participation in the HERO program, click here.
UF Health MedEdCast
The official podcast of UF Health provides engaging insight on today’s trending health care topics. Earn CME credits while learning about clinical issues and research advances from experts at UF Health Shands Hospital, one of the nation’s top academic health centers.
Listen to the most recent cancer-related podcasts:
- “Third Space Endoscopy and Advanced Endoscopic Resection Techniques in the Gastrointestinal Tract” with Dennis Yang, M.D.
- “PARP Inhibitors in Ovarian Cancer” with Martina Murphy, M.D.
- “Robotic Urologic Surgery Program” with Li-Ming Su, M.D.