The work done by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine faculty members (and even some students) is regularly highlighted in newspapers, online media outlets and more. Below you’ll find links to articles and videos of Feinberg in the news.
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The SuperAging Study, an ongoing clinical trial at Northwestern University, includes people who are older than 80 but still have the memory of someone in their 50s. It’s not such a tall order. Exceptionally old age and exceptionally good health for that age, both in body and brain, seem to go hand in hand. “We think they might be on a different trajectory of aging,” says Emily Rogalski, PhD, who leads the SuperAging Study.
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Urge incontinence, or overactive bladder, occurs when “the bladder squeezes and pushes urine out when you’re not asking it to,” explained Dr. Stephanie Kielb, an associate professor of urology, medical education and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “Stress incontinence occurs when there is increased pressure on the abdomen and you leak urine after sneezing or coughing.”
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Even those with 20-20 vision can experience problems with daily living if their contrast sensitivity is impaired, said Dr. Nicholas J. Volpe, George and Edwina Tarry Professor and chairman of the department of ophthalmology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Contrast sensitivity declines as we age, Volpe said. But the new study suggests there might be other factors that can affect it.
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Researchers tend to focus on genes that have been studied for decades, for example. To take on an enigma like PNMA6F can put a scientist’s career at risk. “This is very worrisome,” said Luís A. Nunes Amaral, a data scientist at Northwestern University and a co-author of the new study. “If the field keeps exploring the unknown this slowly, it will take us forever to understand these other genes.”
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Gerlach and his colleagues Luís A. Nunes Amaral and Beatrice Farb are trying to propel these old ideas into the realm of big data. They took a relatively new approach — not adhering to Jungian theories but analyzing four huge data sets. They also enlisted the aid of Northwestern psychologist William Revelle, who been an outspoken skeptic of the idea of personality types. He was, at first, a critic of the group’s own study. “I’m going to be very blunt,” he said. “My first reaction was this is nonsense.”
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Dr. Mamta Swaroop has seen life slip away from gun violence. Two years ago, a patient she was treating for a gunshot wound died. She describes the experience as “one of the most self-defeating feelings in the world because you can’t do anything about that.” But what haunts Swaroop, an associate professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, was how the victim’s mother responded. “She fell into my chest, and she’s crying and she’s yelling and she’s screaming. And those screams and those yells are in my bones,” she said.
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That’s a decision Dr. Mark Huffman plans to make in conversations with his patients. “Some of them will say, ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,’ ” predicted Huffman, an associate professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and a cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine. “Others will say, ‘If the data suggest I might not have any benefit, I would like to take fewer pills.’
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The new test, called TimeSignature, measures 40 different gene expression markers and can be taken any time of day. Rosemary Braun, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of biostatistics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said the blood test can assess a person’s biological clock to within an hour and a half.
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Researchers are concluding that to lower their risk of complications, women may have to change their behaviors before or immediately after they conceive. “We think that by the time these women are already in the second trimester, it may already be late to change important outcomes,” said Alan Peaceman, lead author and chief of maternal fetal medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
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Dr. Young Kwang Chae, an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University and one of DART’s principal investigators, says that DART researchers are analyzing the first round of results and have no plans to close enrollment. Patients with rare cancer make up roughly 20 percent of diagnoses, Chae says, but they often have no standard of care and little hope for survival. “That’s really depressing,” he says. “As a collection, they’re not rare.”