To truly kill colon cancer and eliminate the risk of recurrence, it is important to kill the “root” of the disease, according to a University of Florida College of Medicine surgeon. “It’s like a dandelion, if you don’t kill the root it just keeps coming back,” said Emina Huang, M.D., a UF colorectal surgeon, who [...]

Glioblastoma. The word didn’t really exist for Tracie Stokes before Jan. 23. Just another five-syllable word in the medical dictionary. But since that Friday, when doctors detected a tumor just wider than a quarter in her husband’s brain, words like glioblastoma, radiation and chemotherapy have become integral parts of her everyday vocabulary. “At first, it [...]

Women who as children got radiation treatment for Hodgkin’s disease are almost 40 times more likely than others to develop breast cancer, according to findings from five institutions, including the University of Florida. The higher the radiation dose, the higher the risk, researchers report. These women are also likely to develop cancer in both breasts. [...]

Figuring out the minimum set of genes needed to sustain life is a key mission of Nobel Laureate Hamilton Smith. He and a team of researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute are working to find out that information and use it to construct the first synthetic cell in history. “We’re trying to learn what [...]

Dissecting 2008: The stories behind the science Oh, 2008. How we will miss thee. You brought us a historic and entertaining presidential election, a record-breaking Olympics and, of course, the near collapse of the economy (we’ll try not to hold that one against you). It was a good year for science too. UF researchers began [...]

The recipients of $3 million in research funding through the UF/Moffitt Collaboration Fall 2008 Competition have been named. The University of Florida Office of Research, the UF College of Medicine and the Moffitt Cancer Center created the fund to finance collaborative pilot research projects at the two institutions. Thirty-two projects in basic science, clinical investigations [...]

Joseph V. Simone, M.D., director of the UF Shands Cancer Center and physician-in-chief for cancer services at Shands at UF, received the 2008 Association of American Cancer Institutes Distinguished Service Award. The award recognizes Simone’s contributions to the nation’s cancer community. Simone directed the Institute of Medicine’s effort to promote and improve quality care for [...]

The National Institutes of Health announced a five-year, $5.3 million grant to the University of Florida College of Dentistry to fund a new research center aimed at reducingdisparities in head and neck cancer survival through prevention and early detection inlow-income, minority men. It is the first NIH-funded center to focus on head and neck cancer [...]

A multicenter team of researchers, including scientists from the University of Florida, has discovered a way to potentially block the growth of neuroblastoma, a type of cancer responsible for 15 percent of all cancer deaths in children. Working with human cell lines and tissue samples, researchers describe in Thursday’s (Oct. 16, 2008) online issue of [...]

The Preston A. Wells Jr. Center unites eclectic mix of clinicians, researchers to help people with brain tumors Kevin Carroll was leaning on his bicycle this summer at a scenic overlook along the Hawthorne Trail, a 17-mile stretch that connects Gainesville with Hawthorne through Paynes Prairie State Preserve. Thigh-burning hills and wildlife encounters come with [...]