Oregon Health Authority announces the state will drop an administrative rule requiring masks in health care settings as of April 3. According to an OHSU statement published by the Portland Business Journal: “OHSU will be evaluating its guidelines, policies and procedures in the coming weeks. The health and safety of our patients, employees, learners and visitors remains our top priority.”

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, Ph.D., says, “Gene repair has great potential, but these new results show that we have a lot of work to do”

The 35th annual “Oregon Cancer Ski Out” returns to Mt. Hood Meadows for a competitive fundraiser benefiting organizations such as the Knight Cancer Institute.

OPB’s All Science, No Fiction features Timothy Hullar, M.D., in the first-ever known total ear canal removal on a pet potbellied pig at Oregon State University among its top five Pacific Northwest science stories over the past month.

The Columbian features a Vancouver resident who has extended his participation a clinical trial for a new medication that appears to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in people with mild cognitive impairment. Aimee Pierce, M.D., says, “If we can detect it earlier and treat it earlier, we have a much better chance of a better outcome.”

Dollar For report cites OHSU as an exception among Oregon hospitals that are not meaningfully screening patients for their eligibility for financial assistance, noting that OHSU “has proven that if hospitals take their burden to screen patients seriously they can increase financial assistance without affecting profitability”

A team of OHSU Knight Cancer Institute researchers, led by Jeff Tyner, Ph.D., offers advice on best practices for data collection and analysis to the Portland Police Bureau regarding their stolen vehicle operations. Tyner says: “Police are collecting and using data to make their process more precise and more efficient. That’s exactly the same thing we do here in cancer research."

In a STAT News story about backlash against the Drug Enforcement Administration proposing a new requirement related to prescribing buprenorphine to treat addiction, Ximena Levander, M.D., says, “So at the height of a worsening opioid overdose crisis, to now say patients need to come in person -- I don’t think federal regulators really understand what’s happening on the ground in asking that of patients and providers.”

MIT Technology Review covers a pilot study using mitochondrial replacement therapy for infertility in Greece, revealing six babies born using the technique. In one of the six, carryover maternal mitochondrial DNA had preferentially replicated; Mitalipov says, “We were hoping we wouldn’t see [reversion] in babies. Now we have data to show that this is real -- not just in monkeys but in humans.”