Many Preventive Antibiotics Prescribed by Dentists Are Unnecessary
More than 80 percent of antibiotics prescribed before dental procedures to prevent infection are unnecessary, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.
Health Sciences PhD Student Awarded Presidential Fellowship
Lindsay Zimmerman, a doctoral student investigating social determinants of cardiovascular health, was recently named a Northwestern University Presidential Fellow.
Cell Polarity Linked to Cell Adhesion
Scientists discovered a new link between cell polarity and cell adhesion, according to a study published in the Journal of Cell Biology.
Feinberg/Nature Conference Explores Epigenetics
Feinberg partnered with Nature Genetics and Nature Medicine to host the Chicago Science 2019: Epigenetics and Genome Editing conference.
Northwestern Opens Largest Biomedical Academic Research Building in U.S.
The Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Biomedical Research Center – the largest new building dedicated to biomedical research at a US medical school – has officially opened.
Prindle Receives 2019 Pew Scholar Award
Arthur Prindle, PhD, assistant professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, has been named a Pew Biomedical Scholar.
Media Coverage
Eleven U.S. cancer centers get to charge more for care
Since the early 80s, the 11 centers have been exempt from the “Prospective Payment System,” meaning they are allowed to charge much higher rates for Medicare and Medicaid patients compared to similar centers without being forced to justify that price difference, according to the report in JAMA Internal Medicine. “There does not seem to be a lot of difference between those centers and other high-end National Cancer Institute Cancer Centers,” said study coauthor Dr. Karl Bilimoria, director of the surgical outcomes and quality improvement center at Northwestern Medicine. “We think the system should be critically appraised and reevaluated from time to time and public reporting requirements should be the same across all hospitals.”
The Damage of Dad-Shaming
The report made Dr. Craig Garfield recall a moment when he was a resident, pushing his 1-year-old in a stroller, with the child in his customary preferred position, his leg bent back. One of his professors — an expert who had recently lectured the residents on child abuse — came up to him and said: “Look, your child is uncomfortable in the stroller. Straighten his leg out.”
See Northwestern’s big new biomedical research building
“Inside this modern new building, scientists will pioneer discoveries that will impact the practice of medicine and transform human health,” Dr. Eric G. Neilson, vice president for medical affairs and Feinberg’s dean, said in a statement. “Here, we will accelerate the pace of lifesaving medical science that fuels the local and national economy, near world-class campus partners and in a global city with unrivaled opportunities for biomedical commercialization and entrepreneurship.”
Slow down the calorie counting: Personalized diets could be the future of healthy eating, study suggests
Northwestern medical professor Dr. Robert Kushner, whose clinical focus is nutrition and weight management, asks that individuals continue to follow the most recent governmental dietary guidelines for now. The idea that individual responses to a diet vary is an old one, he said, though Spector’s study pushes it further. He gave the example of reducing salt for hypertension; though not everyone will benefit, the guidelines are “recommendations for populations.”