By: Ethan Nelson

Health care professionals nationwide are tangled in a discussion regarding the ethics and regulations of the growing field of precision medicine.

Also known as personalized medicine, the field aims to analyze patients’ genes so doctors can home in on treatments specific to each person.

As the talks have intensified in recent years, concerns over privacy and insurance discrimination are colliding with benefits like predicting disease contraction and better, more-personalized treatment.

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By: Jessie Bekker

University of Minnesota’s Boynton Health Service released its student health survey on Monday with a new set of questions to better understand students’ mental health needs.

The updated survey includes questions about adverse childhood events, like whether a student was exposed to drugs or alcohol as a child and if his or her parents were divorced or incarcerated. Officials at Boynton plan to use the results to assess new ways to deal with University students’ mental health problems.

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By: Christopher Aadland

The University of Minnesota is seeking less funding from the state. The Board of Regents lowered the school’s 2016-17 biennial budget request by $9 million on Friday.

The amendment follows Gov. Mark Dayton’s budget proposal, which he announced last month. It sets aside enough state dollars for only half of the tuition freeze the school is hoping for, but provides $30 million for the University’s Medical School.

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By: Benjamin Farniok

University of Minnesota students flooded the state Capitol on Thursday to campaign for a continued tuition freeze.

More than 100 students rallied at the annual Support the U Day event, which gathers students from all five University campuses to meet with legislators to lobby for state funding.

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By: Nick Wicker

Ward 3 City Councilman Jacob Frey wants to help bring a more affordable grocery store option to University of Minnesota students.

Frey proposed a new grocery store be constructed this year near Thresher Square, a block in Downtown East that is just one Green Line light rail stop away from the West Bank campus. In addition to receiving investment from a grocer, Frey said he will also seek input from students.

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By: Allison Kronberg

John Tuma can see and decipher things in ways others cannot.

While bird watching with his daughter, he spots wildlife others might not see. 

He can disassemble parts of legal documents in ways others might not have thought to.

These unique skills — which Tuma credits to a learning disability — are what those closest to him believe have made him successful in his careers as a lawyer, a state representative and a lobbyist. Now, those abilities should benefit him in his new position as a member of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.

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By: Danielle Korby

Dr. Date,

I was talking with my friends, and everyone had different views on whether sex on a first date is a good idea. One argument is that sex is a deal-breaker, so it’s better to go for it ASAP before you put more time into the relationship. Other people said it’s trashy and sends the wrong message.

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By: Aatif Mansoor, Channing James and Jenny Zhang, University of Minnesota Medical School students

We are medical students who have devoted eight years of our lives to educating and training ourselves, along with three to seven more years of training left for our chosen specialty.

We don’t put ourselves through all of that because we have a penchant for staying in school, purchasing expensive textbooks and accruing student loans — we do it so we will be able to properly take care of our future patients.

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Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, were once touted as an “education revolution.” But today, few people working in academia believe their growth can — or should — continue unchecked.

According to a recent study by the Babson Survey Research Group, only 26 percent of academic leaders believed in 2012 that MOOCs were unsustainable. By 2014, 50.8 percent of them believed the same, while only 16 percent believed the courses were sustainable.

The study also indicated that the percentage of universities with MOOCs has plateaued at about 14 percent.

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