Monthly Archives: October 2019

The fundraising goal for the University of Arizona Foundation was reached yet again this year, making it the second year in a row to break the record for philanthropic donations to the university.

The foundation, in support of the UA, raised $334.6 million during the 2019 fiscal year, according to a university press release. This is an increase of over $17 million from last years total of $317 million.

John-Paul Roczniak, the president and CEO of the UA Foundation as well as the vice president of development at the UA, said he is very grateful for all the support from alumni and friends.

We have a very dedicated group of donors who care about the institution, Roczniak said. We have a president who is inspiring people to give more.

Two large donations were made by Dr. Andrew Weil and James Wyant, esteemed UA faculty members who have established positions at the university in integrative medicine and optical sciences.

Weil contributed $15 million as well as a $5 million gift for the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine and established the Andrew Weil Endowed Chair for Research in Integrative Medicine.

David Hahn, dean of the College of Engineering, recognized how integral endowed chairs are in keeping top-notch faculty members working at the university.

What chairs allow you to do is attract and retain the best, absolutely world-class faculty, Hahn said.

Hahn stated that the endowed chairs provide resources to faculty members to invest in research and education, while also adding a level of prestige.

Wyant and his family committed $20 million for a minimum of 10 endowed chairs to recruit more distinguished faculty members. James Wyant is the founding dean and professor emeritus of the James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences.

The number of donors was a record year for us, Roczniak said. People gave at every level.

The foundations board members laid out a specific plan laid so that alumni and other donors can get a better idea of what exactly their money will go toward.

The strategic plan has laid out a vision that people are excited about, Roczniak said. Weve been able to make some really good things happen.

David Hahn agreed that the focused vision of the university has allowed people to see a clearer picture of the future.

People want to invest in a plan and a vision to make the University of Arizona better, Hahn said.

The scope of what the UA Foundation works to beneift is very wide, with multiple different areas receiving funding. Roczniak said that the endowment funds scholarships, faculty chairs, programs and capital projects.

Pick a corner of the institution and I can guarantee you theres gifts that support it, Roczniak said.

The endowment not only goes toward improvements on campus and faculty, but also keeping the UA Foundation stocked with the best representatives.

Weve been able to hire more development officers to meet with alumni, parents and friends to see if theyre interested in giving, Roczniak said.

Within the past year, the UA was commended for their fundraising with an Educational Fundraising Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

Specific colleges such as the College of Engineering plan to use some of the grant money for improving their program. Starting with the students helps the university be hands-on in their giving.

For engineering, what were really going to do with these resources is bring the concept of engineering design throughout our entire program, Hahn said.

The record number of scholarships and renovations made to the Albert B. Weaver Science-Engineering Library are certainly noticeable to students, and the university hopes to keep making these improvements to benefit the campus.

The goal is always to do more, Roczniak said. One of the big pushes for this year is pillar one of the strategic plan, which is all about the wildcat journey and student success.

The UA Foundation will host an event on Nov. 1 on campus about a new program being launched to support students through finding scholarships and affordable housing. Creating new opportunities to help students find the resources they need is immensely important to the foundation.

Helping students directly through the endowment will not only make noticeable improvements, but also encourage others to donate more in the future.

We are really going to focus on the student aspect of fundraising next year, Roczniak said. We are forever grateful to our donors and whoever gives back to our university.

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UA Foundation beats their fundraising record - Arizona Daily Wildcat

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Newswise Irvine, Calif. Oct. 24, 2019 A Cooperative Research Center (CRC) has been established by the National Institutes of Health at three institutions including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and the University of California, Davis, with a single goal to enhance and accelerate the development of vaccines for Chlamydia trachomatis genital infections.

The new center will be funded under a five-year, $10.1 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Already underway, the CRC, officially known as the Cooperative Research Center for NanoScaffold-Based Chlamydia trachomatis Vaccines, began operations on Oct. 1, 2019. It is led by co-directors, Matt Coleman, an LLNL biomedical scientist, and Professor Luis M. de la Maza, a pathologist at UCIs School of Medicine and a worldwide leading expert in chlamydia vaccinology.

By establishing a CRC for the formulation of a chlamydia vaccine, the NIH has created a wonderful opportunity for a collaborative effort involving three very prestigious institutions, said de la Maza. Leveraging the expertise of these three partners significantly increases our chances of successfully developing a vaccine that can be given to young individuals preventing them from contracting chlamydia and protecting them from the negative consequences of an infection.

de la Mazas lab has been working on a chlamydia vaccine for almost four decades. As a part of the CRC, their work will focus primarily on using the chlamydia outer membrane protein (MOMP) as the vaccine antigen. Other researchers, including UCIs Ellena M. Peterson and Sukumar Pal, have also made significant contributions to this project.

Coleman, at LLNL, has developed methods to correctly fold membrane proteins in vitro. His team of scientists will build on a nanotechnology called nanolipoprotein particles (NLPs) for delivering the C. trachomatis vaccines.

At UC Davis, R. Holland Chengs lab will be using cryo-electron microscopy to characterize the structure of the native C. trachomatis MOMP. This structural characterization will help to inform the formulation of the MOMP in NLPs, effectively tying together the efforts of the three collaborative institutions.

C. trachomatis is the most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection in the country. Attempts to control this pathogen, with screening programs and antibiotic therapy, have so far failed. The number of cases of C. trachomatis infections reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continuous to increase. In 2017, more than 1.7 million cases were reported. The long-term sequelae of a C. trachomatis infections in females include pelvic inflammatory disease, chronic abdominal pain, ectopic pregnancy and infertility. Babies born from infected mothers can develop conjunctivitis and pneumonia.

About the UCI School of Medicine: Each year, the UCI School of Medicine educates more than 400 medical students, as well as 200 doctoral and masters students. More than 600 residents and fellows are trained at UC Irvine Medical Center and affiliated institutions. The School of Medicine offers an MD; a dual MD/PhD medical scientist training program; and PhDs and masters degrees in anatomy and neurobiology, biomedical sciences, genetic counseling, epidemiology, environmental health sciences, pathology, pharmacology, physiology and biophysics, and translational sciences. Medical students also may pursue an MD/MBA, an MD/masters in public health, or an MD/masters degree through one of three mission-based programs: the Health Education to Advance Leaders in Integrative Medicine (HEAL-IM), the Leadership Education to Advance Diversity-African, Black and Caribbean (LEAD-ABC), and the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC). The UCI School of Medicine is accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Accreditation and ranks among the top 50 nationwide for research. For more information, visit som.uci.edu.

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NIH establishes Cooperative Research Center with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and two University of California campuses, Irvine and Davis -...

TahoeLand: Bad News, Bears

In summer 2019, CapRadio examined the impact of climate change on one of Northern Californias geographical gems: Lake Tahoe. In the podcast TahoeLand, reporter Ezra David Romero explores how climate change will affect Tahoes color, snowpack, fire season and wildlife.

Episode 4 takes a look at how the changing climate will impact bears. Bears in Tahoe are also hibernating less if at all. Its not just black bears feeling the impact of climate change polar bears, grizzlies and other bears around the world are at risk.

This episode will also look at the ways humans do, or do not, keep bears out of our garbage. Peoples leftovers and waste lead to more human-bear interactions, which is ultimately bad news for bears.

When a few wild animals were injured in California wildfires, it was a chance for doctors to take an innovative approach to recovery and pain management. To help heal the paws of two bears and a mountain lion cub, veterinarians turned to another animal: tilapia.

Dr. Jamie Peyton is the associate director at the UC Davis Center for Advancing Pain Relief and Chief of Integrative Medicine Service at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. She and her team designed biologic bandages using fish skin, honey, oils and beeswax. She partnered with Dr. Deanna Clifford, a senior wildlife veterinarian for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Investigations Lab, to pioneer this technique and track its success.

Both veterinary doctors joined Insight in January 2018 to discuss this innovative therapy.

Engineering Eden is the title of a book by Northern California writer Jordan Fisher Smith that takes a deep dive into the United States history of attempting to manage nature.

The book centers on the story of Harry Walker, a man who was killed by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park as the park celebrated its centennial anniversary. That was in 1972 and, as Smith discovered in his research, a 1975 civil trial in Los Angeles followed. That trial became a proxy for the larger issue of wilderness management and the conflicting approaches at the time.

The author examines the process of people moving into the vast territory of wild animals, the new science that would be needed for the management of the land and the tragic details of Harry Walkers death.

Smith joined Insight in September 2016 to discuss and highlight parts of that book. Engineering Eden is now out in paperback.

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Bears of Tahoe / Bears with Bandages / Yellowstone Bears - Capital Public Radio News

Our body is over 60 percent water. The brain itself is 75 percent water. Water is essential for life, as much so, if not more than the water in our car battery. It is part of every cell. It helps to regulate temperature, moisten tissues and organs, lubricate joints, carry around minerals and oxygen and nutrients, and flush out waste products.

Dehydration is a major concern here in the desert. A person can last only about three days without water, though many factors may reduce that time, such as heat, physical activity, age and body type. The consistency of urine is a quick and effective way to monitor hydration. Typically, the darker it is the more dehydrated you are.

We lose water through breathing, sweating and digestion. Therefore, it is important to rehydrate by drinking fluids and eating foods that contain water. All drinkable fluids cannot be considered as healthy water sources. Many fluids such as flavored drinks and coffees, teas, energy drinks often contribute to dehydration rather than hydration.

Water as found in nature has the same biological advantage over processed water as do plants and air as found in nature, suggesting a synergistic imperative for optimal human function. By this is meant, the term water, as used in everyday language, is not simply the basic molecule of H2O (an oxygen atom with two hydrogen atoms attached to it). Natural water connotes a liquid consisting of H2O that has been cycled through evaporation from the earths surface to accumulation in the clouds which then rains back to the earth where it runs through streams to rivers to aquifers collecting a multitude of minerals that all work to keep the complexities of the human body functioning. This harmonious synergism found in water and plants and air, that was once established on this planet for optimal human function, has been thrown askew by the very byproducts of recent human advancement, most notably the industrial revolution. Along with the natural minerals collected on waters journey to our bodies there are a multitude of impurities with varying levels of toxicity. Fortunately for us, the human body has thus far shown enough resilience to adjust adequately to these relatively recent imbalances seen in the essential resources for life. With that in mind, we can do our best to recognize the essentiality of water and make choices about what we put into our bodies and how we preserve this essential element for our descendants.

Water covers our planet, of which less than 3 percent is drinkable. The optimal source of drinkable water would be spring water from a source near to ones primary habitat. Otherwise, spring water in general is a balanced source. Then one might consider mineral waters intended to compensate for other imbalances in our life resources. Distilled water has the advantage of being reduced to simple H2O, thus eliminating contaminants. However, it does also eliminate the essential minerals which then must be attained from food or off the shelf products at a market.

We tend to take water for granted. Water may soon become more valuable than gold as the environmental influences of modern times dramatically reduce the availability of drinkable sources.

Dr. Miles practices Naturopathic Medicine alongside other holistic practitioners at the Catalina Clinic of Integrative Medicine in Catalina, Arizona. http://www.catalinaclinic.com

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On the Topic of Water - Arizona Daily Star

Cancer coaches make the disease and survivorship more manageable with goal-oriented plans.

As she recovered and prepared for weeks of alternating radiation therapy and chemotherapy, Gendreau searched for online support groups and information about novel treatments. My medical care team was great, but I didnt feel like they had the time to sit with me, answer questions, explain alternative or complementary therapies or help me discern what my future might look like, Gendreau says. The hospital had a wall plastered with brochures, but I needed more one-on-one engagement and direction. Early on, it became clear that it was primarily my responsibility to research new studies, alternative therapies and potential clinical trials all while I was still recovering from brain surgery.

In her search for answers and resources, Gendreau stumbled onto the webpage for cancer coach Jeannine Walston. I didnt know that cancer coaches existed, Gendreau says. But when I read Walstons story and saw her credentials, I knew she was the person who could help me navigate this confusing new world I was now living in.

In 1998, at age 24, Walston learned she had a rare type of cancerous brain tumor, oligoastrocytoma. Over the past two decades, she has undergone three brain surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy, clinical trials and integrative cancer therapies, even venturing overseas for treatments. Walstons diagnosis changed the trajectory of her life. She embarked on a cancer-focused career path, working as a patient advocate, educator and researcher for nonprofit organizations, the National Cancer Institute, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Healths National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (now the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health). She is also a CURE contributor.

Walston, who lives in Los Angeles, started offering her services as a cancer coach in 2007. At that point, I had provided information to support groups, attended brain tumor and cancer conferences, and worked in the cancer field for 10 years, she says. Many people kept coming to me for advice and information. I wanted to help, and I knew my personal and professional experiences coaching cancer patients and caregivers addressed essential needs.

EMPOWERING PATIENTS TO MEET CHALLENGESThe popularity of professional coaching has grown significantly since the 1990s. There are coaches to help discern purpose in life, improve health and wellness, navigate divorce and break into a new career. Whatever the problem, theres a coach who can offer help. In many ways, cancer coaches are a natural extension of health and wellness coaching, helping clients mainly patients but also caregivers and other loved ones improve quality of life throughout the cancer journey.

Cancer coaches provide a valuable service by helping patients create goal-oriented plans that help them manage particular challenges, says Dawn Wiatrek, interim senior vice president of patient and caregiver support for the American Cancer Society (ACS). As soon as you receive a cancer diagnosis, so many factors are out of your control. Coaches provide needed support and guidance that help patients break down barriers and instill a feeling of confidence. They empower the patient to feel more in charge of an uncertain health situation. Wiatrek notes that the ACS has been coaching people for years through its tobacco cessation program. Cancer coaching is a similar idea, she says. You are giving someone the tools to help them navigate what seems like an insurmountable task.

Talaya Dendy, founder of On the Other Side cancer coaching in St. Paul, Minnesota, says her services save clients from putting time, effort and energy into treatment planning that would be better focused on physical and emotional healing. I research treatments, cancer centers, specialists and available resources and condense that information into easy-to-understand terms that spare the client the gloomy statistics, Dendy says. In addition to helping clients manage the emotional side of cancer, she helps them maximize time with care teams. Patients are often shocked at how little time they actually have with their oncologist or medical team, Dendy says. I make sure my clients are prepared for these appointments so they can advocate for themselves, get the answers they need and make informed decisions.

The ACS sees so many patient benefits to cancer coaching that the organization is using a grant to provide coach training to ACS patient navigators employed at approximately 70 cancer or medical centers nationwide, Wiatrek says. Historically, the role of a navigator has been to provide patients, caregivers and loved ones with resources for things like paying medical expenses, getting to and from treatments and connecting patients to community organizations that can offer assistance, she says. Increasingly, our navigators have found more patients relying on them to counsel them through what questions to ask their care team or asking for more personal guidance.

As employees of hospitals or cancer centers, patient navigators and oncology social workers can help schedule appointments and medical tests, as well as work with billing departments and health insurers, something cancer coaches dont do. Navigators and social workers may steer a patient toward general information about treatments and social support networks, whereas coaches can spend more time researching and gathering information specific to a patients needs.

Preliminary results from the six ACS sites that piloted the patient navigator coach training are positive. Patients said that they felt more confident after being coached on how to improve communication with their care team, Wiatrek says. Patients also understood their treatment plans better, and doctors noted improved compliance. By offering not only in-person sessions but also services via phone, Skype and email, cancer coaches may bridge a gap in care for patients who lack easy access to hospital or cancer center resources.

Because cancer coaching is a relatively new field, few studies address its specific benefits and effectiveness. Findings from a 2017 study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham showed that pairing older cancer patients with nonmedical professionals who received coach-type training reduced patients need for other health care resources, which in turn lowered costs. Other studies on health coaching suggest that these services bolster patient engagement, leading to improved quality of life, reduced hospital readmission rates and lowered medical expenses. Health coaching appears to be especially helpful for people dealing with chronic illnesses like cancer.

A COMPLEMENTARY APPROACH TO CARECancer coaches arent meant to replace patient navigators, oncology social workers or case managers, and they are quick to emphasize that they are not medical experts. I share what I know from my unique patient perspective and decades of experience working in cancer and health care arenas. I do not give medical advice, Walston says.

Gendreau first turned to Walston for help gathering information about possible treatments so that she could consider them, speak to her care team and make informed decisions. My job for a software company required doing a good bit of research, so I felt confident in my researching skills, Gendreau says. Still, I was overwhelmed when I started exploring my condition and treatment options. I felt like I was being buried in a landslide of information.

Walston helped Gendreau create an action plan, breaking down her to-do list into achievable steps. This approach eased some of Gendreaus anxiety and uncertainty. Walston also researched and shared information about integrative therapies, such as yoga, acupuncture and art, something Gendreaus care team didnt seem to have the time or expertise to address.

Most recently, Gendreau asked Walston for help deciphering the vast number of clinical trial opportunities. I could ask my husband or daughter to do some of this research, but that exposes them to all of the scary statistics and information. They are as shocked and frightened as I am, says Gendreau, who emphasizes that Walston serves strictly as her coach and not her therapist. I have a terrific therapist who is helping me cope with my emotions, she says. The coaching aspect gives me a sounding board, a place to discuss ideas and next steps. Having Jeannine to turn to has greatly lifted a burden off of me and my loved ones.

Some medical centers and nonprofit organizations pair patients and mentors who have a similar diagnosis. Cancer coaches go beyond this type of peer-to-peer service. A mentor or peer provides emotional support. They can tell you about their experiences, but their role isnt to give advice or offer suggestions on what you should do, says licensed social worker Angelique Caba, senior director of social work administration for CancerCare, a national nonprofit organization that provides free, professional support services for anyone affected by cancer. A coach provides practical guidance and helps you anticipate barriersto care and troubleshoot for problems.

Donita Wheeler, founder of Donita Mama Bear, a cancer coaching company, believes her services complement those of other specialists. I feel each of us has something unique to offer to the cancer community. We must lean on each other to get through the most difficult times, she says.

That is exactly what Gendreau is doing with her coach. I now know that it was naive of me to expect to get much hand-holding from my oncologist, she says. I appreciate that there are cancer coaches who have taken the worst evil you can imagine and turned it into a passion to help others.

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Putting the Ball In Your Court With Cancer Coaches - Curetoday.com

Nearly half the U.S. population is projected to have one or more chronic conditions by 2030 and the need to better manage both care delivery and costs has never been greater.

At the same time, Baby Boomers are entering their Golden Years and seeking out preventative and lifestyle medicine to ensure that they live longer and with more personal freedom. And they want to do all of this while aging in place and not being relegated to the decrepit and outdated nursing homes of their own parents generation. After all, we live in a new era of instant song selection, streaming movies, and Amazon home delivery.

In the world of convenience andhealthcare is no exceptionpatients have a desire to be serviced more at home and have providers meet them where they are. This is evidenced by the growth in virtual medical care, a $38 billion industry in 2019, expected to surge to $130 billion in 2025. Thats good news for small and medium-sized cities across America looking to grow their economies, like Midland, Texas where population growth is expected to command an additional 1,300 healthcare workers by 2030.

These trends are also a great signal for Baby Boomers who are already using their mobile and personal devices to educate themselves, interact with communities, and shop online. Healthcare, then, is a natural extension of this behavior.

A late 2017 survey by the American Association of Retired People (AARP) found over 90% of adults over 50 own a computer or laptop, 70% have a smartphone, and over 40% own a tablet. These findings are backed by a 2018 consumer survey on digital health from Accenture that found seniors are interested in using digital technology to help facilitate healthcare reminders, follow-ups, and support.

With increasing Boomer inclination towards developing healthy lifestyles, using things like preventative and alternative medicine have become the major trend. According to a 2017 study out of Michigan, Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine among Older Adults: Differences between Baby Boomers and Pre-Boomers, among identified [complementary and alternative medicines] CAM users, a higher proportion of baby boomers reported using most individual CAM modalities.

The use of integrative fitness and dietary regimens, vitamin injections and supplements, alternative medicine like acupuncture, and with Boomers talking about the latter on social media at a rate of 47% in comparison to 17% for Gen Xers. Virtual care services provide a digital solution to access information and recommendations on these products.

The first step on this journey is to use virtual tools to deliver better care where it matters: at home. Myia Health, an intelligent health monitoring platform, augments the ability of clinicians to better care for patients living at home with chronic conditions like heart failure, COPD, diabetes and hypertension.

Unlike scattered and unreliable data that can come from a single wearable health monitoring device, Myia uses a specially selected set of sensors and data sources (including patient approved smartphone activity and location information) to bring context insight into a patients overall condition. With the companys sensor kit, clinicians are able to capture critical information about a patients health and behaviors that can be used to do things like adjust medications remotely and prioritize and help schedule clinic visits.

Myia Health is now partnering with Mercy Virtual, known as the countrys first hospital without beds, to scale a service offering to patients who have a rising risk of developing chronic conditions like heart failure and COPD and stage interventions to reverse course before a condition may take hold. . For Boomers who want to live longer, stay out of the hospital, and remain independent, virtual care solutions seem like the natural next step.

Patient-generated health data (PGHD) from the real-world, in its modern form, will be an unlock that drives the prevention evolution, Simon MacGibbon, CEO & Co-Founder, Myia Labs, said. Myia and Mercy both plan to start scaling their service offering to over 5,000 patients as Mercy works with over 40 leading healthcare providers around the United States.

For Mercy, this is a culmination of efforts begun in October of 2015, when the St. Louis, Missouri based non-profit opened a $54 million, four-story hospital in 2015 that instead of holding patients, became the home to 330 staffers. To date, the system has seen significant success to date with its focus on a home-based care reducing hospital admissions and ER visits by more than 50%. Mercy has led a $10 Million investment in Myia because it believes it can make these results even better.

Large health systems like Kaiser and Geisinger are making strong in-roads to moving care of their aging populations online, as well. Kaiser is a primary example where 52% of all visits have moved to a virtual setting as new mobile applications and wellness tools are regularly used by Boomers seeking a proactive approach to preventative self-management.

Similarly, Geisinger Health System, which is based in Danville, Pennsylvania, launched a farm fresh food bank to provide low sugar and low sodium foods to patients with chronic conditions like Type 2 Diabetes. What Geisinger did that was different here is launch the food bank in conjunction with mobile applications, home monitoring, and other virtual care tools that ensured dieting and nutrition programs were adhered to. Again, using virtual tools as the enabler of treatments that work.

Similarly, virtual care can enhance the potential effectiveness of integrative alternative treatments aimed at longevity, wellness, and overall health. Given boomers preference for wellness-based therapies, we should only expect to see this space grow over the next few years.

NextHealth, a retail longevity clinic offering optimization treatments ranging from IV and vitamin therapy to food sensitivity testing, is a great example of this in action. NextHealth provides retails a variety of longitudinal sensors directly to their patients to enable a full-feedback loop and adjust treatments. According to Dr. Darshan Shah, the NextHealths founder, such tools are key in moving the system from the current orientation of disease care towards health care.

In an interview earlier this year, Ateev Mehrotra, MD, MPH, associate professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School predicted, Were seeing very rapid growth of these technologies and with the growth rates Im observing, in three, five, or ten years, telehealth will be ubiquitous. With large institutions producing exceptional results in virtual health management, and pioneering technology companies developing more sophisticated and comprehensive products, its hard to argue against his prediction and newly emerging products.

With that said, would you put your parents in a nursing home? Comment below.

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Health and Wellness Providers Are Banking On Virtual Care To Better Serve America's Aging Boomers - Grit Daily