Tick, tick. For people with epilepsy and their loved ones, sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is “a ticking time bomb that creates anxiety and fear,” says University of Iowa neurosurgeon Brian Dlouhy, MD (13R, 14F). As the name suggests, SUDEP happens when an otherwise healthy person with epilepsy dies suddenly and without a clear cause. It’s responsible for more than 3,000 deaths in the…

Theranostics—a pioneering fusion of therapeutic and diagnostic technologies—is redefining the cancer treatment landscape, with University of Iowa Health Care blazing a path forward. “We know that radiation is probably the single most effective agent at treating cancers,” says John Buatti, MD, professor in the Carver College of Medicine Department of Radiation Oncology. “While radiation can…

Another Match Day is in the record books for the UI Carver College of Medicine, with all the excitement, laughter, and happy tears that come with learning where our students will take the next significant step in their careers. This year, 141 medical students will graduate from our college, of which 30% will go on to residency training in Iowa. They matched into 23 different specialties across 30…

University of Iowa Health Care is among the first sites in the country to participate in a phase 3 clinical trial to test a new, personalized vaccine for patients with high-risk melanoma. The study will combine individualized mRNA vaccines with the immunotherapy pembrolizumab to determine if the combination is safe and does a better job than pembrolizumab alone at preventing melanoma from…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a medical technology created by a University of Iowa faculty member to treat atrial fibrillation (Afib) in January 2024. Now, physicians in the cardiac electrophysiology division of UI Health Care are the first in the state to begin using the technology in clinical care. “Pulse field ablation, particularly Farapulse, offers a safe, more…

Extremely premature infants who were fed donated breast milk had less than half the rate of a life-threatening disease than those fed formula, according to a new study led by the University of Iowa. Researchers also found extremely preterm infants—classified as babies born before 29 weeks—who were fed donor milk experienced the same neurological development as those who were fed formula…

Did smokers do better than non-smokers in a clinical trial for an experimental cancer treatment? That was the intriguing question that led University of Iowa researchers and their colleagues to develop a drinkable, carbon monoxide-infused foam that boosted the effectiveness of the therapy, known as autophagy inhibition, in mice and human cells. The findings were recently published in the journal…