Congratulations to Jacques E. Chelly, MD, PhD, MBA, who has been awarded a $85,000 grant from the Shadyside Hospital Foundation to investigate the role of “Auriculotherapy in the Treatment of Pre-Operative Anxiety" in a collaborative initiative between members of the Departments of Urology and Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at UPMC Shadyside Hospital. The project represents one of several initiatives developed by the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program in the Center for Innovation in Pain Care, which investigates innovative approaches to better control perioperative pain and mood disorders, which has been demonstrated to play a major role in patients’ outcomes and the development of opioid use disorders following surgery. In this placebo controlled randomized clinical project, the use of auriculotherapy, a neurophysiopathology-based approach, will be used as a non-invasive technique to control perioperative anxiety in patients undergoing nephrectomy for cancer. The study will enroll 60 patients and serve as a proof of concept for a grant proposal to the National Institutes of Health.