Media Coverage

Northwestern University is partnering with an investment management company that has pledged up to $65 million to help advance potential new drugs.

The university and Deerfield Management, based in New York City, are launching Lakeside Discovery to help usher potential drugs to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval for human testing.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently issued new recommendations for older adults to decrease the risk of falls. In their statement, the use of vitamin D supplements was discouraged due to mixed results from research. On the other hand, the review also linked niacin (vitamin B3) and antioxidants (vitamins A, C, and E) to an increased risk of all causes of death. Previously, a 2014 study by Northwestern University researchers expressed similar concerns about niacin. “There might be one excess death for every 200 people we put on niacin,” said preventive cardiologist Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones from Northwestern Medicine. He called it “an unacceptable therapy” for most patients, explaining how it should only be reserved for those at very high risk for a heart attack or stroke, and are unable to take statins.

Those symptoms include anxiety, agitation, sleep problems, muscle aches, runny nose, sweating, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and drug cravings. And they can begin within hours, according to Dr. Danesh Alam, the principal investigator at the Northwestern site who serves as the hospital’s medical director of behavioral health services. “People go to extreme lengths to make sure they don’t go into withdrawal,” he said. “Withdrawal can be fatal in some conditions,” including patients who have certain heart conditions. Patients experiencing opioid withdrawal symptoms have typically been treated with another narcotic. “One of the biggest advantages (of Lucemyra) is you can actually take patients off narcotics and give them what we call a clean break,” Alam said.

Alan Shepard, clinical assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University, explains the problem like this: When a person’s head is struck, as mine was in the motorcycle accident, “the brain can move forward and backward a little bit in whiplash,” like that typical in a car crash, Shepard said. “In so doing it shears across the olfactory nerve.” The olfactory nerve connects the sinuses to the brain and is responsible for our sense of smell. It runs up from the sinuses, then between the skull and brain to get to the spot where the brain processes scent, Shepard said.

Dr. Micah Eimer, co-director of the sports cardiology program at Northwestern Medicine, advises runners to take it slow. “Patients who engage in low and moderate intensity exercise can decrease their risk of atrial fibrillation. However, patients who exercise at the extreme levels of exertion appear to have a significantly increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation,” Eimer said. Runners can feel it and sometimes notice it if they are wearing a heart rate sensor. “Usually they will return the device assuming that it is malfunctioning,” Eimer said. “After they get the same result on a new monitor, they come to the office, where we diagnose them with atrial fibrillation.”

Over 6 million people live with heart failure in the United States, with over 960,000 new cases diagnosed each year. By 2030, there may be more than 8 million cases of heart failure. “One in five Americans over the age of 40 are affected by heart failure,” Dr. Clyde Yancy, American Heart Association (AHA) spokesperson and chief of the cardiology division at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, told ABC News. It’s a condition that makes the heart unable to pump enough blood to the body, and heart failure already takes up millions of healthcare dollars each year. Research shows that one in four of these 6 million patients with heart failure feel moderate to high levels of social isolation.

Some debate has occurred since adoption of the new guidelines regarding risks associated with blood pressure medication, said Dr. Clyde Yancy, chief of cardiology with the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “Whenever there is a change in the approach to a common problem that requires an entire rethink of what has been a standard of care, there’s going to be some argument, some pushback, some hesitancy,” Yancy said. But the new study reveals that the potential benefits of the new guidelines far outweigh the risks, he added.

Dr. Sadiya Khan, a professor of cardiology at Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, was more cautious in her reaction to the new findings. For people who are generally in good health with low cholesterol, eggs may be perfectly fine, Khan said, but others may want to be careful. “I take a personalized approach,” she added. “The most important thing is trying to achieve the best overall diet quality. If eggs are included, the most important thing is, in moderation, and with the caveat that the person be very low cardiovascular risk and have low-serum cholesterol levels — that isn’t most of us.”

To catch it early, Dr. Shohreh Shahabi, chief of gynecologic oncology at Northwestern Medicine, is experimenting with a procedure known as uterine lavage…The Partial Wave Spectroscopic microscope, developed by professor Vadim Backman of Northwestern University, detects changes in chromatin (the bundle of genetic material and protein that makes up chromosomes), alerting doctors to a possible malignancy. Shahabi is working with Backman to test this technology in ovarian cancer.

Careers: Many women in their 20s and 30s are completing educations and starting careers. They feel unready, financially and otherwise, to have babies, said Eve Feinberg, assistant professor of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Studies suggest women maximize their lifetime earnings by delaying motherhood. Partners: Some women wait a long time “to find the right person to have a baby with,” Feinberg said.