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Several times a year, eye surgeons from the University of Utah's Moran Eye Center set up medical eye camps in some of the most neglected corners of the world, including South Sudan, Micronesia, Haiti, Bolivia and Myanmar. The medical teams, however, don’t just work for a week and leave the country —throughout the process medical teams work with local providers to perform as many surgeries as possible and to train local partners on how to provide basic eye care and perform simple surgeries, which allows countries to develop a permanent source of eye care for the underserved regions.

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Researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have identified and characterized mutated forms of the gene that encodes BCR-ABL, the unregulated enzyme driving the blood cancer chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).

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In an environment where others struggle to survive, Tibetans thrive in the thin air of the Tibetan Plateau, with an average elevation of 14,800 feet. A study led by University of Utah scientists is the first to find a genetic cause for the adaptation and demonstrate how it contributes to the Tibetans’ ability to live in low oxygen conditions. The work appears online in the journal Nature Genetics on Aug. 17, 2014.

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Senator and ophthalmologist Rand Paul (R-Ky) will join a medical team from the University of Utah’s John A. Moran Eye Center at a weeklong surgical camp in Guatemala beginning Aug. 14. The team plans to perform 200 sight-restoring cataract surgeries while working with local clinicians to improve care in the remote region of Baja Verapaz.

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Study shows that a cellular 'chaperone' can also fold mirror-image proteins.

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A University of Utah School of Medicine-led study has identified a previously unknown but crucial component in the process to make platelets, a discovery that could help spare multiple myeloma patients from a dangerous side effect of the primary drug (bortezomib) used to treat their cancer.

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The award recognizes lifetime achievement by a vision scientist who has made a significant contribution to the understanding of vitreoretinal diseases or disorders

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$3.6 million over five years will let the Institute establish a Network Lead Academic Participating Site.

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Researchers discover that enzyme involved in intracellular signaling plays a crucial role in developing metabolic syndrome, a finding that has a U of U spinoff company developing a drug to potentially treat the condition.

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Research to Prevent Blindness, a New York-based foundation, has announced that University of Utah researcher Wolfgang Baehr, Ph.D., will receive the Nelson Trust Award for Retinitis Pigmentosa—and an accompanying $100,000 to pursue new scientific leads to understand contributors to blindness.

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Patients who have post-operative complications following high-risk surgery have a significantly lower risk of being readmitted to the hospital within 30 days if they go see their primary care physician soon following discharge, a new study in JAMA Surgery shows.

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Published online in Cell Reports on June 19, Huntsman Cancer Institute investigators report that misregulation of two genes, sox2 and lkb1, drives squamous cell lung cancer in mice. The discovery uncovers new treatment strategies, and provides a clinically relevant mouse model in which to test them.

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Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) initiative has launched a new research team, the Center for Chemical Biology, to discover small molecules and develop drugs that alter biological processes, and enhance patient lives. The first investigator to join the new center is Danny Hung-Chieh Chou, Ph.D., who will develop novel forms of injectable insulin to make life better for patients with T1D.

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The findings in the paper, titled “Protective buttressing of the hominin face,” present an alternative to the previous long-held hypothesis that the evolution of the robust faces of our early ancestors resulted largely from the need to chew hard-to-crush foods such as nuts.

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Scientists have developed a powerful tool called pVAAST that combines linkage analysis with case control association to identify disease-causing mutations in families faster and more precisely than ever before.

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Mice severely disabled by a condition similar to multiple sclerosis (MS) were able to walk less than two weeks following treatment with human neural stem cells. The finding, which uncovers potential new avenues for treating MS, will be published online on May 15, 2014, in the journal Stem Cell Reports.

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A group of students from the University of Utah School of Computing has launched a new application designed to help consumers become more aware about alternatives to driving. The app is an effort to improve behavior that contributes to Utah’s air pollution problem.

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Epidemiologist Cornelia Ulrich, Ph.D., and her husband, Bruce A. Edgar, Ph.D., will join the Institute as early as Sept. 1, 2014.

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The prestigious honor is awarded by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to a scientist who has shown outstanding biochemical and molecular biological research, with particular emphasis on development of methods and techniques to aid in research.

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University of Utah Health Care watched web traffic to its online physician profiles skyrocket after implementing online physician reviews, analytics show

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A computational tool developed at the University of Utah (U of U) has successfully identified diseases with unknown gene mutations in three separate cases

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Wolfgang Baehr, Ph.D., will be awarded Proctor Medal for work studying retinal diseases.

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Twelve student teams garnered top honors from a field of more than 40 for inventing medical devices that may soon change the marketplace and improve modern medicine.

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The Bench-to-Bedside program is designed to introduce medical students, engineering students and business students to the world of medical device innovation. Student teams form into multidisciplinary “start-up” companies and are given the task of identifying an unmet clinical need.

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University of Utah neuroscientists report that when a region of the brain called the lateral habenula is chronically inactivated in rats, they repeatedly drink to excess and are less able to learn from the experience. The study, published online in PLOS ONE on April 2, has implications for understanding behaviors that drive alcohol addiction.

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About 6 percent of colorectal cancers are diagnosed within three to five years after the patient receive a clean colonoscopy report, according to researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah.

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Compared to 10 years ago, sequencing the human genome has plummeted in cost by 1 million-fold and can be completed in a fraction of the time. Yet there are still barriers preventing DNA sequence information from routinely being incorporated into patient care. The USTAR Center for Genetic Discovery is partnering with California based Omicia, Inc. to make patient genome analysis as routine as a blood test.

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University of Utah Health Care neurosurgeon, Meic Schmidt, MD, MBA, has been recognized as one of the world’s top five experts in spine tumor treatment, according to a recent ranking by Expertscape.

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Study with mice shows moderate exercise can activate Nrf2, leading to stem cell regeneration.

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March 17 stop in Utah is part of national lecture series organized by non-profit group CURE to raise awareness about epilepsy.

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Newly released statistics show that more patients are turning to the University of Utah for liver transplant services. While the U.’s liver transplant program is one of the youngest in the region, it has established itself as among the most successful. In 2013, the University of Utah performed the most liver transplants in the state, with 35 patients undergoing life-saving procedures at the U.

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Researchers report two breakthroughs in understanding pancreatic cancer: the development of the first mouse model that simulates a precursor lesion called intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasia (IPMN), and the identification of an enzyme, Brg1, that appears to help cause the formation of IPMN lesions while also suppressing another precursor lesion.

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The project’s first initiative revolves around studying the brains of people who have returned from serving missions on behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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A University of Utah-led study for treatment of patients with atrial fibrillation (A-fib) provides strong clinical evidence for the use of 3-D MRI to individualize disease management and improve outcomes.

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Researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah discovered a cellular mechanism that drives the spread of breast cancer to other parts of the body (metastasis), as well as a therapy which blocks that mechanism.

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Cells with a mutation in the gene called K-Ras—found in close to 30 percent of all cancers , but mostly those with worst prognosis, such as pancreatic cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer—subvert the normal mechanisms of cell death.

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University of Utah researchers have discovered a naturally occurring genetic variation in mice that predisposes carriers toward developing severe, inflammatory arthritis.

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When people understand privacy safeguards, they approve of tissues being used for population-based research without their consent, innovative study finds.

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Three University of Utah faculty members whose research has resulted in major disease-related discoveries, patents, inventions, and startup companies have been named fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).

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New technique by Dr. Amit Patel uses a minimally invasive technique where he goes backwards through a patient’s main cardiac vein, or coronary sinus, and inserts a catheter. He then inflates a balloon in order to block blood flow out of the heart so that a very high dose of gene therapy can be infused directly into the heart. The unique gene therapy doesn’t involve viruses and is pure human DNA infused into patients. The DNA, called SDF-1, is a naturally occurring substance in the body that becomes a homing signal for a patient’s body to use its own stem cells to go to the site of an injury.

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For the past 10 years, U.S. clinicians have been performing unnecessary Pap tests for cervical cancer screening in certain groups of women, according to a researcher from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah.

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The recent identification of brown fat stem cells in adult humans may lead to new treatments for heart and endocrine disorders, according to a new University of Utah study published in the journal Stem Cells.

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Isoforms of PDE3A enzyme might make targets for drugs that prevent SDC while still helping the heart pump blood

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David Classen, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of medicine and consultant of infectious diseases at the University of Utah School of Medicine, will be honored in December for a lifetime of achievement related to improving patient safety.

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June L. Round, Ph.D., has been named one of the nation's "most innovative young scientists and engineers" in the 2013 Packard Fellowships in Science and Engineering program.

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Previous studies have identified links between women’s prepregnancy body mass index (BMI) and pregnancy weight gain to an increased risk for the development of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in children. But in the new study from University of Utah, researchers build on prior research by identifying an association between autism spectrum disorder risk and prenatal weight gain, after accounting for important related factors such as a woman’s prepregnancy BMI.

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For people with a family history of adenomas (colon polyps that lead to colon cancer), up to 10 percent of colorectal cancers could be missed when current national screening guidelines are followed.

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The goal of the Sojourn Awards is to promote innovations by inspiring health care workers and to invest in their futures. Holli Martinez will be recognized along with recipients from Idaho, Oregon and Washington who have worked to advance the access, quality and understanding of palliative care.

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University of Utah researchers have found that deficiency of an antioxidant response protein called nuclear erythroid-2 like factor-2 (Nrf2) delays or prevents hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

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University of Utah Center for Clinical and Translational Science has been selected to receive a $20.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The grant will allow the Center to provide support for all aspects of translational research over the next five years.