Husref Rizvanovic, a 2018 Citizen Scholar, recently went to the American Thyroid Association’s (ATA) 89th Annual Thyroid Conference Oct. 30-Nov. 3 in Chicago, Illinois.

He attended with Dr. Johnson Thomas, a Mercy doctor and section chair in endocrinology.

They presented on their research about thyroid cancer. Dr. A. Daniel Pinheiro, a Mercy head and neck surgeon, and Dr. Kyoungtae Kim, associate dean of CNAS at Missouri State, also worked on this research.

About their research

Usually thyroid cancer is easy to treat. However, some tumors are becoming resistant to regular treatment.

Rizvanovic and Thomas worked to combine toxin from scorpion venom and soapwort plant to see how that would work on the resistant tumors. In preliminary research, this significantly decreased growth in aggressive thyroid cancers.

What Rizvanovic enjoyed best about this project was the collaboration between Missouri State and Mercy.

“It goes to show that local collaboration can lead to big events, such as presenting research on a grand stage with the leading experts in the field,” Rizvanovic said.

About the conference

ATA is one of the oldest medical societies in Untied States according to Rizvanovic. More than 1,500 people attended from more than 30 countries.

“We were able to engage in meaningful dialogue with other eminent scientists in this field,” Rizvanovic said. “Insights gained from interactions during this meeting will hopefully propel our research further.”

Kim is Rizvanovic’s adviser.