New research from scientists at the ’s reveals that glutathione—an antioxidant produced naturally in the body and widely marketed as a health supplement—may also serve as a powerful fuel source for cancer cells. , published in Nature, shows that tumors can break down glutathione to support their growth, challenging long-held assumptions about its role in human health.

The research was led by , an associate professor in the , and colleagues including co-first authors Fabio Hecht and Marco Zocchi, both in the Harris Lab. The findings highlight how cancer cells adapt to survive in nutrient-poor environments. While glutathione is widely known for protecting cells from damage, the team found that cancer cells can “hijack” it and use it as a nutrient, particularly in environments where other resources are scarce.

By analyzing human breast tumor samples and preclinical models of breast cancer, the researchers found abundant storage of glutathione, confirming that tumors aggressively consume the antioxidant. They also demonstrated that blocking the cancer’s ability to use glutathione can slow tumor growth.

The findings open new avenues for cancer treatment, particularly approaches aimed at inhibiting a tumor’s ability to use glutathione, without impacting healthy cells. Harris and his team—including Ģ����ý chemist , the Robert K. Boeckman Jr., and Mary H. Delton Family Distinguished Professor in Organic Chemistry, and , professor in the and an expert in cancer cell metabolism—are exploring ways to refine potential drugs that could inhibit this process and improve outcomes for patients.

At the same time, the researchers emphasize that while antioxidant-rich foods remain important for overall health, supplements that contain high concentrations of glutathione may warrant caution as scientists continue to better understand glutathione’s role in cancer biology.

“Eating a balanced diet with fruits and vegetables is important. It can control weight, reduce inflammation, and support a healthy immune system,” Harris says. “But people should be cautious about taking supplements in general, particularly glutathione. Taking a pill that is unregulated by the FDA and has a high concentration of glutathione can present risks.”

Read the .

When brain surgeons at the plan a tumor operation, they’re increasingly guided by more than scans and experience alone. A next-generation platform called MindTrace—developed from decades of neuroscience and neurosurgical research rooted at the —helps surgical teams predict how different surgical decisions could affect a patient’s speech, movement, and other vital functions before tissue is removed.

The technology grew out of the University’s , founded by cognitive neuroscientist Brad Mahon and neurosurgeon . Working alongside collaborators, including alumnus Max Sims, now the CEO of MindTrace, the team developed early prototypes that integrated neuroimaging and behavioral data into a single, practical tool for the operating room. The system is now deployed at six major medical centers nationwide, with the Medical Center among the first to implement it clinically.

By combining functional MRI, brain stimulation mapping, and neuropsychological testing, surgeons can visualize and replay brain-mapping data in real time, helping clinicians optimize their care decisions and patients better understand their surgeries.

Read the and the future of brain mapping at URochester.

PFAS, so-called “forever chemicals,” are as pervasive as they are persistent, raising urgent concerns about our health and environment. At the Ģ����ý, researchers across disciplines strive to clarify how PFAS affect immunity, brain development, the economy, and even our daily decisions. Here, three experts share their insight on risks, solutions, and advocacy.

, assistant professor, :

“Many people think PFAS are the devil. Of course they’re harmful—but they’re also everywhere, from laptops and lubricants to catheters, car engines, and cell phones. PFAS compounds have an exceptional resistance to water, oil, heat, grease, and stains thanks to the extreme stability of their carbon-fluorine (C-F) bonds, which makes them highly useful yet difficult to destroy. I envision a more circular PFAS economy in which we use them when they’re necessary, then find safe ways to destroy them. focuses on scalable, cost-effective PFAS destruction—driven by renewable energy. Our platform achieves complete defluorination of many PFAS molecules, using industrial nickel-iron alloys instead of costly boron-doped diamond, incineration, or other ‘brute-force’ methods to break the C-F bonds. This technology can be deployed at the source of contamination and sites of discharge: industrial runoff, production sites, or airports that use PFAS-containing ‘firefighting foam.’ This gives us the potential to revolutionize remediation, generate economic opportunities, and improve public health.”

, professor of microbiology and immunology; director, and the :

“In studying the environment’s influence on our immune system, I grew interested in why some people become sicker than others after exposure to a virus, for example. Genetics are not enough to explain it; could PFAS exposure play a role? When mice get the flu, they recover; their immune systems learn and remember how to fight it. When they’re exposed to PFAS, though, it dampens that protective immune response. We’re using mice models to hone in on how PFAS may scramble the immune system and its ability to ‘remember’ an invader. I’m also working with [associate professor and co-leader of the research pillar at the Institute for Human Health and the Environment] to track T-cell development in newborns. has found that levels of PFAS exposure in pregnancy may weaken the development of specialized T-cells in newborns that fight infections later in life. My advice is to really think about the products you buy and use. Don’t panic, but do take steps to limit PFAS exposure in the ways we know how. For example: Avoid heating food in any kind of plastic container; use glass. Buy pots and pans that do not have a Teflon coating or a label of ‘heat-resistant’ or ‘non-stick.’ Stainless steel is best. And finally, drink plenty of water but use reusable, refillable receptacles. That way, you minimize exposure to the PFAS coating in kitchenware, plastic bottles, and other vessels.”

, associate professor, :

“Most people are exposed to multiple PFAS—and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals—throughout their lives. We know these compounds can enter the brain, even during fetal development. Because they repel oils and water, they can have effects on immune and lipid-dependent brain development. We study the developing fetus to understand the influence of PFAS on brain and behavioral function, as well as on postpartum depression in mothers. also examines how PFAS can interfere with hormones, which are critical for both development and mental health. We need to study the ‘curated chemical cocktails’ that mimic real-life exposure to learn how to buffer or mitigate the effects of PFAS. We also need to support the institutions that help regulate both products and the environment, so that the burden shifts away from the individual. As in other areas, our environmental health data can inform public policy with dramatic impact.”

This story appears in the fall 2025 issue of Rochester Review, the magazine of the Ģ����ý.

“We found something.”

A gastroenterologist stood over Jess Delaney-Sloper in the recovery room as she awoke from a colonoscopy. “It most certainly is cancer,” the doctor said.

Delaney-Sloper struggled to make sense of the words. She was a healthy, fit 42-year-old, an avid runner and nurse practitioner. A single bout of rectal bleeding had triggered a small precautionary procedure. Now she lay alone on a hospital bed. It was January 2021, the height of COVID-19, and her husband was waiting in the parking lot to take her home.

Follow-up tests proved the doctor right—only worse: She had stage IV colon cancer. It had spread to her liver. Doctors told her she had two years to live.

The prognosis did not jibe with who Delaney-Sloper knew herself to be. “I thought I was the picture of health,” she says. “I saw my primary care doctor regularly. I worked out every day.” What’s more, she had exhibited none of the other common signs of cancer—weight loss, night sweats, abdominal pain. Just that one minor episode of rectal bleeding.

The doctors encouraged her to make peace with the prognosis. Go live your life, they told her. You don’t want to spend the time you have left in and out of the hospital.

Make peace? Delaney-Sloper had three daughters, ages 7, 9, and 11. She couldn’t accept what amounted to a palliative approach. “I had to be there for them,” she says. “First kisses, puberty, all the things that girls go through—I just couldn’t imagine not being there for that. I couldn’t sit back and accept that diagnosis.”

So she and her husband, Ryan, got to work. They made calls, flew to visit top hospitals, and sought expert opinions across the country in California, New York, and Illinois. Again and again, they heard variations of the same thing: Sorry, there’s nothing we can do.

Finally, a doctor they visited in Boston mentioned an option that might just provide a solution. He connected her with , chief of the at the . The regimen was relatively new—and complicated. The procedure entailed transplanting part of the liver of a living donor. Unlike most transplants, a living donation can be scheduled. This allows doctors to perform the transplant at the optimal moment for cancer patients. And because of Delaney-Sloper’s grim prognosis, she likely would not have qualified for one from a deceased donor anyway.

Hernandez had been building a reputation among his peers for groundbreaking procedures on some of the most desperate of patients—particularly those with colon cancer that had metastasized and spread to the liver. He told Delaney-Sloper that she was an excellent candidate for living donor liver transplant surgery. In tandem with colon surgery, the regimen could potentially remove all traces of cancer from her body and eliminate the need for future chemotherapy.

Hernandez did not sugarcoat the many challenges ahead, but he also promised he would help her meet those obstacles with methodical determination. “I always try to have a Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C,” Hernandez says of his approach to every case.

For perhaps the first time since the diagnosis, Delaney-Sloper felt a real sense of possibility. “There had been a lot of doors shut in our faces,” she says. “But Dr. Hernandez opened the door.”

The story of Delaney-Sloper and Hernandez is one of resilience, persistence, and extraordinary medical achievement. It also reflects something deeper: the power of the larger systems that a modern research university can bring to bear to make the extraordinary possible. Hernandez’s vision is leveraged by a team and an institution built to enable bold ideas and complex treatments. But it’s also the most human kind of story—a hybrid of science and deep care.

Seventy volunteers, two livers

Over the course of the next several months, Delaney-Sloper endured a punishing 12-round regimen of chemotherapy to stabilize her cancer and prevent it from spreading further. In August 2021, she traveled to Rochester and spent a week in the hospital for the first surgery: the removal of a portion of her colon and surrounding lymph nodes, performed by colorectal surgeon and division chief .

The next step was to find a compatible donor, one willing to donate about two-thirds of their liver for Delaney-Sloper’s transplant. She and Ryan gathered dozens of people on a Zoom call to share their story. The couple asked their friends and family to spread the word and to consider getting evaluated as a match. Within 24 hours, 70 people had called in to volunteer for the screening process. “They had to dedicate one nurse just to take calls for me,” she says, clearly moved even four years later by the generosity of their circle.

Her younger brother, Bobby Delaney, a police officer, was the first to call in. He turned out to be a match.

In February 2022, 13 months after her initial diagnosis—and after an additional 10 rounds of chemotherapy—Delaney-Sloper and her brother were in adjacent operating rooms for the lengthy and technically demanding surgical procedures. After ensuring that Delaney-Sloper had no signs of cancer progression, Hernandez removed much of the right lobe of Bobby’s liver, a process that took about six hours.

Then fellow Ģ����ý transplant surgeons and removed Delaney-Sloper’s diseased liver. Finally, Tomiyama completed the transplant of Bobby’s liver to Delaney-Sloper.

Ģ����ý 12 hours after they began, the surgeries were complete: Tomiyama and Hernandez debriefed before going home. The procedure, they told Delaney-Sloper later, was textbook perfect.

While Delaney-Sloper spent the first day or so in a sedation-induced haze with her husband and rotating crews of nurses, she does remember the moment her brother walked in, pushing a wheelchair to maintain his balance. She recalls how good he looked—so much better than she had expected after donating 69 percent of his liver. “Seeing him for the first time, I felt pure joy, an overwhelming love for him, and admiration for his bravery. What he had done for me was incredible, and I was relieved that we both got through,” she recalls. “I felt very hopeful for the future.”

The pair was discharged from the hospital eight days later; they spent about a month at a nearby Airbnb so that doctors could monitor their recoveries. Over the course of the coming months, their livers each regrew almost to full size.

Delaney-Sloper continues to adjust to her post-transplant life; she lives with numbness, tingling, and pain from chemotherapy-induced neuropathy in her feet. She continues to have frequent medical appointments, and she will be on immunosuppressants for life. Yet it’s a new—and in some ways more purposeful—kind of normal. “I could be dead right now,” she says matter-of-factly. But she notes that it has been four years since she woke up after that first devastating colonoscopy—two years past the doctors’ initial prognosis. Her most recent scans show no evidence of disease.

Built to go big

Stories about against-the-odds cases like Delaney-Sloper’s often get simplified to highlight a single patient and a heroic doctor. But this kind of storytelling can obscure a reality that is far more layered.

Hernandez does fit the heroic mold. That’s in part a reflection of his relentless work ethic; he has been known to sketch out surgical ideas on cocktail napkins at conferences and to ditch dinners with colleagues to refine those ideas in his hotel room. He jokes that after his own three children, liver cancer is his “fourth child.”

His drive also comes from a deeply personal source: When Hernandez completed his residency at the Mexican Institute of Social Security, his classmates celebrated with friends and family; he attended the recognition ceremony alone. His mother was home receiving chemotherapy for liver cancer, and the rest of his family remained with her as she fought for her life. She died at age 58.

However we wish to portray Hernandez’s heroism, innovations like his demand extensive teamwork and a deep bench of expertise and resources—as he himself is quick to note. “Living donor liver transplantation requires two operating rooms, two groups of anesthesiologists, two groups of nurses, and a donor team,” Hernandez says, ticking off just a partial list of the surgical team. Success involves hepatologists, radiologists, pathologists, pharmacists, infectious disease specialists, nutritionists, psychologists, social workers, nurse practitioners and coordinators, and administrative and support staff.

Their work is urgently, and increasingly, needed. The incidence of colon cancer in people under the age of 55 has nearly doubled over the past decade and continues to increase by 1 percent a year. Medical experts aren’t sure of the reasons; our changing diet, environmental exposures, even microorganisms in our gut might play a role. But Hernandez and his colleagues are focusing on an even more alarming fact: More of these younger patients are diagnosed at advanced stages. An understanding of potential solutions and how to accelerate them is essential.

Hernandez’s pathbreaking liver surgeries began in the early 2010s, when he was working at the London Health Sciences Centre in southwestern Ontario. There he advanced a distinctive two-stage surgical operation to treat liver cancer and metastasis. First presented in 2012 by a German team at a Miami conference, the ALPPS (Associating Liver Partition and Portal vein ligation for Staged hepatectomy) procedure offered a promising treatment for patients whose liver cancer was so extensive that it was often considered inoperable. In the first step, surgeons removed tumors from the smaller side of the liver and redirected blood flow to help that side regrow. Then, once the healthy part had regrown, surgeons removed the remaining cancerous section so the patient could survive without liver failure.

The audience of surgeons greeted the Germans’ presentation skeptically, pointing out the significant risk of complications. But Hernandez saw potential for patients who had few other options. He pushed forward with ALPPS, carefully selecting patients with the most promising clinical profiles. The procedure worked once, twice, and eventually some 50 times. While the cancer often ultimately returned, it was extending the lives of patients whose cases had seemed to hold little hope.

The field began to take notice. Soon enough, suitors from around the world were hoping to lure him to their institutions. One of those offering a position was , then the chair of the Medical Center’s .

As Hernandez deliberated over his next move—a move that likely would determine where he spent the rest of his career—he saw major potential at URochester. “I had the opportunity to develop a team,” he says. “And I could be a leader that could have an impact not only in upstate New York but nationally.” To have that kind of influence, he knew he had to have more than a single strong champion. He needed the backing of an institution. With that kind of support, he felt confident he would be able to take his biggest ideas as far as they could go.

He had other options, but he chose URochester. And here he began building clinical and research teams.

The next big swing

Hernandez was eager to recruit fiercely dedicated experts with wide-ranging perspectives, a strategy shaped by his own international training. As a young surgeon he had sought out institutions in Mexico, Canada, and Japan, where he had the chance to study some of the most advanced liver procedures. He wanted to learn from the best, wherever they were. The peripatetic path had additional advantages: It gave him insight into the strengths and shortcomings of different healthcare systems and the influence of cultural norms, lessons he would draw on to navigate complex medical challenges.

For example, Japan’s relatively conservative approach to organ donation from deceased donors had led it to rely more heavily on living donor liver transplantation. It was one reason Hernandez spent several months learning specialized techniques at Kyoto University, where such surgeries took place two or three times a week—far more frequently than at hospitals in North America.

So it was understandable that Hernandez’s first Ģ����ý hire would be a Japanese-trained surgeon. Sharing Hernandez’s obsessiveness, Tomiyama was known to practice suturing techniques in his spare time at home. Having worked in Canada and the US, he appreciated both the meticulous approach to surgical techniques that he had learned in Japan and the sense of urgency that moves medicine in America. “The great thing about the US,” Tomiyama says, “is that we try to make things happen as fast as possible.”

Tomiyama would eventually become indispensable for Hernandez’s next big swing: living donor liver transplants for colon cancer patients whose disease had spread to their liver.

A paper by a Norwegian medical team that Hernandez had reviewed for a journal convinced him that such transplants could be part of a cure, despite previous discouraging outcomes that had squelched the practice in the 1990s. With both donor and patient surgeries happening simultaneously, he knew he’d need Tomiyama, a trusted, highly skilled surgical partner, to make the work possible.

To help care for patients before and after a living donor liver transplant, Hernandez has also leaned on the skills of one of his most recent hires, . The Ethiopia-born hepatologist is particularly focused on selecting the right patients for this care: “Are they fit enough to undergo liver transplant? Is their cancer too aggressive to be treated safely and adequately with transplant?” He susses out the answers through a range of factors, including a patient’s response to chemotherapy and a series of biomarkers. Addissie’s goal is to prevent a worst-case scenario: a healthy donor who undergoes major surgery for a recipient who dies during or soon after the transplant.

Medical expertise alone will not guarantee a successful transplant. Leaders like Nancy Metzler, executive director of Transplant Services, ensure that the has the resources, systems, and institutional support for one of the most complex areas in healthcare. While the work of Metzler and her team often gets overlooked, it constitutes an indispensable part of the process. A seemingly trivial misstep—the late signing of a consent form, say—can delay or derail the entire process.

What’s more, ensuring that a patient has a confirmed ride home, or that a nurse is available for a full day to field 70 calls from potential donors, is about more than checking boxes. It’s about creating a larger sense of trust that allows a patient to feel truly cared for. While there are four surgeons in the operating room, Metzler notes, “there are 36 people back here” who have helped get the patient to that point.

The strength of these visible and behind-the-scenes systems leads to extraordinary outcomes. While only a handful of hospitals nationwide have completed even one successful living donor liver transplant for patients with colon cancer that has spread to the liver, Hernandez and his team have completed 26. Data compiled in 2024 of the first 23 patients who have undergone the procedure show that every single one survived at least one year. Ninety-one percent have survived beyond three years. No other institution has come even close.

Talent magnet

Hernandez is clearly competitive, a mindset he frames around leadership and excellence. “Everyone remembers the first person who reached the moon. Neil Armstrong. But who was the second? We want to be the first at Rochester,” he says. “And we want to be the best.” Being a leader requires more than just the technical skills and insight of an individual or even of a highly skilled team like the one Hernandez has strategically helped build. It requires systems and institutional structures that can sustain complexity, support high-stakes care, and turn innovation into standard practice.

One example of this broader, amplifying infrastructure: Ģ����ý’s . It was recently named a National Cancer Institute–designated cancer center, placing it among the top 4 percent of cancer centers nationwide. The designation acts as a magnet for talent. “It allows us to recruit the best and brightest people from across the country,” says , director of the institute. “Under Dr. ’s leadership of our cancer service line, Dr. Hernandez’s colleagues, gastrointestinal experts, pathologists, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, and many others demonstrate incredible transdisciplinary collaboration, which is an essential characteristic of an NCI-designated center.”

Among many other functions, the institute helps connect specialists across disciplines to support the development of clinical trials and to streamline patient care. The structure enables deep expertise and cross-field collaboration, which in turn allows treatment of complex cancers.

Wilmot also plays a foundational role in research, where advancing a single discovery often requires the expertise of dozens of scientists. For example, under the guidance of Hernandez, fifth-year surgical resident recently authored a about patient selection, insurance approval, and outcomes of living donor liver transplant for those with liver metastases. (The paper includes data from Delaney-Sloper’s procedure.) The 16 authors included 15 from the Medical Center, in areas ranging from surgery to pharmacy. All had links to the Wilmot Cancer Institute.

Beyond the Medical Center, Hernandez can tap into the full depth and breadth of Ģ����ý’s research expertise, which goes well beyond traditional boundaries of medicine. That might mean partnering with an engineer interested in robotic surgery or a biologist studying tissue regeneration—insights that could further advance his work.

Hernandez believes that it may be possible to double or even triple Ģ����ý’s current rate of these highly specialized procedures, currently about 10 per year. He imagines a future Ģ����ý that’s synonymous not just with living donor liver transplants but with other innovative liver surgeries as well.

Still, the goal is not innovation for its own sake. It’s about what that innovation makes possible. For Delaney-Sloper, innovation has meant extra years with her husband and her daughters (now 12, 14, and 16). It has meant more experiences and more milestones. And it has meant a profound connection with her younger brother, who gave her the liver that saved her life.

When she talks about the experience at URochester, she describes it as both “a warm hug” and “a well-oiled machine.” The phrases might seem at odds with each other. Yet together they capture what made her care extraordinary: the kindness and skill of the individuals who provided it, and the precision and power of the system behind them. “I went there for a reason,” she says on a Zoom call a day before she and her family left for a vacation to Zion National Park.

“And I’m still here.”

When a new drug or device for a brain or nerve disorder reaches patients, there’s a good chance a URochester team helped it get there. For nearly 40 years, the Ģ����ý’s (CHeT) has been a behind-the-scenes force in neurological drug discovery. That work has resulted in helping to bring 12 FDA-approved drugs and devices to market, including frontline treatments for Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and rare neuromuscular diseases.

What makes CHeT stand out is its all-in-one model. Trial coordination, clinical materials, outcomes measurement, data analytics, and regulatory support all operate in concert, allowing the center to design and run complex, multisite trials that many organizations consider too risky or too complicated.

Today, under the leadership of neurologist , CHeT is expanding that impact by pairing patient-reported outcomes with wearable sensors, smartphone apps, and decentralized study visits. The goal: to “measure what matters to patients” and make it easier for people everywhere—not just those who live near major academic medical centers—to participate in cutting-edge research.

Get the , from brain–computer interfaces to AI-powered trial modeling.

Have you ever seen a baby struggle to breathe?

When they inhale, you hear a high-pitched squeal, and the skin between their tiny ribs and collarbones sinks inward. They grunt as they exhale. Their nostrils flare. They’re lethargic and irritable. Sometimes, their lips turn blue.

It’s a harrowing sight, even for a seasoned infectious disease physician like me, who has treated hundreds of such cases. For parents of infants in respiratory distress, it’s terrifying.

The culprit in most of these scenes is respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV—a common seasonal infection that overwhelms pediatric wards across the US every fall and winter. The infection sends as many as 80,000 children under the age of five to the hospital each year and claims as many as 300 lives, .

Last year, though, something extraordinary happened. As I donned a gown and gloves to visit a baby in the pediatric intensive care unit, I realized it was my first RSV case all week. Ordinarily during RSV season, I treat several children each day for weeks on end. Yet it was the middle of winter, and this little one was the only RSV patient on the unit.

What happened? Science intervened. In 2023, the Food and Drug Administration approved two preventive measures for RSV that were game changers. The first was a , given to pregnant women in the third trimester to pass immunity to their newborns. The second was , a monoclonal antibody shot for infants under eight months who aren’t protected by the vaccine and for certain high-risk babies entering their second RSV season.

The results have been dramatic. Within two years of introduction, RSV hospitalizations among infants under three months dropped by half nationwide. In New York, they declined by 70 percent last season.

That’s no small success. Most people experience RSV as a mild cold, but for babies it can be deadly or leave lasting respiratory problems such as wheezing and asthma. Preventing even a fraction of these cases represents an enormous step forward in child health—and one that reminds me of another milestone in pediatric medicine.

When I was in training, older physicians described how, before the Haemophilus influenzae type b (HiB) vaccine, babies routinely came into the hospital with meningitis. Residents then performed spinal taps to diagnose the infection so often that the procedure was practically a rite of passage. By my time, the infection had become so rare that it was hard for residents to get experience performing the test.

That’s my hope for RSV—that physicians in training today will speak of it only as a thing of the past.

We are close. In addition to the maternal vaccine and nirsevimab, a second monoclonal antibody, , has now received FDA approval and CDC recommendation. Nirsevimab itself has proven to be over 80 percent effective in preventing hospitalizations with no serious side effects. The challenge now is awareness. Families and clinicians must recognize that RSV is not just another cold and that these preventive options save lives.

By the end of last RSV season—the first when both products were widely available—just over half of all infants in the US had been protected through either maternal vaccination or antibody therapy. Full uptake could prevent an estimated 20,000 hospitalizations this season alone.

The science that made this possible didn’t appear overnight. It represents decades of research at the URochester and other institutions committed to understanding and combating respiratory viruses. Together, we’ve delivered solutions for the primary reason babies are hospitalized.

We can put RSV behind us by following the recommendations of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics that pregnant women and babies get the vaccine and antibody therapy.

The economic benefits of keeping babies out of the hospital are nothing to sneeze at, either. Studies estimate the medical costs of hospitalizations for RSV to be more than $750 million each year. For me, the financial incentive is just a bonus. My prize would be never again having to watch a baby struggle to breathe.

This story appears in the fall 2025 issue of Rochester Review, the magazine of the Ģ����ý.

Just as tending to seedlings and saplings brings forth sheltering canopies of soaring trees, the act of making decisions to promote health—physical, emotional, mental—can build strength, resilience, and well-being among children, families, and communities. When it comes to generational trauma, early interventions are essential to break the cycles of violence, abuse, neglect, and other stressors that can become entrenched in families.

“Our work focuses on strengthening family relationships and helping to interrupt cycles of maltreatment,” says , professor in the Ģ����ý’s and the executive director of . “We support children and collaborate with caregivers to better understand child development, effective communication, and non-violent conflict resolution.”

Grounded in academic collaboration, rigorous training, and community partnerships, the University’s Mt. Hope Family Center has helped families near and far make significant strides. Its preventative measures and accessible programs have made the greater Rochester community—and beyond—safer and stronger, says Noll.

As a testament to that reality, the center—located in the city’s Corn Hill neighborhood just north of the University’s River Campus and Medical Center—has received funding from Monroe County to broaden its local programming and amplify its impact in the region. This year, the center’s current and legacy leadership also received the American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal Award for Impact in Psychology, for leveraging research toward the public good and training the next generation of psychologists.

Here are eight facts to know about the Mt. Hope Family Center, a conduit of positive change in the community since 1979—and one that continues to serves thousands of families annually.

1. Mt. Hope Family Center is one of only three nationally designated resource centers for child maltreatment in the United States.

In 2023, Mt. Hope Family Center received a multimillion-dollar grant renewal from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for its ’s national leadership. Established in 2018, TRANSFORM (Translational Research that Adapts New Science FOR Maltreatment) is a national resource center that conducts research, shares discoveries, and captures best practices to train professionals committed to preventing and addressing child abuse and neglect.

The NIH grant renewal for the TRANSFORM Center cements Mt. Hope Family Center as one of only three academic partnerships in the United States with this prestigious designation. As a national resource for child maltreatment research and training, the center now engages professionals and communities in all 50 states and 11 countries, sharing 40 years of research to raise awareness, improve responses and ultimately eliminate abuse and neglect.

2. The center is cross-disciplinary by design—combining resources from across the Ģ����ý and the community.

Mt. Hope Family Center comprises a diverse team of more than 80 care providers, researchers, lawyers, and administrators working together to promote resilience among children and families affected by stressful or traumatic experiences. Clinical services, innovative research, and hands-on mentoring and training create a powerful investment in public health.

The NIH funding broadens this collaboration, supporting partnerships across University and departments and community outreach centers. Researchers at Mt. Hope work alongside colleagues in the Department of Psychology, Susan B. Anthony Center, , as well as the Medical Center’s departments of , , and . In addition, partnerships with the provide diagnostic and clinical services to children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)—one of only two such sites in New York state.

Federal and local grants further the center’s regional impact and national significance. At the federal level, the Department of Health and Human Services supports two programs at Mt. Hope Family Center with nearly $1 million per year over five years:

• STRONGER, which provides trauma-informed services to children and families in Greater Rochester
• Sustaining Change, which offers training and technical assistance to child- and family-serving organizations across the nation, with an emphasis on disseminating and sustaining evidence-based trauma treatment models

This year, a multi-year grant from Monroe County, awarded through the United Way of Greater Rochester and the Finger Lakes, will allow the center to expand its Building Healthy Children program to expectant mothers throughout Monroe County. “Mt. Hope Family Center is one of only a few agencies to receive a $1.7 million grant from Monroe County to expand our community-based programs, enhance family support services, and meet the rising demand for trauma-informed care in the Rochester area,” says Noll.

In April, Noll and New York State Senator Jeremy Cooney to underscore the importance of funding initiatives against child maltreatment. Monroe County has struggled with jarring rates of child fatalities, they wrote. Averaged over 12 years from 2010 to 2022, children die of maltreatment-related causes at 4.1 times the national per-capita rate and twice the state’s per-capita rate. “This amounts to roughly two children per month with over 60 percent of these cases involving children under the age of one,” they write, adding that the majority of these fatalities “are preventable.”

3. By systematically measuring effects over time, the center tracks not just individual progress, but also long-term trends across generations.

Federal support allows Mt. Hope to pursue its intergenerational research, following study participants into adulthood and parenthood. As a result, the researchers have a unique lens when it comes to examining how childhood abuse and neglect affect not only individuals’ adult health but also their children’s development.

Longitudinal research of this kind can directly inform new strategies and public policies to break cycles of maltreatment in families.

4. Trusted experts visit area families at home to offer hands-on support …

Programs like Mt. Hope’s offer home-based support to young mothers and their children, focusing on positive parent-child relationships and healthy development to improve family resilience and long-term outcomes. With the new grant from Monroe County, this program can now be offered to every pregnant person within its borders. This key investment will reduce child abuse and neglect while also enhancing parenting skills, decreasing parental depression and stress, reducing stays in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and increasing child well visits and immunizations.

5. … and then extend their reach into nearby communities with evidence-based findings.

Rates of child sexual abuse can be drastically reduced, as a recent study from Mt. Hope Family Center recently showed. The counties in the study that received strategic education measures saw a 17 percent decrease in substantiated child sexual abuse cases, and a 34 percent drop in unsubstantiated sexual abuse cases, compared to a control group that didn’t receive these measures.

“That translates to 110 fewer abused children, and substantial public cost savings,” says Noll, the study’s lead author.

6. The center and the University are advancing our understanding of the “ordinary magic” behind resilience across the lifespan.

Mt. Hope Family Center is collaborating with the new (UR³C), one of four transdisciplinary centers to receive multi-year funding from the University for collaborative research that addresses humanity’s most complex challenges.

Resilience can be defined as the flexible capacity to adapt to adversity and recover in better-than-expected ways, according to , a professor of nursing, of medicine, and of psychiatry who co-leads the center with Noll. The partnership—which taps into the research and clinical expertise of faculty members from across the University, including those from biomedical genetics, counseling and human development, medicine, nursing, psychology, and public health sciences—will explore the mechanisms underpinning resilience. Given that anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of people with adverse child experiences lead healthy lives, researchers hope to untangle the mystery of different responses to early life stress to develop more effective treatments and interventions.

7. Mt. Hope Family Center shaped a work of theatre that integrates powerful data with equally compelling drama.

Stories unfolding on stage can elicit emotion, dialogue, and action about difficult topics that are easy to avoid. Five years ago, partnered with the TRANSFORM Center and Catherine Cerulli, professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry, to create a theatrical performance for high school students.

Gleaning data from Mt. Hope Family Center, the , and comprehensive youth surveys, the play Celebratio Vitae explores themes of resilience in the face of child maltreatment, abuse, neglect and exploitation. Cerulli describes the initiative as “truly translational science,” highlighting the integration of research from Mt. Hope Family Center into the art of stagecraft through five affecting narratives. This fall, Houses on the Moon will present the production to six schools across the country, rolling out toolkits for other schools to mount the production and share critical resources.

8. Mt. Hope Family Center is widely recognized as the birthplace of developmental psychopathology.

Mt. Hope Family Center is globally renowned for launching the interdisciplinary subfield of psychology known as developmental psychopathology, which changed the paradigm of how researchers think about scientific discovery related to child development. With its 2025 , the American Psychological Foundation recognized Noll, psychology professor Sheree Toth, and Dante Cicchetti, founder of Mt. Hope Family Center, for founding and maintaining this subfield.

In other words, the Ģ����ý was one of the first places to show that behavioral interventions can reverse the impact of child abuse and neglect while preventing health deficits associated with early life trauma and adversity.

Upon joining the faculty of the Ģ����ý in 1984, Cicchetti began to frame this approach as an integration of developmental psychology and clinical research, anchoring the subfield through research and founding the journal in 1989.

“To see the positive, and not just the problems, is crucial when studying the development and resilience of maltreated children,” Cicchetti, who served as the center’s director for two decades, has said.

Today, evidence-based programs influenced by Mt. Hope Family Center are now available in all 50 states—and in 21 countries. These includes trainings and toolkits for obstetricians, pediatricians, gynecologists, law enforcement, and educators. By collaborating with local agencies, schools, and health providers, the center ensures its research translates into impact with reach far beyond its footprint.