Did you know that brain tumors are the second leading cause of death in people under age 20?

May is Brain Tumor Awareness month, and at the University of Minnesota we are dedicated to tackling this serious disease, particularly through our innovative Brain Tumor Program.

The third Cancer Prevention Study by the American Cancer Society is a longitudinal study aimed at finding root causes of cancer.

But you don’t have to be a neuroscientist to make a difference in the life of patients battling brain tumors. This year our community has a unique opportunity to impact the lives of many.

The third Cancer Prevention Study of the American Cancer Society will be enrolling participants at the University of Minnesota on June 19, 2013, and in several places around the Twin Cities around the same time.

A new University of Minnesota School of Nursing partnership with the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage school district is looking into what school nurses can do to help curb obesity in schoolchildren.

Slated to begin in fall 2014, research led by School of Nursing associate professor Martha Kubik, Ph.D., R.N.,  received a $3 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to investigate how school nurses and other community health advocates can help address the childhood obesity epidemic.

The research “has the potential to inform public policy,” said Kubik in a Pioneer Press article on the announcement made at an early-May school board meeting. “If all goes as we hope it goes, it will expand access to obesity prevention programs for children and families.”

Second and fourth-grade students who are currently overweight and who volunteer alongside their families for the research will participate in a nine-month-long program. School nurses will lead the program charge by encouraging healthy food and activity habits through small group work with children and parents, one-on-one coaching sessions and collaboration with other groups that offer active play and healthy eating opportunities.

To read the full Pioneer Press article on the NIH grant award and its potential effects, click here. You can also check out the Burnsville-Eagan Sun Thisweek story here.

Cari Clark, Sc.D., M.P.H., never sought out to be a crusader for women’s health. However, her work has positioned her as a true champion for women’s health as she’s advanced an understanding around the public health impact that violence against women has on our society in the U.S. and abroad.

In early April, Clark, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and adjunct assistant professor in the School of Public Health, presented the public health impact of violence against women at a press conference convened by U.S. Senator Al Franken and Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau to support the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act.

The bill provides funding for victim services, law enforcement, and violence prevention. Importantly the bill also supports research on the health effects of violence against women, the impact of violence on the health sector, and improvements in the health sector’s response to violence victimization.

This November, researchers at the University of Minnesota retired the Man-to-Man Sexual Health Seminars, an in-person sexual health education and support program that ran for nearly 20 years.  The move was made to make way for more online-based HIV/STD prevention interventions for men seeking men (MSM).

But while Man-to-Man is now retired, the important role it played in the homosexual community shouldn’t be forgotten.

In the 1980’s homosexuality was less accepted that it is today.  Less was understood about what it meant to “be gay.”  As a result, there weren’t many resources for people coming out or who had come out but wanted to know more about the potential health impacts of their lifestyle.  Information about STD’s was scant, and HIV and AIDS were often misunderstood.

The Food Policy Research Center (FPRC), comprised of five schools and colleges at the University of Minnesota, has released the third in a series of fact sheets designed to inform policymakers on a variety of issues through a comprehensive scientific approach and are part of a broader analysis of food policy topics. The third fact sheet focuses on the changing agricultural climate.

Led by University of Minnesota professor Will Hueston, D.V.M., Ph.D., the FPRC is comprised of food policy subject matter experts from the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, School of Public Health and the University of Minnesota Extension.

Below is a brief summary of the third fact sheet “Changing Agricultural Climate: Implications for Innovation Policies.”

Dr. Julia Ponder has spent the last few weeks on the Galapagos Island of Pinzón caring for roughly 12 percent, or 60, of the world’s estimated 500 Galapagos Hawks.

Her work is one piece of a collaborative conservation project aimed, in part, at helping the nearly extinct population of Pinzón Giant Tortoises recover from the brink of extinction. (More on project details from a previous post here.)

“The experience has been both exhilarating and exhausting,” said Ponder, executive director of The Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota …