Feinberg students, staff, trainees and faculty gathered to celebrate scientific discovery and presented research posters and abstracts at Feinberg’s 18th annual Lewis Landsberg Research Day on Thursday, Sept. 12.
Rex Chisholm, PhD, vice dean for Scientific Affairs and Graduate Education, kicked off this year’s celebration by welcoming attendees and presenting the Tripartite Legacy Faculty Prize in Translational Science and Education to Alan Hauser, MD, PhD, professor and vice chair of Microbiology-Immunology, and the Medical Faculty Council Mentors of the Year awards to Hauser and Scott Budinger, MD, chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care in the Department of Medicine.
“This is an annual event and is really a highlight of the season where we celebrate all the fantastic science and new discoveries that everybody here and those that are currently in the labs make every year,” said Chisholm, who is also the Adam and Richard T. Lind Professor of Medical Genetics and a professor of Cell and Molecular Biology and of Surgery.
The keynote address was delivered by Fiona Watt, PhD, an international leader in stem cell biology and current director of the European Molecular Biology Organization. Watt spoke about her recent efforts in using single-cell RNA sequencing to investigate skin cell heterogeneity and how this can improve the understanding and treatment of different skin diseases.
“Cataloging all of the cells in different tissues is important and I’m going to make the case that cells which aren’t dividing are differentiating and nevertheless important in influencing cancer outcomes,” Watt said.
During the afternoon, attendees explored more than 410 research poster presentations held across campus and spoke with investigators of all career stages at the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Biomedical Research Center, the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center and the Northwestern Memorial Hospital Feinberg Pavilion.
Meredith Osmulski, a second-year medical student, presented her research project, which looked into how different subtypes of gestational diabetes are differently associated with newborn and childhood metabolic outcomes.
Her study, which utilized data from the Hyperglycemia and Adverse Pregnancy Outcome (HAPO) Study and HAPO Follow-Up Study, found that the offspring of mothers with insulin-resistant gestational diabetes had worse outcomes compared to offspring of mothers with insulin-deficient gestational diabetes.
“Being able to study two groups of participants, the mothers and their children, and then also study the children as they grew, was an awesome learning opportunity,” Osmulski said.
For his research project, Ritam Patel, a second-year medical student, explored the characteristics of dysautonomia – a nervous system disorder that disrupts autonomic bodily functions – in pediatric patients with eosinophilic esophagitis who underwent an endoscopy.
By evaluating electronic health record data from more than 90 patients ages 10 to 21 with eosinophilic esophagitis who underwent upper endoscopy between January 2015 and January 2020, Patel found that greater dysautonomia was associated with dyspepsia severity (pain in the upper abdomen after eating or drinking), worse eosinophilic esophagitis symptoms and lower quality of life.
“Our findings highlight a need for comprehensive management addressing both eosinophilic esophagitis and associated dysautonomia to improve outcomes in these patients,” Patel said.
Rhea Sharma, a second-year medical student, presented her research project which measured the prevalence of cognitive impairment in kidney transplants recipients to better understand the association of cognitive impairment with patient-reported outcomes.
From her analysis, she identified a high prevalence of cognitive impairment in patients (approximately half) who received a kidney transplant, as well as associations with age and diabetes, and worse patient-reported outcomes in those with cognitive impairment.
“This study really emphasizes that we need to be doing more for these patients who do undergo a kidney transplant so that we can ensure that we reduce their risk of cognitive impairment and worse outcomes. There is more work that needs to be done to understand the true cause of cognitive impairment in these patients,” Sharma said.
Poster Competition Winners
Clinical Research
- First Place: Krishan Dilip Chhiba, MD, PhD, “Transcriptomic responses to dietary elimination in eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) across adult and pediatric populations”
- Second Place: Osama Hassan, “Assessing psychological correlates in pain-stratified patients with complex regional pain syndrome: A propensity score matched retrospective analysis”
- Third Place: Priyanka Ramanan, “Neurodevelopmental outcomes associated with necrotizing enterocolitis in pre-term infants: A systematic review and analysis”
Basic Science Research
- First Place: Annmarie Dominguez, “Defining blood flow-based polarity cues in the blood vascular endothelium”
- Second Place: Jocelynda Salvador, “Hemodynamic forces impact nuclear integrity and promote accelerated aging”
- Third Place: Heba Ali, PhD, “Glioma intrinsic Chek2 reprograms tumor-associated macrophages”
Public Health and Social Science Research
- First Place: Mariam Ardehali, MD, “Attenuation of Black-white disparities in cardiovascular disease incidence and total mortality by life’s essential 8”
- Second Place: Helena Kim, “The impact of food environment on oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas in the United States”
- Third Place: Alexander Szymczak, “Assessing the accuracy of large language models in rudimentary statistical analysis for medical research”
Award for Excellence in Women’s Health Research in Basic Science
- Natalie Obrochta, “Targeting MEIS2 in platinum resistance ovarian cancer”
Award for Excellence in Women’s Health Research in Clinical or Public Health Research
- Preeta Kamat, “TikTok, cycle tracking, and #tryingtoconceive: A video content analysis of at-home urinary hormone monitors on social media”
Tripartite Legacy Faculty Prize in Translational Science and Education: Alan Hauser, MD, PhD, professor and vice chair of Microbiology-Immunology and of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases.
Medical Faculty Council Mentors of the Year: Alan Hauser, MD, PhD, professor and vice chair of Microbiology-Immunology and of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, and Scott Budinger, MD, chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care in the Department of Medicine and Ernest S. Bazley Professor of Airway Diseases.
