The fourth Diversity and Inclusion Campus Conversation, held virtually on Thursday, Oct. 29, focused on achieving LGBTQ health equity. Chancellor Michael F. Collins opened the session with the announcement of a new scholarship fund established by anonymous donors in honor of William Thomas O’Byrne, MD, a physician and faculty member at the University of Alabama School of Medicine and LGBTQ advocate who died in 2018.
Thirty-four teams of School of Medicine and Graduate School of Nursing students presented their Population Health Clerkship projects virtually on Friday, Oct. 30. The clerkship is a two-week, interprofessional learning experience required of all second-year medical and nursing students, exposing them to hands-on experience with social determinants of health and community practices.
A new study shows that transparent soil substitutes can be used to replicate the interactions of bacteria and fungi in soil, opening up a new approach to learning how soil microbes contribute to a healthy ecosystem. Elizabeth Shank, PhD, associate professor of microbiology & physiological systems and senior author on the study, describes how using two transparent soil substitutes allowed scientists to follow how soil bacteria rely on fungi to help them survive extended dry periods.
The UMass Medical School Campus Conversation on Faculty Diversity, held on Monday, Nov. 2, provided an opportunity for the UMMS community to learn about and provide input to improve the institution’s efforts to increase recruitment and retention of diverse faculty.
The interactive session was moderated by Milagros Rosal, PhD, professor of population & quantitative health sciences and vice provost for health equity, a newly created role she recently assumed.
John Harris, MD, PhD, associate professor of dermatology and one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the treatment and study of vitiligo, has been appointed chair of the Department of Dermatology beginning Jan. 1, announced Terence R. Flotte, MD, the Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor, executive deputy chancellor, provost and dean of the School of Medicine. In addition, Dr. Harris has been appointed the founding director of the Autoimmune Therapeutics Institute at UMMS.
The researcher could see the lightbulb moment when a boy got hooked on science.
Through a new program called Science LIVE (Learning with Interactive Virtual Education), the middle school student had watched UMass Medical School’s Mary Pickering, PhD, separate DNA from kiwis and a banana during a Zoom presentation and connected it to what he remembered about DNA in the science-fiction movie, Jurassic Park.
Jennifer Tjia, MD, MSCE, has focused her career on trying to untangle signs of the impending end of a person’s life from confounding factors such as incorrect medication.
Emily Davenport always knew she was destined to be a nurse. The Graduate Entry Pathway Doctor of Nursing Practice student is on the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner track. She was inspired by her mother, Danuta “Beth” Beata Davenport, a nurse at Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield, who has 30 years in the field and moved to the United States from Poland in her 20s.
UMass Medical School has received approval from the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees for a project that will change the face of the Worcester campus and accelerate research into new therapeutics for some of the most challenging diseases that humans face. A new, nine-story biomedical research and education facility will be built on campus to support laboratory research growth and the educational enterprise.
The Foundation to Fight H-ABC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing awareness and driving development of a cure for this rare degenerative children's disease, has announced sponsored research agreements with UMass Medical School and Yale University to advance a targeted gene therapy for H-ABC.
"We have high hopes to quickly prove efficacy with this approach to move research forward and find a permanent cure for this devastating disease," said Michele Sloan, co-founder of the Foundation to Fight H-ABC.