Iowa Neuroscience Institute researchers find that sleep deprivation affects each part of the brain differently, allowing for distinct computations influencing behavior, emotion, and memory. Sleep. It’s cherished. It’s avoided. It’s sought after and protected—and yet often sacrificed. Above all else, it’s completely necessary. A lack of sleep has been shown to harm mental health, immune systems,…

James Byrne, MD, PhD, assistant professor of radiation oncology at University of Iowa Health Care, has been awarded the prestigious 2024 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, recognizing his groundbreaking work aimed at improving outcomes and quality of life for cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy. Byrne is one of 40 early career scientists across the nation to receive this award, which is…

As UI Health Care works to increase access for all Iowans, the organization is actively adopting new, innovative technologies to support its teams, reduce the administrative burden involved with patient care, and enable a stronger connection with patients. To guide the development of UI Health Care’s technology strategy, leaders gathered feedback from clinicians across the organization to…

Kirkwood Community College and the University of Iowa (UI) are partnering to offer a four-year Medical Laboratory Science (MLS) Bachelor of Science degree, beginning this fall. The MLS program will help address a major workforce shortage of medical laboratory scientists. Demand for medical laboratory scientists is expected to rise by 5% over the next decade, resulting in an estimated 24,000 job…

Continuing a long tradition of innovation to advance treatment for cystic fibrosis (CF), University of Iowa researchers led by Paul McCray Jr., MD, were part of a team that developed a new gene editing approach to correct the most common CF-causing mutation. In collaboration with researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University led by David Liu, PhD, McCray and his colleagues…

A new study suggests that certain drugs commonly used to treat enlarged prostate may also decrease the risk for dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). This observational finding may seem surprising, but it mirrors previous work by the University of Iowa Health Care team that links the drugs to a protective effect in another neurodegenerative condition–Parkinson's disease. The UI researchers think that…