Learn more about the steps the UVM Larner College of Medicine is making to expand palliative care training in this article originally published in the Winter 2018 issue of Vermont Medicine.

Susan Wallace, Ph.D., professor and chair of microbiology and molecular genetics at the Larner College of Medicine and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Vermont, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

Vermont is among the top ten states in per capita research funding in the U.S., according to a State of Research at the College presentation delivered by Larner College of Medicine Senior Associate Dean for Research Gordon Jensen, M.D., Ph.D., at the Dean’s Excellence in Research Awards event held November 13, 2017. The last of three 2017 Celebrating Excellence in Research events held at the College on November 10 and 13, 2017, the awards ceremony recognized the accomplishments of faculty, residents, medical students, graduate students and postdoctoral trainees.

Gary S. Stein, Ph.D., director of the University of Vermont Cancer Center, professor and chair of biochemistry and professor of surgery at the UVM Larner College of Medicine, was invested in a formal ceremony on October 27, 2017 as the inaugural Arthur Jason Perelman, M.D.’52 Professor in Cancer Research.

Weight loss can be challenging for anyone, but in particular, for cancer patients whose treatments can make the task even more daunting. But second-year medical students Lauren Donnelly and Kirsten Martin are having huge – and unexpected – success helping one group of women cancer survivors achieve their weight loss and activity goals, thanks to a 12-week weight management program they have been delivering to Steps to Wellness patients as their 2017-18 Schweitzer Fellowship project.

A five-year, $20 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical and Translational Research (CTR) Network grant will fund a joint program between the University of Vermont (UVM) and Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine to develop and sustain a clinical and translational research infrastructure improving rural and community health for residents of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

On Friday May 12, 2017, Douglas Lowy, M.D., acting director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), will visit the University of Vermont (UVM) Cancer Center and deliver a J. Walter Juckett Distinguished lecture on the development and future of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.

With mammography technology shifting from film to digital, cancer detection rates have improved but so have abnormal interpretation rates.

University of Vermont Cancer Center members Jane Lian, Ph.D., and Janet Stein, Ph.D., have been elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in recognition of their contributions to innovation, education, and scientific leadership. The announcement of the AAAS 2016 Fellows was featured in the November 25, 2016 issue of Science.

Among the side effects experienced by cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy is a higher risk of blood clots, but determining which patients are most likely to get them is a challenge for physicians.

Antioxidant therapies may hold promise for the nearly 25 million Americans suffering from asthma, and additional 140,000 people diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, but to date, determining exactly how to modify them into a feasible treatment has proved challenging.

“If you are ever going to be involved in cancer research, this is the moment,” Vice President Joe Biden told a packed Davis Center ballroom at the University of Vermont Oct. 21. “This is the inflection point.”

The University of Vermont Cancer Center is hosting two events as part of the Waldron Lecture series on Tuesday, September 13 and Wednesday September 14, 2016 featuring Maureen Connor, R.N., M.P.H., an oncology nurse and leader in the field of patient- and family-centered care.

In May, Vermont became the 28th state to adopt legislation mandating reporting of breast density information to patients. New University of Vermont (UVM) research - published July 18, 2016 in the Annals of Internal Medicine - shows that density assessment, as currently practiced, is subjective and highly variable across radiologists and warns of the implications of relying on the subjective measurement for clinical decision-making for breast cancer screening.

Attitudes and tobacco use before and after the launch of the University of Vermont's tobacco-free campus policy and barriers to providing opioid dependence treatment in primary care offices were topics for two of 16 University of Vermont College of Medicine Public Health Projects conducted by medical students in the Class of 2018 during the fall 2015 semester.

He’s not a personal trainer, but University of Vermont Associate Professor of Medicine Michael Toth, Ph.D., has an idea for counteracting the muscle loss that commonly occurs in cancer patients. What causes this loss in muscle loss – or atrophy – with cancer and its treatment is still not known, but Toth believes that the reduction in physical activity during cancer treatment may be an important factor.

The University of Vermont Cancer Center’s annual Clinical and Translational Research Symposium took place on Friday, April 29, 2016 in the UVM Medical Center’s Davis Auditorium and provided a day of learning and scientific collaboration on the topic of “Thrombosis, Hemostasis, and Cancer.” Experts from across North America joined UVM Cancer Center members and colleagues to discuss the science of bleeding, blood clots, and related complications in cancer care.