The study will be conducted at three community health centers across Florida Tampa, FL (Feb. 8, 2012) — A new $1.2-million federal grant to USF Health will help disseminate evidence-based psychological treatments for anxious children to three community mental health centers across Florida. The three-year grant from the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research will allow University of South Florida pediatric clinical psychologist Dr. Eric Storch and colleagues to test the feasibility and effectiveness of a computer-assisted cognitive behavioral therapy protocol in community mental health centers. The three federally and […]

Tampa, FL (Dec. 27, 2011) — A nationally recognized maternal and child health epidemiologist has joined USF Health as chair of the College of Public Health’s Department of Community and Family Health and director of the Lawton & Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies. William Sappenfield, MD, MPH, brings nearly 27 years experience in maternal and child health (MCH) epidemiological research and practice at the national, state and local levels. Dr. Sappenfield joins the University of South Florida from the Florida Department of Health, where for six years […]

The National Institute of Mental Health has awarded researchers at the University of South Florida College of Medicine $1.2 million to determine if a common antibiotic is effective in treating obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in children.   Eric Storch, PhD, associate professor of in both the USF Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine and holder of the Guild Endowed Chair at All Children’s Hospital, was awarded the four-year federal grant to conduct a double-blind, placebo-controlled study examining the efficacy of d-cycloserine augmentation of cognitive-behavioral therapy […]

Tampa, FL (June 20, 2011) – The University of South Florida Department of Pediatrics is conducting an innovative study for youth, ages 13 to 24, who may be HIV infected but are undiagnosed and not showing symptoms. Researchers will target Latino men who have sex with men and heterosexual Latina women to receive HIV testing and recruit others who are at-risk for HIV. The program is unique because it employs social networks of friends, family members, and intimate partners to recruit additional study participants and send HIV risk reduction messages. […]

Tampa, FL (Jan. 17, 2011) — The University of South Florida will collaborate with the University of Florida and the University of California-SanDiego on a $4.7-million National Institutes of Health study investigating the effects of marijuana use on immunity and HIV infection in adolescents. HIV experts at the three universities were recently awarded the multidisciplinary grant, which could help identify novel biomarkers for tracking how substance abuse can influence the progression of HIV infection in the brain. It may also provide evidence to support behavioral guidelines for HIV-infected youth and […]

         Dr. Lewis Rubin held baby Olivia Munoz before him and gazed at her with a smile.          “You’re a big girl,” he told her as she stared back with wide, curious eyes.          She is, indeed – thanks to Dr. Rubin and his colleagues. Olivia weighed only 1 pound, 1 ounce when she was born in her mother’s 23rd week of pregnancy. She was among the sickest and most fragile of babies. Dr. Rubin, who holds USF’s Pamela S. and Leslie M. Muma Endowed Chair in Neonatology, knew she […]

Two distinguished pediatric faculty members were recently selected to fill two endowed chairs jointly sponsored by the University of South Florida and All Children’s Hospital. Michael J. Shamblott, PhD, has been named to the Walmart/Sam’s Club Chair in Pediatric Oncology.  Dr. Shamblott will join the USF College of Medicine as an assistant professor next year from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he is assistant professor of neurology and a research scientist at the Hugo W. Moser Research Institute at Kennedy Krieger International Center for Spinal Cord Injury. Eric […]

USF study suggests high dose needed very early in pregnancy to protect developing heart Tampa, FL (May 26, 2010) — A new animal study has found that high levels of the B-vitamin folate (folic acid) prevented heart birth defects induced by alcohol exposure in early pregnancy, a condition known as fetal alcohol syndrome. Researchers at the University of South Florida College of Medicine and All Children’s Hospital report that the protection was afforded only when folate was administered very early in pregnancy and before the alcohol exposure.  The dose that […]

The USF Department of Pediatrics partners with Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) to bring the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile to thousands of underprivileged children and adolescents in the greater Tampa Bay area. The 40-foot medical and dental clinic on wheels is staffed by USF Health pediatrics faculty and residents, students and others. Funding for this valuable resource is stretched thin. Now you can help, by voting for the USF Health Care Mobile to win a $5,000 grant from RMHC. Just click here, select U.S. and then click on Tampa Bay. […]

Jan. 23, 2010 — For the first time this year, USF Health was represented in the Children’s Gasparilla Parade with its own float. The float, created by the Department of Pediatrics, paved the way for the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile, which has been a regular in the annual parade for the last several years. Faculty and staff from the Pediatrics, Urology, Engineering and the College of Public Health, and their family members, rode on or walked alongside the green-and-gold USF Health float, which rolled along the scenic Bayshore Boulevard route […]