The new lab, named the Adam Michael Rosen Neuro-Oncology Laboratory, will provide an innovative workspace and the best and latest equipment to the team of Duane Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., co-director of UF’s Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy, focused on stimulating immune responses against malignant brain tumor cells.

“As we celebrate this milestone today, I want to extend my gratitude to Harris Rosen and his family members and friends,” UF President Kent Fuchs said. “The progress made in this facility for patients with brain tumors will be because of you and because of your generosity, your compassion and your commitment.”

The laboratory was made possible by a gift from The Harris Rosen Foundation that also led to the launch of the UF Health-led ReMission Alliance Against Brain Tumors in 2019. The state-of-the-art facility is named in memory of Harris Rosen’s son Adam Michael Rosen, who received care at UF Health and died in November 2018 after a prolonged fight against brain cancer.

In related news

In an article published in the journal JAMA Neurology, Dr. Melissa J Armstrong and Dr. Michael S Okun argue that it is ‘Time for a new image of Parkinson’s disease’ that more accurately reflects the varied experiences of the people with the condition.

“Sir William Richard Gowers’ 1886 Parkinson’s disease sketch shows an older gentleman who appears somewhat frail and hunched,” says Armstrong, associate professor in neurology at the University of Florida Health Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases, US, and director of the Mangurian Clinical-Research Center for Lewy Body and Parkinson’s Disease Dementia, US.

Barry J. Byrne, MD, Ph.D., chief medical advisor of the MDA and associate chair of pediatrics and director at the University of Florida Powell Center for Rare Disease Research and Therapy, told NeurologyLive that the shift to a virtual event provided the organization the chance to take a new approach to reach a new audience and engage with the public. In this interview, Dr. Byrne offered an overview of the telethon and how these new virtual methods of communication changed the group’s approach.

Those who treat patients with Alzheimer’s say that the tests need only a bit higher level of accuracy before they can be used clinically, which could be in two to three years. This breakthrough could perhaps allow doctors to not only identify symptomatic patients with the disease, but also to identify people with no symptoms who are at risk of developing the disease, and thus begin interventions.

That stunning growth curve foreshadows bankruptcy for many health-care systems, said Dr. Michael Okun, of the Fixel Institute of Neurological Diseases and a leading international expert on Parkinson’s. He is one of four authors of the authoritative new book “Ending Parkinson’s: A Prescription for Change.”

That bleak future can be brightened if the Parkinson’s community organizes and forces changes like those in successful campaigns against polio, HIV and breast cancer.

“One of the common themes is that the nurses, the staff at the hospital, however well-meaning they were, they were not prepared to take care of the Parkinson patient,” he says. “They didn’t have an appreciation for the importance of getting medicines on time, every time. They didn’t have the appreciation that certain commonly used medications in hospitals can actually harm a person with Parkinson’s because of potential complications.”

Dr. Duane Mitchell, director of UF’s Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy at the University of Florida and the co-director of the ReMission Alliance Against Brain Tumors, is among one of the top researchers coming up with ways to fight the disease.

He visited News 6 at Nine recently to explain how elite brain tumor researchers came together to form the Alliance, the benefits of team science, current treatment options and how research is advancing to provide more hope to those who are diagnosed with cancer, including children.

A recent trial involving 42 patients evaluated deep brain stimulation targeting the fornix, an arch-like structure connecting the hippocampus to other parts of the limbic system, with a primary aim of improving cognition in Alzheimer’s patients. Though that objective was unsuccessful, a research team led by Wissam Deeb, M.D., assistant professor of neurology at the University of Florida, analyzed a phenomenon of flashback-like cognitive experiences in nearly half of the patients occurring during initial programming of the stimulator.