UCF in the News

Terlisa Shepard was 31 years old and eight months pregnant when she got her first breast cancer diagnosis. That was the first of four cancer battles the now 55-year-old would have. Shepard is now participating in cancer research at the University of Central Florida that shows what cancer cells are doing and about to do. Dr. Annete Khaled, the head of cancer research at UCF, is working to make every moment count. She said current tests detect cancer when its localized. Her new test finds advanced cancer early, before it begins to spread anywhere in the body. You can learn more about the process in the video above. Kahled said she expects to start testing on patients within the year.

In a new study, researchers examined the medical records of over 38,000 patients hospitalized for COVID-19. Statin users were 37% less likely to die from COVID-19 compared to people who didn’t use statins. The study was conducted before COVID-19 vaccines were authorized by the FDA. Common medications used to lower cholesterol may reduce the severity of COVID-19 and the risk of dying from this disease, a preliminary study suggests. “Our results suggest statins could be an additional cost-effective solution against COVID-19 disease severity and should be studied further,” study author Dr. Ettore Crimi, professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, said in a news release.

Parts of Florida hit hardest by Hurricane Ian are seeing nearly double the normal number of infections from flesh-eating bacteria that thrive in coastal floodwaters. According to the Florida Department of Health, so far in 2022, Florida has seen 65 cases and one death from the bacterium compared with 34 cases and 10 deaths in 2021. The only Central Florida counties with reported cases this year are Brevard with two cases and no deaths, and Seminole with one case and one death. University of Central Florida professor Salvador Almagro Moreno, Ph.D., is an expert in flesh-eating bacteria. He said considering the expansive flooding from Ian, he's not surprised at the spike. "People that might not be in contact with bacteria at normal times, because of the water, and the coastal water getting inside the land. It just increases the contact and also people are gonna have like wounds because they are gonna be carrying things. It's going to create the perfect environment for transmission of the disease,” Moreno said.

It's a first for the police department at the University of Central Florida: a full-time, in-house mental health counselor to assist officers when they're dealing with students in crisis. Delaney Kirwin, a mental health clinician and licensed clinical social worker, was hired by the police department in part because of her prior experience with the Orange County Sheriff's Office in its Behavior Response Unit. Kirwin said clinicians working alongside police is the future of law enforcement. Mental health counselors don’t go to school to learn how to ride around with a police officer responding to calls, so when a counselor joins a police department for that purpose there is a learning curve. But Kirwin already learned what it’s like in her 2 years at the sheriff’s office. “That experience provided me with a framework of how law enforcement responds to mental health calls,” Kirwin said. “Having this collaboration with mental health, it’s not in any way taking away from the importance of what law enforcement does, it’s very much working together and helping each other and being a resource,” Kirwin said.

The University of Central Florida (UCF) announced this week that it is partnering with SkillStorm to expand access to high-demand, industry-recognized technology credentials. UCF was asked to join a consortium of colleges and companies in launching Upskill Together, a SkillStorm effort. Upskill Together intends to address the IT industry’s problem in attracting and training job seekers with the necessary skills. Through the partnership, UCF students are able to take courses that lead to credentials from the country’s largest IT businesses, including AWS, Salesforce, CompTIA, and Pega. The initiative will provide online, instructor-led training for learners at UCF and other partner universities to earn credentials for in-demand fields like cloud computing, salesforce, and automation. “Unleashing the potential of all learners in our community is core to our mission at UCF,” says Thomas Cavanagh, vice provost for Digital Learning at UCF. “Upskill Together will help UCF enhance our ability to provide the training and skills that prepare learners to succeed while creating opportunity and upward mobility.”

Kids might think they know everything about vampires and witches thanks to movies and TV—but their favourite Halloween costume is likely rooted in much older global history. And learning a little more about the culture behind the character can be an added treat this Halloween. Halloween itself is rooted in the ancient pagan Celtic festival of Samhain, when folks lit bonfires and likely wore animal skins to confuse the spirits thought to be walking the Earth that night. People also were thought to have left food and drink outside as an offering to these supernatural beings. The Celts’ descendants were believed to have gone from house to house performing songs or dances in exchange for food and drink, says Natalie Underberg-Goode professor of digital media and folklore at the University of Central Florida. And though the modern Halloween costumes that most kids know today—vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches—come primarily from movies, “each of them has a connection to folklore,” Underberg-Goode says. Here are some traditional Halloween ghouls your kids might be dressing up as, and the spooky-but-true history behind them.

NASA is sponsoring research proposals from three university-based teams over the course of the next year to examine the economic, social, and regulatory concerns related to space sustainability as part of its efforts to address orbital debris. Human-made objects orbiting Earth that no longer serve a purpose are considered orbital debris. Such “space junk” includes mission-related and fragmentation debris, abandoned rocket stages, and nonfunctional spacecraft. “Communication and Space Debris: Connecting with Public Knowledges and Identities,” submitted by Patrice Kohl, Sergio Alvarez, and Philip Metzger of the University of Central Florida.

Just when we thought we had COVID-19 beat, it comes right back with a different strain and different symptoms. "The reality is that we are learning to live with COVID," said Ben D. Sawyer, the director of LabX at the University of Central Florida. For the past two years, scientists have been using data and computers to predict where the virus will spread next and how many people may get sick. Now, scientists are testing a new method of forecasting COVID that could help cities prepare information that is localized, much like a daily weather forecast.

With so much strife in the world, it’s time to celebrate something good — the people who work tirelessly to make the community we all call home a better place to live. The idea of this annual feature is to spotlight those who don’t normally make headlines but who definitely make a difference. Readers nominated close to 200 people for this year. That says a lot about about how much good we have going on. One of those people is Maya Tolentino, a UCF police officer. Most police officers are brave public servants. But Maya Tolentino has repeatedly gone above and beyond the call of duty. She spends her own time volunteering with nonprofits that help underprivileged kids learn to do everything from tell stories to start businesses. Yet she’s also a leader within the department. When UCF needed a chaplain for its stress-management response team, Tolentino went to school to get her degree. She was honored for her crisis-response work a few years ago after answering a call involving a potentially suicidal student — one who would later say Tolentino’s team helped save his life.