The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research announces Amy Moran, Ph.D., is one of five recipients of their Emerging Leader Awards, intended to support highly promising projects for which other sources of funding are not readily available. Moran’s work focuses on mechanisms of immunotherapy resistance in patients with prostate cancer and how hormones might contribute to cancer therapy outcomes.

Ahmad Masri, M.D., will present new data from a clinical trial examining the drug aficamten’s use to treat obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy at a cardiovascular magnetic resonance-focused meeting Jan. 25 – 27 in London.

Legislation proposed by U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici and others aims to help recruit and retain nurse faculty; Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, Ph.D., RN, and Susan Bakewell Sachs, Ph.D., RN, say addressing the nurse educator shortage will also help address the nation’s clinical nurse shortage.

Portland Monthly reports on an OHSU study that quantified family members’ struggle to access care for teens with substance use disorder. Ryan Cook Ph.D., says, “When your kid is in a crisis and needs treatment, it can be terrifying to know where to turn. Many parents or family members will look first for residential care and find the experience profoundly disheartening.”

In a Willamette Week interview, George Keepers, M.D., shares insights on Oregon’s mental health system: “Here, the mental health system has always been described as a state-county partnership. The county is the mental health authority in Oregon. What happens is counties decide what’s going to happen within their jurisdiction. That can be wildly different from one place to another.”

A team that includes Alison Weiss, Ph.D., is among seven teams of early-career researchers awarded funding by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement to improve understanding of the molecular or mechanistic processes that underlie memory and cognition.

Diana C. Lozano, Ph.D., is receiving a two-year grant of $100,000 to support establishing an independent vision research program to investigate intraocular pressure-related cellular events in the optic nerve head, where glaucoma starts. The funding is part of her being awarded the 2024 Genentech Career Development Award for Underrepresented Minority Emerging Vision Scientists: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Foundation press release.

In response to a new study suggesting researchers at Orlucent, Inc. have demonstrated the viability of a novel handheld point-of-care molecular Skin Fluorescence Imaging System to noninvasively identify and clinically assess the presence of biological tissue remodeling activity associated with the development of melanoma in adults, Sancy Leachman, M.D., Ph.D., says: “I am particularly excited about the ability … to assess aspects of stromal tissue remodeling that are invisible to the human eye clinically through direct examination or traditional pathological examination of nevi, enabling the categorization of lesions of concern more accurately at a very early stage at the point of care.”

Axios Portland reports on the outlook for COVID-19, influenza and RSV in Oregon. Peter Graven, Ph.D., says, “Despite quite a few more people getting it, and certainly more hospitalizations, it’s not going to have the kind of impact that we had during the delta wave.”

New Scientist reports that scientists in China have cloned a healthy rhesus monkey. Shoukhrat Mitalipov, Ph.D., says cloning methods at OHSU aim to treat disease at the molecular level: “In our case, we hope that someday doctors will be able to use rejection-proof, genetically matched embryonic stem cells to replace diseased nerve, muscle, blood and other cells, or to produce eggs to treat infertility.”