Medical Students Present Research Projects at AOSC Poster Session
Second-year medical students shared results from their ongoing Area of Scholarly Concentration (AOSC) research projects at a recent poster session.
Medical School Research Funding Reaches New Heights in 2019
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine received a record $534 million in research funding and awards during the 2018-2019 fiscal year.
An Impactful Partnership Between the American Heart Association and Northwestern
This article was originally published in the Breakthroughs Newsletter. Find more stories like this, as…
Study Assesses Asthma Treatment Options in African American Children and Adults
The use of long-acting bronchodilators to treat asthma had no impact for some African-American children, according to a new study from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and the Department of Pediatrics.
New Heart Failure Drug Fails to Reduce Hospitalizations
A new Northwestern Medicine study found an experimental drug did not lower hospitalization among patients suffering from heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.
$6.3 Million Grant to Explore Brain Stimulation
Joel Voss, PhD, and John Disterhoft, PhD, have received a $6.3 million grant from the NIH as part of the BRAIN Initiative.
Media Coverage
Flu and whooping cough can be deadly for babies. Yet two-thirds of pregnant women don’t vaccinate against them, the CDC says.
Dr. Maura Quinlan, a Northwestern Medicine obstetrician-gynecologist, said she communicates with her patients early on, letting them know when they will be offered the vaccines during an office visit. While the influenza vaccine may be offered at any time during the pregnancy during flu season, the Tdap shot is given early in the third trimester, she said. “It can be a hard conversation to have for vaccine-averse patients,” Quinlan said. And because OB-GYNs don’t administer vaccines as much as other physicians such as pediatricians, some may forget to bring up the topic, she said.
Owning a dog linked to lower risk of death after a heart attack, study finds
In fact, an earlier study showed that just caring for crickets could make people healthier. Part of what the researchers are seeing in the new studies might be tied to the care owners give to their dogs, said Stewart Shankman, a professor and chief psychologist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “There are mental health benefits that come from altruism, for taking care of somebody besides yourself,” Shankman said.
Donate Your Health Care Data Today
Machine learning was recently shown to detect early lung cancer more accurately than human radiologists. In May 2019, Google and Northwestern Medicine teamed up to apply a deep-learning algorithm to 42,290 patient CT scans to predict one’s likelihood of lung cancer. Because the images are difficult to read, Google and Northwestern’s study developed a machine-learning model to read them, then compared the results with those of six experienced radiologists. According to the study, the machine-learning model was able to detect cancer 5 percent more often than the radiologists and was 11 percent more likely to decrease false positives.
Gene-Based Therapy Helps Fight Advanced Prostate Cancer
Along with that delay, the drug slowed down patients’ pain progression. “Delaying the cancer from growing is meaningful,” said Dr. Maha Hussain, who led the trial, which was funded by drug makers Astra Zeneca and Merck. “At the end of the day, patients want to live longer, and also better,” added Hussain, a professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago. She was to present the findings Monday at the annual meeting of the European Society for Medical Oncology, in Barcelona. Studies reported at meetings are generally considered preliminary until they are published in a peer-reviewed journal.