Media Coverage

ther recipients this year are historians Inga Clendinnen, Catherine Hall, and Arlette Farge, and scientists Paul Alivisatos, Chad Mirkin and John Pendry.

Previous recipients include former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Chad Mirkin, a star researcher at Northwestern University, is among three winners of a $1 million prize for his work in nanotechnology and medicine. Mirkin, a serial entrepreneur and director of Northwestern’s International Institute for Nanotechnology, is one of three winners of the Dan David Prize, a program at Tel Aviv University, which gives awards for outstanding achievements in the three time dimensions: past, present and future.

However, Dr. Lee Jampol and Dr. Debra Goldstein, from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, pointed out in an accompanying journal editorial that microcephaly may have several causes. The birth defect may be genetic, metabolic, drug-related or due to problems during pregnancy such as malnutrition, infection or lack of oxygen.

“Based on current information, in our opinion, clinicians in areas where Zika virus is present should perform ophthalmologic examinations on all microcephalic babies,” Dr. Lee M. Jampol, a professor of opthalmology at Northwestern University wrote in an editorial in Wednesday’s medical journal. “Because it is still unclear whether the eye lesions occur in the absence of microcephaly, it is premature to suggest ophthalmic screening of all babies born in epidemic areas.”

However, Dr. Lee Jampol and Dr. Debra Goldstein, from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, pointed out in an accompanying journal editorial that microcephaly may have several causes. The birth defect may be genetic, metabolic, drug-related or due to problems during pregnancy such as malnutrition, infection or lack of oxygen.

In an accompanying editorial, Lee Jampol and Debra Goldstein of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine suggest doctors perform thorough eye exams on all babies with microcephaly in areas with Zika outbreaks.

“We’re very concerned about this,” said Jampol, a professor of ophthalmology at Northwestern. “There hasn’t been enough testing yet to know what these babies’ vision is going to be.”

Lee Jampol, a professor of ophthalmology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said that lesions found in the babies’ retinas could have far-reaching effects for families trying to care for the infants and the next generation.

“Exactly how much these babies can see is unknown at this point,” said Dr. Lee M. Jampol, a professor of ophthalmology at Northwestern University, who co-wrote an editorial accompanying the study. But, he added, “when we can see these lesions, that means there’s damage.”

THIRTY years ago a young haematologist called Richard Burt was training at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore. He noticed that after leukaemia patients had received a treatment to wipe out their immune systems, they needed to be re-immunised against diseases such as measles and mumps. Although the patients in question had been vaccinated as children, the therapy for their blood cancer had erased this cellular memory. Dr Burt turned to his teacher, William Burns, and ask whether the same might be possible in autoimmune diseases. “I could see a light go on in his eyes. ‘You should try it in multiple sclerosis’ he said.” Thus began decades of painstaking work.

Recent evidence indicates that what you eat and when you eat can in turn affect sleep and circadian rhythms,” says Phyllis C. Zee, MD, PhD, the director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, who says emerging research “points to a bi-directional relationship.”