Archives: Podcasts
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How Alzheimer’s Drugs Work with David Gate, PhD
A Northwestern Medicine study published in Nature Medicine used a new technique called spatial transcriptomics to examine the brain’s response to Alzheimer’s therapies, revealing new molecular targets that could enhance the effectiveness of current therapies and not just slow the disease, but potentially improve patient outcomes. David Gate, PhD, assistant professor of Neurology in the…
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Intervening Earlier in Mental Healthcare for Kids with Lauren Wakschlag, PhD
A new $11.7 million award from the National Institute of Mental Health aims to help Northwestern Medicine investigators move the dial on the youth mental health crisis by targeting early warning signs of mental health risk in toddlers, rather than waiting until diagnosable and severe conditions are present later in childhood. In this episode, Lauren…
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Advancing Ovarian Health from Fertility to Lifespan with Francesca Duncan, PhD
Women are living longer, healthier lives, but ovarian aging still impacts fertility and hormone production as it always has. In this episode, Francesca Duncan, PhD, discusses novel research into maintaining ovarian function, longer. This work could someday help prevent or slow down age-related changes to the ovaries, offering hope for better health as women age.
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Pursuing Precision Medicine for Rare Diseases with Gemma Carvill, PhD
Scientists from Northwestern Medicine, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have uncovered the first rare genetic disorder linked to a long non-coding RNA gene. In this episode, Gemma Carvill, PhD, explains how this discovery, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, came to be and the critical roles non-coding regions of the genome…
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Investigating the Health Impact of Incarceration with Linda Teplin, PhD
With a new $20 million grant from the National Institute on Aging, Northwestern Medicine investigator, Linda Teplin, PhD, is extending the work of the Northwestern Juvenile Project to study the long-term consequences of incarceration on age-related conditions, including Alzheimer’s and other age-related diseases. This project is the only large-scale longitudinal study of its kind tracking…
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Studying Social Networks to Address Health Inequities with Michelle Birkett, PhD
Understanding the systemic drivers of health disparities within marginalized populations is complex. In this episode, Michelle Birkett, PhD, explains how she uses network and quantitative methodologies to study the health of marginalized populations, particularly sexual and gender minority youth. She also discusses her new center, the Center for Computational and Social Sciences in Health, and…
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Emerging Drug Targets in Parkinson’s Disease with Joe Mazzulli, PhD
Nearly one million people in the U.S. are living with Parkinson’s disease, a condition for which there is still no known cause or cure. Joseph Mazzulli, PhD, has led two recent studies published in Neuron and Nature Communications uncovering previously unknown cellular mechanisms driving the disease. These studies highlight the potential for new therapeutic targets,…
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New Insights into Cellular Metabolism with Issam Ben-Sahra, PhD
New research from the lab of Issam Ben-Sahra, PhD, could rewrite textbooks on our understanding of cellular metabolism and potentially identify new targets for cancer and metabolic diseases such as obesity. The discovery, published in the journal Science, has been praised for its rigorous simplicity and underscores the importance of understanding the molecular mechanisms that…
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Understanding Gut Microbiome Science with Jeffrey Gordon, MD
Jeffrey Gordon, MD, often called “the father of microbiome research,” is the 2024 recipient of the Nemmers Prize in Medical Science. The Nemmers Prize of $350,000 is awarded to a biomedical scientist whose work exhibits outstanding achievement in medical science, as demonstrated by works of lasting significance. In this episode, Gordon discusses the impacts of…
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Overcoming Hormone Therapy Resistance in Prostate Cancer with Sarki Abdulkadir, MD, PhD
The MYC oncogene is notorious in the cancer research world because it is implicated in many advanced or aggressive cancers such as treatment-resistant prostate cancer. In this episode, Sarki Abdulkadir, MD, PhD, shares how his team bucked the conventional notion that the MYC gene is “undruggable” and uncovered a handful of compounds that block MYC…
