In a The Scientist profile, Carolyn Schutt Ibsen, Ph.D., discusses her decision to work with Sadik Esener, Ph.D., in cancer early detection, starting her own lab at OHSU where she applies tissue engineering and energy-responsive materials toward developing tumor models and improving drug delivery, at the intersection of interdisciplinary research. “There’s really exciting things that can happen when engineers talk to biologists or when material scientists talk to people in engineering fields,” she says.

“This is the first empirical evidence that we know of that there has been a workforce response to the post-Dobbs landscape,” Jane M. Zhu, MD, MPP, an associate professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, told Healio.

Healio covers a new OHSU publication that finds OB/GYN practitioners fell by 4.2% after the Dobbs court decision overturning Roe v. Wade’s access to abortion services, leading to restrictive laws in many states. Jane Zhu, M.D., says, “Health care providers are like any other group—they can vote with their feet. These shifts have enormous ramifications for care access and quality.”

In an Education pullout section of USA Today covering education and health care, Miranda Lim, M.D., Ph.D., is interviewed by Elias Wisdom, M.D., Ph.D., about the challenges of running a research lab while delivering uncompromising patient care. She says, “As a physician-scientist, you get to work on the front lines of patient care while thinking deeply about how research can solve real-world problems. It’s not just science for science’s sake — it’s about saving lives.”

A new study led by Jane Lange, Ph.D., confirms the risk of developing breast cancer is 1.7 times higher for women with dense breasts, and that breast density plays a significant role in both the risk of breast cancer diagnosis and the sensitivity of mammography. Lange says, “Even after accounting for differences in screening sensitivity, we found that breast density is strongly linked to cancer risk.”

The study’s lead author, Jane Lange, Ph.D., a staff scientist at the Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute’s Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research Center, said dense breast tissue not only increases cancer risk, but also makes it harder to detect tumors through routine mammograms. Breast density, which refers to the amount of fatty versus glandular tissue in the breast, has long been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer.

Bypassing referrals to allergists and using electronic consults to reassess if patients are allergic to penicillin may be faster and more convenient than usual care, according to OHSU research presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology 2025 Annual Meeting.

From 2018 to 2024, practitioner supply increased overall, but states with abortion restrictions post-Dobbs saw comparative declines in ob/gyns per population, reported Jane M. Zhu, MD, of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, and colleagues.

Scientists, researchers and students from several Oregon universities were among the crowd of more than 500 people who rally on Friday against federal directives threatening funding for scientific and medical research at the state capitol. Brian Druker, M.D., says, “If I didn’t have NIH funding, I’m not sure I’d be standing here or that the hundreds of thousands of lives that have been saved [by cancer research] would be here today.”

OHSU researchers caution that switching to daylight savings time raises health and performance issues for students and workers — and it’s worth taking steps ahead of time to reduce the risks. Andrew McHill, Ph.D., says, “We’re getting hit from two different fronts: First, we’re artificially shifting our clock so that we effectively lose an hour of sleep,” he said. “Second, we’re waking up an hour earlier than our internal body clock’s circadian time. That means we’re groggier while driving in the morning, we’re at heightened risk for a cardiovascular event, and it can lead to some detriments in performance at school or at work.”