This year’s top stories highlight USF Health as an academic medical center.  Stories of patient gratitude, innovative research and development, and affirmation that the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine is truly the fastest rising medical school in the country.

Take a look at the top USF Health stories of 2022.

1. USF Health and Weill Cornell Medicine earn funding to further develop artificial intelligence that uses voice to diagnose disease. 

2. A USF Health patient had very few answers to her condition until she met with Dr. Jolan Walter.

3. Congratulations to our USF Health physicians who made the 2022 list of the country’s top doctors. 

4. The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine is on the rise faster than any medical school in the country. 

5. A USF Health psychiatry expert explains how the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increased number of patients with Social Anxiety Disorder.

6.  No medical school in the country does Match Day like the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. 

7. USF Health and Tampa General Hospital neurosurgeons are the first in Tampa Bay to offer game-changing ultrasound. 

8. USF Health was awarded $3.2 million to develop blood tests designed to detect Alzheimer’s Disease. 

9. Researchers begin to unlock how gut and oral microbiomes are linked to brain health in older adults. 

Hariom Yadav, PhD, (standing) and Shalini Jain, PhD, were recently recruited to research on the gut-brain connection (gut-brain axis) in relation to cognitive function.

10. Take a look at all of the USF Health physicians who made the Tampa Magazine list of Top Doctors in 2022. 

Francine Shebell, winner of the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer's Institute's "CEO for a Day" online auction fundraiser, with Institute CEO Dave Morgan, PhD

Francine Shebell, a retired attorney from St. Petersburg, recently got a glimpse of the inner workings of the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute, one of the world’s largest freestanding centers dedicated to research, education and treatment of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.   Shebell’s husband Peter suffers from Alzheimer’s.

Shebell won the Institute’s online auction to be “CEO for a Day,” a fundraiser held in April to benefit the Center for Memory C.A.R.E.  On Friday, May 18, she spent the day alongside the Institute’s official CEO Dave Morgan, PhD., who navigated Shebell through a behind-the-scenes look at the facility and its basic science and translational research.

In addition to meeting with researchers and staff in the laboratory and reviewing new plans for volunteer opportunities, Shebell attended a meeting of all the institute’s faculty investigators and postdoctoral students.  The institute’s researchers are studying changes in the brain that cause dementia and working to develop new approaches for the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s; many are supported in part by National Institutes of Health funding.

Kevin Nash, PhD, who studies gene therapy approaches to Alzheimer's disease, pulls up an image on the computer monitor for Shebell and Dr. Morgan.

 “The whole day was fascinating, and I left feeling hopeful”  Shebell said. “I learned that you need to get rid of the abnormal amyloid and the tau (hallmark proteins associated with Alzheimer’s).  Ultimately there will probably need to be cocktail approach to combating Alzheimer’s,  one drug won’t cure it.”

Shebell is all too familiar with the struggles families face when caring for a loved one battling Alzheimer’s; her husband began displaying signs of dementia after the couple moved to Florida in 2006.

“It took me several years to accept that Peter had dementia, but then I was referred to the Byrd Institute and saw Dr. Amanda Smith, medical director for the Institute,” Shebell said. “Dr. Smith diagnosed Peter with Alzheimer’s and gave me the strength to deal with this new chapter in my life.”

Shebell, a caregiver whose husband suffers from Alzheimer's, listens as Dr. Nash talks about the inflammatory process in the brain.

Ed Weeber, PhD, (right) the institute's scientific director, discusses new research initiatives with Dr. Morgan and Shebell.

"We're trying to find approaches in the lab we can move into the clinic to slow down the disease process," Dr. Morgan tells Shebell.

 Photos by Eric Younghans/USF Health Communications