Media Coverage
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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WBEZ Chicago
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COVID-19’s silver lining? Researchers find the virus has ability to fight cancer
The COVID-19 virus may have the surprising ability to shrink some tumors, paving the way for new cancer treatments, a new study has found. The research, conducted at the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute and set to be the cover story for the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, began after a recent discovery. In some cases, cancer patients with a severe COVID-19 infection saw a temporary regression of their cancer, said Ankit Bharat, MBBS, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Canning Thoracic Institute. “That was what really sparked our interest,” Bharat said. Bharat and his team, investigating why that regression happened, learned that the RNA within the COVID-19 virus triggers the development of a unique immune cell that can fight cancer. The findings will help develop a treatment that mimics how the virus makes those immune cells. The results show promise for treating some of the most common cancers, including melanoma, lung, breast and colon cancer, Bharat said. The study was done using both human tissues and animal models. Researchers found that the COVID-19 virus is able to transform the common monocyte, a white blood cell in the immune system, into a powerful immune cell. Those cells are then able to travel and attack cancer cells inside tumors. “It’s incredible, and a big surprise, that the same infection that caused so much devastation can help create a cancer-fighting cell,” Bharat said.
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Fox 32 Chicago
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Northwestern study links COVID-19 RNA to cancer-fighting cells
New research from Northwestern University shows a surprise connection between COVID-19 and cancer regression. Researchers found the RNA from the virus triggers a unique type of immune cell with anti-cancer fighting abilities. They say this new information opens the door for new research and a way to treat cancer. Doctors say this research was inspired by a trend they noticed during the pandemic. “Some patients who had stage four cancer, when they develop severe COVID, we found that some of their cancer sites or the cancer in several sites shrunk,” said Ankit Bharat, MBBS. So, researchers at Northwestern started their journey to figure out why this might be happening. They discovered when someone gets badly infected with COVID, the virus can actually enter the bloodstream, shedding its RNA. That gets circulated and becomes a very common immune cell called monocytes. “They convert these monocytes into friendly cells. Basically, they convert them into cells that protect those cancer cells against second invasion by the immune system of the host. So what we found was that the RNA of the COVID virus could convert these monocytes into not those cancer-friendly cells, but cancer-fighting cells,” said Bharat.
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TIME
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COVID-19’s Surprising Effect on Cancer
Viruses don’t often come with silver linings, and infections don’t generally lead to positive health effects. But during the pandemic, some doctors anecdotally began noticing that some people with cancer who got very sick with COVID-19 saw their tumors shrink or grow more slowly. “We didn’t know if it was real, because these patients were so sick,” says Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery at Northwestern University. “Was it because the immune system was so triggered by COVID-19 that it also started to kill cancer cells? What was it?” Bharat and his team decided conduct a study to find out if the seeming “benefit” of COVID-19 for these cancer patients could teach them anything about a potential new way to fight cancer—or if it was simply a red herring. They published their findings Nov. 15 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Another intriguing part of the equation, says Bharat, is that this pathway is independent of the T cell immune treatments that are becoming a big part of cancer therapy now, in which doctors boost the population of T cells that can recognize and attack cancer cells. They can be effective, but generally only work for a while, since cancers quickly find ways to circumvent the T cells and become resistant to the therapies.
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Reuters
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Health Rounds: Obesity-related heart disease deaths spike in US
Obesity-related deaths among U.S. adults with clogged heart arteries increased by 180% between 1999 and 2020, according to data released in advance of the American Heart Association scientific meeting in Chicago. In men, ischemic heart disease deaths associated with obesity rose from 2.1 per 100,000 people in 1999 to 7.2 per 100,000 in 2020, an increase of 243%, researchers found. In women, the rate increased by 131%, from 1.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 1999 to 3.7 per 100,000 in 2020. The increases were particularly marked among middle-aged men, Black adults, residents of Midwestern states and non-metropolitan areas, researchers found. Overall, the analysis of 21 years of data from a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database identified 226,267 obesity-related ischemic heart disease deaths during that period. “The relative change in ischemic heart disease deaths related to obesity that was observed in this study between 1999 and 2020 was greater than the overall increase in obesity prevalence that we’ve seen in the United States, from about 30% to about 40% over this same time frame,” AHA spokesperson Sadiya Khan, MD, MSc of Northwestern School of Medicine in Chicago, said in a statement. Kahn, who was not involved in the study, suggested that greater awareness of obesity as a risk factor and more treatment for the condition may have made it more likely to be included on death certificates, which were the basis of the new data.
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ABC News
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Patients are stockpiling birth control over fears Trump could limit access to contraception
Women are stocking up on birth control and asking for long-term contraception methods following President Donald Trump being elected to a second term last week, doctors say. Searches for “birth control” and “Plan B” doubled between Nov. 2 and the two days after the election, with a notable spike the day after the election, Google Search data shows. Brittany Cline, MD, an OB-GYN at Northwestern Medicine, in Chicago, said she has seen an increase in the number of appointments being made for contraceptive or birth control counseling as well as appointments for long-acting contraceptives being either inserted or replaced or exchanged. “We have, in clinic, seen many patients coming in for their [intrauterine device] replacements, even this week,” she told ABC News. “On Monday, I used all of our intrauterine devices that the clinic had, and I think that this is going to continue over the next few months and even years down the line, as people try to take some control over their bodies.” Cline said she also received a message from a patient this week requesting four years of her birth control prescription be sent to a pharmacy. ‘That’s something that I have not, you know, seen before. Usually, we supply, you know, 12 months, one year at a time,” she said. “We do know that as many medications, there is a shelf life, and so it would not be safe for me to prescribe four years’ worth of contraception to a patient because of the shelf life.”
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Yahoo! News
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Researchers develop new material that paves path forward for medical device innovation: ‘This is a wholly new concept’
Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a new kind of material that could revolutionize multiple industries by the time it moves into production. Materials scientists have created “tiny, flexible nano-sized ribbons that can be charged just like a battery to store energy or record digital information.” The material is composed of sustainable materials and is biocompatible. As the material is in development, it could be used in low-power, energy-efficient microscopic memory chips and sensors, or it could be woven into clothing. “This is a wholly new concept in materials science and soft materials research,” said Northwestern’s Samuel I. Stupp, who headed the project. “We imagine a future where you could wear a shirt with air conditioning built into it or rely on soft bioactive implants that feel like tissues and are activated wirelessly to improve heart or brain function.” PVDF can generate electrical signals when pressed or squeezed, and its polar structure can flip via external voltage. While typical ferroelectric materials require a substantial amount of power to flip their polar structure, this new creation takes substantially less. “The energy required to flip their poles is the lowest ever reported for multiaxial soft ferroelectrics,” Stupp said. “You can imagine how much energy this will save in increasingly energy-hungry times.”
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The Washington Post
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Hospitals adjust as rates of maternal high blood pressure spike
Health researchers are noticing a growing problem in American pregnancies: more cases of blood pressure so high it can be deadly for the parent and baby. U.S. rates of newly developed and chronic maternal high blood pressure skyrocketed from 2007 through 2019, and researchers say they haven’t slowed down. Hospitals are working to adjust their standards of care to match best practices. One reason for the big increase in cases is that more doctors are looking out for the condition. But that’s not enough to explain the increase in the nation’s overall maternal death rate. Lifestyle and genetic factors play a role, but physician and health researcher Natalie Cameron, MD, MPH, with Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said people who don’t have risk factors going into pregnancy are also getting sick more often. More research is needed to understand why. “Pregnancy is a natural stress test. It’s unmasking this risk that was there all the time,” Cameron said. “And there’s a lot we don’t know.” Last year, the federal government boosted funding for training to expand implementation of best practices. But it takes time for hospitals to incorporate those kinds of changes, researchers said. Consistent monitoring for high blood pressure is key to keeping people safe.
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Chicago Tribune
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‘I wasn’t afraid to die. I was a soldier’: Veteran asks heart surgeon to save sentimental tattoo during transplant
“I wasn’t afraid to die. I was a soldier,” said Louis Smith, a Chicagoland native who, at the age of 17, followed in his footsteps and joined the U.S. Army. However, Smith was concerned about what life would be like if major cardiac surgery messed up a sentimental chest tattoo. Smith was hospitalized around Thanksgiving last year due to a hereditary condition that caused a buildup of abnormal proteins in his heart and eventually transferred to Northwestern Memorial Hospital to get ready for the procedure. So while waiting on a transplant list, Smith asked his surgeon to make an effort to save the tattoo while saving his life. “We can’t forget that our patients are people and there’s parts of them that are important to them outside of what we often see, which is just the heart condition,” said Sarah Chuzi, MD, MS, one of Smith’s cardiologists and an assistant professor of cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “A heart transplant is a very big deal, but obviously this tattoo is really important to him, and I like the fact that he advocated for himself … I think that kind of speaks to the spirit of veterans.” With his new heart and lease on life, Smith has spoken to other veterans about taking their health seriously and seeking help when it’s needed. Smith said some veterans, like himself, are often not great at listening to and working with medical professionals because in the military they were trained to put a Band-Aid on their problems and get back in the field.
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NBC 5 Chicago
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More women seek testosterone therapy, prompted by influencers, doctors say
In the U.S., prescriptions for testosterone increased nearly 50% between 2013 and 2023, according to recent data from the health technology company IQVIA. Doctors say interest in the hormone isn’t being driven only by men, but also by women in their 40s and 50s. This is due to social media influencers believing women have a testosterone problem. In both women and men, it’s normal for testosterone levels to drop with age — starting at about age 30 in men and around 40 in women. The decline doesn’t mean that it necessarily needs to be replaced, either for health or longevity. Levels for what is considered normal can vary depending on the lab, and just because levels are low, that does not necessarily mean testosterone should be started. Doctors use a combination of symptoms and blood work in deciding whom to treat. Traci Kurtzer, a menopause specialist at the Northwestern Medicine Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause in Chicago, agreed the push for testosterone started happening in recent years. Her patients inquire about testosterone therapy for multiple problems — to improve mood, energy, sex drive, brain fog and muscle mass. She tells patients that testosterone therapy is currently only recommended for a low sex drive, although future research may find other benefits.“If that’s the case, that’ll be wonderful, but at this point in time we don’t have the data to support that,” Kurtzer said.
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US News & World Report
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Diabetes & Kidney Trouble Can Bring Heart Disease Decades Earlier
People with both type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease face a heart health double-whammy, a new study says. Men with both diabetes and kidney disease will develop heart health problems 28 years earlier than those without either condition, researchers reported today at an American Heart Association meeting in Chicago. Women with diabetes and kidney disease will develop heart problems 26 years earlier, results show. “Our findings help to interpret the combination of risk factors that will lead to a high predicted cardiovascular disease risk and at what age they have an impact on risk,” lead study author Vaishnavi Krishnan, a researcher at Northwestern University in Chicago and a medical student at Boston University School of Medicine, said in a news release. “For example, if someone has borderline-elevated levels of blood pressure, glucose and/or impaired kidney function, but they don’t yet have hypertension or diabetes or chronic kidney disease, their risk may not be recognized,” Krishan said. “This is an early step in the process of understanding how a risk model works,” researcher Sadiya Khan, MD, MSc said in a news release. Khan is a professor of cardiovascular epidemiology and an associate professor of cardiology, medical social sciences and preventive medicine at Northwestern School of Medicine.
