Media Coverage

Cancer Biologist Quoted in PatientPower

May 05, 2023

Breast cancer researcher Dong Zhang, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical sciences at NYITCOM, is quoted in PatientPower, a news site dedicated to sharing information with cancer patients and survivors. Zhang, who researches targeted drug therapies for breast and ovarian cancers, explains that breast cancer treatment is typically tailored to the patient, with targeted therapy often used when a patient has a specific gene mutation coding for proteins that help tumors to grow and spread. Therapies work by interfering with these proteins. 

“When a patient is diagnosed with breast cancer, oncologists would then recommend sequencing the genome of the breast cancer to determine if one or more breast cancer susceptibility genes are mutated in this patient,” says Zhang. “Knowing the mutation profile of breast cancer can be very informative in selecting the most appropriate treatment strategy.”

 

Apr 28, 2023

On the heels of Mental Health Awareness Month (May), insight from Melissa Huey, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology, is featured in several online news articles by MedicalXpress and others. The coverage highlights Huey’s recent research findings, which discovered that college students’ mindfulness, anxiety, and course comprehension were negatively affected when smartphones were physically present in the classroom.

 

Newsday Taps Nizich for Cybersecurity Story

Apr 28, 2023

Michael Nizich, Ph.D., director of the ETIC and adjunct associate professor of computer science, lent his cybersecurity expertise to Newsday’s ongoing coverage of the Suffolk County ransomware attack. As the article notes, at the time of publishing, "a handful of services remain offline and Suffolk County's capital budget will be filed two weeks late as impacts of a cyberattack on the county's systems linger." This includes remote applications, such as those used for county title searches. Nizich explains that these types of applications are more vulnerable to attack by an outside entity because they do not reside inside the county's “trusted” computer base. For this reason, those systems must maintain the highest level of security because they allow outside access to county data. He said these services are typically in what is known as a demilitarized zone (DMZ), or a digital space where users can view and access county data while not being allowed to harm the network.

“Due to the complexity of these configurations, it's imperative that care be taken to properly install, configure, and, most of all, test the DMZ and all services that lie inside of it to assure that they are secure from all human and non-human threat agents,” Nizich said.

 

Kirk Quoted in WalletHub

Apr 26, 2023

Comments from marketing expert Colleen Kirk, D.P.S., associate professor in the School of Management, are featured in a WalletHub article about American Express credit cards and the strength of the American Express brand. In addition to providing insight on competitors' advertising, Kirk helps to answer the question, “How strong is the American Express brand today, relative to the past?”

“Brand equity, a financial measure of the value of a brand, is an intangible asset, and for some companies, brand equity can represent the largest asset the firm owns. According to Interbrand, a leading brand valuation company, although American Express remains a leading global brand, the brand has been slipping in the rankings in recent years. For example, whereas the firm was ranked 15th in 2002, it slipped to 27th in 2022,” says Kirk.

 

Apr 21, 2023

Research by Milan Toma, Ph.D., biomedical engineer and assistant professor at NYITCOM, was featured in Newsday. Toma’s study found that helmets, including those used by football players, jockeys, motorcyclists, and bicyclists, are generally not enough protection from a "rapid hit," the type of impact that causes most concussions. In addition, rapid hits were more prevalent among those wearing padded helmets. While helmets are still essential to protect against head injuries and skull fractures, Toma’s findings suggest that the sudden movements and torque on the neck and head from a rapid hit cause the brain to rattle in the skull before protective spinal fluid can reset.

 

Local Media Cover Researcher's Prestigious Award

Apr 20, 2023

As seen in LongIsland.com, The Island360, and Patch, NYITCOM researcher Maria Alicia Carrillo Sepulveda, Ph.D., B.S.N., associate professor of biomedical sciences, has received the John F. Perkins Jr. Research Career Enhancement Award from the American Physiological Society. The award allows early-career researchers to obtain special training or an established researcher to develop new skills or retrain in areas of developing interest.

This year, Sepulveda, whose research focuses on vascular (blood vessel) biology and health, is one of only four researchers in the nation to receive this prestigious honor.

 

Medical Student Featured in Hometown Newspaper

Apr 18, 2023

Sylvia Marshall, a medical student from NYITCOM’s Class of 2023, was featured in the Staten Island Advance for securing an impressive ophthalmology residency at the University of Buffalo. In addition to highlighting Marshall’s residency placement, the article notes that the Staten Island native worked in the laboratory of Akinobu Watanabe, Ph.D., assistant professor of anatomy, where she assisted with his National Science Foundation-funded research on cranial birth defects and the 3-D imaging of eyes from human cadavers.

 

Media Report on Occupational Health Research

Apr 17, 2023

As publicized by MedicalXpress, Dispatchist, and other news sites, a new study by Research Assistant Professor David Nadler, Ph.D., explores how population demographics correlate with hearing loss. His findings, which reveal that hearing loss disproportionately impacts people of color, highlight a key public health issue and provide valuable insight for employers to do their part in helping to reduce occupational hearing loss in an increasingly diverse workforce.

 

Apr 13, 2023

Long Island Business News has published a story about the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant secured by Assistant Professor Jole Fiorito, Ph.D., and a team of co-investigators to support research into early-stage drug development to treat Alzheimer’s disease. “Results from this study will advance our knowledge on the synthetic feasibility and therapeutic potential of these small molecules and will open avenues of opportunity for the discovery of a novel therapeutic candidate,” Fiorito said.

 

Nizich Shares Expertise on Bitcoin Mining with Newsday

Apr 09, 2023

In a video and cover story, Newsday features the expertise of Michael Nizich, Ph.D., ETIC director and adjunct associate professor of computer science, about the mechanics of Bitcoin mining, including how it works and what technology and energy sources are required to conduct it. The coverage about an illegal bitcoin mining operation that ran in Suffolk County offices is part of the paper's ongoing coverage of the county’s ransomware attack. “You have to have a really good algorithm and a really powerful device — not just a single computer or PC — you have to have a very special device, using what is called an ASIC processor, or you have to have some sort of distributing process level. It wouldn’t be something you’d have usually in your home office,” Nizich explained, regarding how the mining works.