April Newsletter
- amwautd
- Apr 2
- 14 min read
2025 Edition
“The contagious power of hope, the anticipation, the energy, the exhilaration of once again being on the cusp of a brighter day. The chance to vanquish the demons of fear, division, and hate that have consumed us and continue pursuing the unfinished promise"
Michelle Obama
The Editor’s Take
Hello AMWA UTD! I am excited for you all to read your writers’ latest articles! This month, we have a few new exciting additions, including our first Op-Ed and reflections from the first AMWA Discussion Night. We also have articles on the potential role of AI in cancer detection, the development of Organ-on-Chips for drug testing, the gender data gap in medicine, and new technology to detect Alzheimer’s disease.
As always, if you would like to submit your own piece of writing, have ideas, or questions, email me at Zoe.Du@utdallas.edu
-Zoe
Op-Ed: Uncertain Future of PEPFAR
By: Samhitha Palla
HIV treatments and services funded by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are frozen with the rest of the foreign aid in the early stages of the Trump administration. Without treatment, millions of people affected by HIV are at risk of developing severe illnesses or death. The withdrawal of treatment also threatens the progress made in the fight against HIV on a global scale.
PEPFAR has played a vital role in reducing HIV mortality rates, especially by preventing mother-to-child transmission and expanding access to life-saving treatments. Since its inception during the George W. Bush administration in 2003, PEPFAR’s lifesaving treatment has saved an estimated 25 million lives in 54 countries. Furthermore, it was instrumental in strengthening the healthcare systems, especially in underserved areas such as sub-Saharan Africa, where the epidemic caused the most casualties. The program helped millions of people lead better lives by educating the public about HIV/AIDS and providing testing and treatment.
Despite its global recognition and historical bipartisan support, the program's renewal is now caught in political turmoil with rising concerns over the allocation of funds. Although PEPFAR is funded by the State Department, the majority of its grants are distributed through U.S.A.I.D. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; neither organization has released funds since the freeze was implemented. On Jan. 28, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a waiver allowing lifesaving services to be distributed, seemingly allowing for the distribution of HIV treatments. However, due to the lack of specifications, charities and organizations administering such treatments are still left in limbo. While an updated waiver has indicated that HIV testing and treatment are supposed to be covered, coverage for HIV prevention and support for vulnerable children is unknown. These cryptic messages from the State Department expose the lack of knowledge on how these programs function, leading to millions of lives being at risk while awaiting a new answer.
Furthermore, the freeze is affecting how smaller organizations can provide HIV treatments in underserved nations. The sudden drop in funding is leading to the shutdown of clinics and mass layoffs of healthcare workers. In Kenya alone, 40,000 healthcare professionals have been affected by the freeze. In South Africa, PEPFAR funds 20% of the nation’s $2.3 billion HIV/AIDS program, enabling 5.5 million people to receive treatment every day. The sudden loss of funding led to PEPFAR-funded facilities shutting down and HIV patients being referred to government hospitals. The Uganda Key Populations Consortium, an umbrella organization that provides HIV treatment in Uganda, has lost 70 percent of its funding. This has led to 30 of 54 drop-in centers that provide medications to shut down.
Children are at a higher risk due to the specializations in HIV medications and treatments compared to adults. Children are administered medication based on age, weight, and previous exposure to antiretroviral drugs and must be monitored for drug resistance. In children who have acquired HIV via mother-to-child transmission, HIV spreads rapidly, with early death occurring within 8-12 weeks after birth — a time frame shorter than the 90-day freeze on foreign aid.
The freeze on foreign aid is taking millions of lives every day. The State Department’s ambiguously worded waivers are not only causing unexpected deaths but also costing the jobs of healthcare workers worldwide. With organizations not receiving the funds and struggling to stay afloat, more programs and clinics are shutting down for an undetermined time, thus leading to the unlikelihood of restarting such programs and returning to a sense of normality.
The Future of AI and Breast Cancer Detection: Will Radiologists Still Be Necessary?
By: Gauri Guruprasad
Breast cancer is the most common cancer worldwide, and early detection is the key to survival. But even the most skilled radiologists can miss tiny, almost imperceptible signs of cancer in mammograms - until now. Enter artificial intelligence (AI), a game-changer in breast cancer detection that’s proving to be faster, more accurate, and in some cases, better than human doctors at catching cancer in its earliest stages. AI models, such as those developed by Google Health and MIT, have been able to spot cancerous abnormalities years before they would typically be diagnosed (McKinney et al., 2020). Studies show that AI can reduce false positives by up to 5.7% and false negatives by 9.4%, a major step forward in ensuring that more cancers are caught early (McKinney et al., 2020).
Unlike traditional software that follows preset rules, AI models use machine learning to continuously improve their accuracy. These algorithms are trained on enormous datasets of mammograms, learning to distinguish between benign and malignant tissue by recognizing patterns that human eyes might miss. Some AI models even assess breast density, a factor that can make it harder to spot tumors. For example, Therapixel’s MammoScreen AI has been FDA-approved for assisting radiologists in reading mammograms, and Lunit INSIGHT MMG, an AI system currently in use in South Korea, has demonstrated a 97% accuracy rate in identifying suspicious lesions. AI-assisted mammograms can also help radiologists in understaffed or low-resource areas, making screenings more widely available.
Despite AI’s remarkable progress, it’s not perfect. One major concern is bias in training data—if AI models are trained on datasets that primarily include certain demographics, they may be less effective for others. Studies have shown that AI models trained on primarily Caucasian patients may underperform when diagnosing Black or Asian women, highlighting a need for more diverse datasets. Another challenge? The “Black Box” Problem - AI models can provide highly accurate predictions, but understanding why they make a certain decision isn’t always clear. This lack of transparency can make doctors hesitant to rely fully on AI without human oversight.
The future of AI in breast cancer detection raises an important question: Will radiologists still be necessary? While AI is proving to be a powerful assistant, it is unlikely to replace human expertise entirely. Radiologists provide essential clinical judgment, interpret complex cases, and consider a patient’s full medical history—something AI alone cannot yet do. In fact, the best results come from a hybrid approach, where AI assists radiologists rather than replaces them. A 2020 study published in Nature found that AI alone outperformed individual radiologists, but when combined with human review, the error rate was reduced even further (McKinney et al., 2020). AI will likely reshape radiology, allowing doctors to focus more on patient care and complex decision-making while AI handles the time-consuming analysis of scans.
Looking ahead, researchers are working on AI models that don’t just detect cancer but predict a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer in the future. Additionally, AI could soon be paired with liquid biopsies, non-invasive blood tests that detect cancer markers before a tumor is even visible on a scan. While human expertise will always be essential in medicine, AI is proving to be an invaluable tool—one that could help save thousands of lives by catching breast cancer earlier than ever before. The question isn’t if AI will become a standard in breast cancer detection, but when. And for women everywhere, that moment can’t come soon enough.
Organ-on-Chips: The Future of Drug Testing and Personalized Medicine
By: Shannon-Renee Odoi
In their quest for better drug testing and personalized medicine, scientists have arrived at a new technology christened Organ-on-Chips (OoCs). The miniature bioengineered devices replicate the structure and function of human organs, providing a more accurate and ethical substitute for traditional animal and cell-culture testing.
What Are Organ-on-Chips?
Organ-on-Chips are living human cell-lined microfluidic chips that mimic the environment and functionality of an organ, say, the heart, lungs, liver, or kidneys. These chips are computer-programmed to replicate the body conditions of each target organ, such as physical forces like breath motions or bloodstream movement. Organ-on-chips provide scientists with an active environment to study disease causes, drug-to-drug and drug-to-gene interactions, and tailor-made therapeutic plans.
Advantages Over Traditional Methods
One of the largest obstacles to medical research is that results from animal studies routinely fail to transfer to human patients. Organ-on-Chips bypass this obstacle by utilizing human cells, providing an improved drug efficacy and toxicity forecast. They also significantly reduce the ethical concerns of animal testing and the cost and duration of clinical trials.
Applications in Medicine
Organ-on-chips have been used to model various diseases, including cancer, lung disease, and neurodegenerative diseases. Researchers can expose the chips to toxic chemicals or pathogens and observe how human cells respond in real-time. OoCs also enable personalized medicine by allowing researchers to see how an individual's cells respond to different treatments before a drug regimen is prescribed.
Future Implications
As biotechnology continues to evolve, multi-organ chips—where multiple organ systems are interconnected to replicate whole-body responses—are on the horizon. These developments can revolutionize precision medicine, with drug approvals becoming faster and more efficacious treatments reaching patients worldwide.
As the science continues to advance, Organ-on-Chips represent the tip of the iceberg in medical science, giving us a peek at the future of drug discovery and disease modeling. Their ability to replicate human physiology with unparalleled fidelity to real human physiology makes Organ-on-Chips a game-changer in the process of finding safer and more effective medical treatments.
What’s Poppin’: Advancements in Alzheimer’s Detection
By: Sahasra Guvvala and Gauri Guruprasad
Alzheimer’s is terrifying. There’s no sugarcoating it - it’s a disease that slowly erases a person’s mind while they’re still living. For years, diagnosing it felt almost like a guessing game. Symptoms like memory loss and confusion don’t always mean Alzheimer’s, and the gold standard for diagnosis—brain scans or spinal fluid tests - are invasive, expensive, and not exactly ideal for early detection. But now, researchers are developing a blood test that could change everything. Imagine going to a doctor, getting a simple blood draw, and knowing years in advance if Alzheimer’s is in your future. It sounds like sci-fi, but according to recent studies, we might be closer than ever to making it a reality (NIH, 2024).
Here’s the interesting part: this test doesn’t actually look for Alzheimer’s itself. Instead, it detects specific proteins in the blood—like phosphorylated tau—that act as early warning signals, showing up long before noticeable symptoms. A recent study found that this blood test was just as accurate as PET scans in identifying signs of Alzheimer’s (Janelidze et al., 2024). That’s huge. Not only could this make diagnosing Alzheimer’s way easier and more accessible, but it could also mean catching it early enough to slow its progression. Right now, treatments for Alzheimer’s are limited, but if doctors could spot it sooner, patients might have a better shot at trying interventions before major damage is done.
Along with this blood test, researchers have also discovered a method to analyze memory loss patterns among Alzheimer's patients. Using cerebrospinal fluid from the brain, researchers have found that specific brain proteins related to connections between nerve cells are strongly linked to memory, aside from the usual Alzheimer's markers (Oh et al., 2025). Using Artificial Intelligence, they have developed a way to measure the ratio of these proteins up to 20 years before Alzheimer's symptoms even present in human bodies. Paired with the blood test, this discovery could help doctors predict memory loss earlier and more accurately, potentially leading to better treatments before Alzheimer’s symptoms get severe (Hamilton, 2025).
The future of Alzheimer’s diagnosis is changing fast. With a simple blood test and new research on brain proteins, doctors might soon be able to detect the disease much earlier. Instead of diagnosing it when it’s too late, we could catch it in its earliest stages, allowing people to slow it down before significant damage is done. There’s still a long road ahead, but these breakthroughs bring real hope for a future where Alzheimer’s isn’t just something we have to accept but something we can fight.
Hot Button: The Gender Data Gap - How Medical Research Fails Women
By: Riya Ramani and Shannon-Renee Odoi
Medical science has been founded for decades on the assumption that what is good for men is good for women, even though there are basic biological differences. Clinical trials, drug testing, and even disease models have been formulated overwhelmingly with male subjects in mind, producing a dangerous gender data gap. This neglect has real-life consequences—women experience higher levels of adverse drug reactions, misdiagnosis, and inefficient treatment simply because research has neglected to include their alternative physiology. Despite greater awareness, women continue to be underrepresented in research, and the model of healthcare is still male-oriented. Why does such a bias continue to exist, and what can be done to change that?
Women's exclusion from medical research is not an accident but a historical decision with lasting effects. In the 1970s and 1980s, women in their childbearing years were essentially barred from clinical trials due to concerns about damaging pregnancies, even if the women were not pregnant. Even though this policy was intended as a protective measure, it created a deficit in medical knowledge that still affects women today. The damage was already irreparable when the FDA finally lifted these restrictions in 1993. Much of the basic research that informs contemporary medicine had been conducted almost entirely on men, setting a precedent for a paradigm broadly treating the male body as the default. To this day, many studies fail to include enough female subjects or analyze sex-based differences, putting women at a disadvantage when it comes to treatment and care.
The consequences of excluding women from medical research are both serious and measurable. Women are nearly twice as likely as men to experience adverse drug reactions, largely due to the fact that most drugs have been developed and dosed based on male physiology. A well-documented case is the sleep medication zolpidem, where the FDA had to cut the recommended dosage for women in half after it became clear they metabolized the drug more slowly than men. This gender-blind approach to pharmacology continues to affect millions. Beyond drug reactions, conditions that predominantly affect women are often underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed. Endometriosis, a chronic condition affecting roughly 10% of women of reproductive age, is a prime example. Research shows that women with endometriosis face diagnostic delays of 7 to 10 years, during which their pain is often dismissed or misunderstood. This delay contributes to increased physical and psychological distress, as well as unnecessary healthcare costs. Despite growing awareness, the lack of sex-specific research continues to jeopardize women’s health outcomes.
Bridging the gender data gap in medicine is not just a matter of fairness—it is a matter of public health and scientific accuracy. The historical exclusion of women from clinical trials has built a flawed foundation that still shapes today’s medical practices. Efforts to close this gap must include enforcing sex-based analysis in research, increasing funding for studies focused on women-specific conditions, and ensuring diverse representation in clinical trials. As recent public health initiatives emphasize, improving outcomes for women requires systemic change—from policy to practice. Only then can medicine fulfill its core promise: to provide the best care for all patients, regardless of gender.
AMWA Discussion Night: Parkland Diabetes Care
By: Gauri Guruprasad
Diabetes is one of those things that everyone knows about, but most people don’t fully understand - until it affects them or someone close to them. It’s a disease that goes beyond just blood sugar; it’s tied to behavior, access to care, mental health, and even how our workplaces and schools support (or fail to support) people’s well-being. At a recent AMWA event, we dove deep into diabetes education, innovative technology, and the role of community outreach in making real change.
Mary Robinson, MS, RD/LD, CDCES, a dietitian and community health advocate, has been working on a program that’s reshaping how diabetes care is approached at Parkland Hospital. She didn’t initially know what community work would entail, but it turned out to be a chance to pioneer something new - blending nutrition education with behavioral health while tracking data to get a clearer picture of the populations being served. Unlike inpatient and outpatient settings, community work has fewer restrictions, making it a space where creative solutions can thrive. It’s also where you can truly meet people where they are - not just telling them to exercise or eat healthier but helping them find ways to make those changes in ways that fit their lives. She reminds people that fitness isn’t just about hitting the gym; it can be as simple as getting outside, moving in a way that feels good, and making small, sustainable changes over time.
Recent technological advancements in diabetes care have been particularly exciting. Researchers are working on an artificial pancreas that could mimic the body's natural insulin and glucagon production - a huge leap forward in treatment. There’s also promising research on smart tattoo biosensors that could track blood sugar levels in real time, potentially replacing the need for finger pricks. Islet cell transplants are another avenue being explored, aiming to restore insulin production altogether. But while these innovations are incredible, access remains a major issue. The U.S. has the highest obesity rates globally, directly contributing to type 2 diabetes cases, yet the latest treatments - like Ozempic - are often out of reach for those who need them most. Rhea, one of our AMWA officers, has worked in an endocrinology office and pointed out the frustrating disparities: strict insurance requirements make it difficult for many patients to get coverage, leaving those with fewer financial resources unable to access life-changing medications. Meanwhile, Ozempic has become a meme online, detached from its original medical purpose, with influencers using it for rapid weight loss rather than its intended treatment.
Of course, medication is only part of the equation. Lifestyle changes play a crucial role, but making those changes isn’t always as simple as just “eating better.” People need support, education, and realistic steps they can take. Counting calories or tracking food intake can feel overwhelming (or even harmful) if not approached correctly, which is why there’s an emphasis on autonomy and balance. Schools and workplaces should be providing environments that encourage health - not just monitoring, but actively making it easier to make good choices. A student named Sophie highlighted the importance of meal prepping and teaching people basic nutrition skills, especially for those who aren’t used to cooking for themselves. And productivity? It’s directly tied to health. Taking time during lunch breaks to get real food rather than mindlessly snacking at a desk can make a huge difference in both energy levels and long-term health.
The key takeaway? Preventative healthcare is necessary. It’s not just about treating diabetes but stopping it before it starts. That means community education, accessible resources, and a shift in how we talk about health - not just in clinical settings but in everyday life. People like Mary Robinson are leading the charge, proving that innovative solutions don’t always have to come from a lab; sometimes, they come from simply listening to people, understanding their struggles, and working together to find better ways forward.
We would like to thank Ms. Robinson for teaching us more about diabetes and inspiring a fruitful conversation about health, wellness, and making sustainable changes to be healthier people!
Sources
Uncertain Future of PEPFAR
Green, A. (2025, March 14). Pepfar cuts hit Uganda’s most vulnerable. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/03/14/uganda-pepfar-hiv-health-aid-trump-united-states-funding-freeze/
Imray, G., Magome, M., Mutsaka, F., & Banchereau, M. (2025, February 3). Africa knew Trump’s “America First” pledge meant it might be last. then came the freeze on aid. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/trump-africa-aid-freeze-pepfar-usaid-hiv-d1c34ac35af30e8f680f580f7d1b3029
Jones , M., & Ngcobo, K. (2025, February 28). US aid cuts send South Africa’s HIV treatment “off a cliff.” BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c77887npl2mo
Mandavilli, A. (2025, February 5). Foreign aid freeze leaves millions without H.I.V. treatment. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/health/trump-usaid-pepfar.html
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