Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at The University of Iowa and the Cancer Research Alliance have teamed up to provide HOPE this holiday season. Starting Nov. 14, you can click here to shop at hundreds of major retailers while helping fight cancer at the same time. A percentage of each purchase will fund groundbreaking cancer research that will help save lives.

Some of the retailers you will find include:

•    Target
•    Amazon
•    Best Buy
•    Nordstrom’s
•    Barnes & Noble
•    Gap/Gapkids.com
•    Nikestore.com

The Cancer Research Alliance is a non-profit organization made up of 11 of the top cancer research institutions in the United States. The organization fights all cancers and is working to develop new therapies and protocols across the board including therapies that more precisely target any cancer without damaging surrounding tissue; treatments that are tailored to a patient’s molecular profile; and vaccines that teach the body’s immune system to seek out cancer cells and destroy them with little to no side effects.

Join Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Cancer Research Alliance this holiday season and give something more powerful than presents…give hope. For more information, contact Carol Jefferson.

Location: MERF Atrium, East Room

UI Health Care wants to thank its faculty and staff for their service and dedication over the past year by holding two simultaneous holiday open houses in December. These events will feature food, live entertainment and door prizes, and will be set up in two locations to be convenient for everyone. We hope you all will be able to come by and enjoy the event!

Location: Prem Sahai Auditorium, MERF

The CCOM will hold an investiture ceremony in recognition of a generous gift from Dr. John and Kerstin VanGilder to establish an endowed chair in the Department of Neurosurgery. This investiture will recognize the gifts from all the contributors and the VanGilder family to fund this endowed position, and celebrate the appointment of Dr. Matt Howard to the John C. VanGilder Chair in Neurosurgery.

Everyone is invited to attend the celebration.

Health News Review

This site reviews major news stories that make a therapeutic claim about specific treatments, procedures, investigational drugs or devices, vitamins or nutritional supplements, or diagnostic and screening tests. A multi-disciplinary team assesses stories using a standardized rating system and publishes the critiques, along with links to the news stories.

Search for stories by news source/date or keyword. A project of the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, the site is published by the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Get the pulse of the nation’s health care needs at Research!America, a non-profit educational and advocacy alliance of 500 organizations. With the goal of advancing health care, the group publishes public opinion polls and develops programs and publications for both the general public and decision-makers. Access to national polls is free of charge at the site; access to state-based polls requires a membership.

So you know you saw an article on genetic testing advances a few weeks ago but where was it? Or you’re wondering what media are saying about the latest cholesterol findings. To find news articles about topics of interest to you, go to Lexis-Nexis Academic (http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/). The University has a subscription, so why not use it? Enter key words into the “Quick News Search,” and if you need more assistance, use the “Guided News Search.”