Recent News

What Makes a Good Egg and Healthy Embryo? Discovery About Zinc’s Role May Help in Future Fertility Treatments Scientists as well as fertility doctors have long tried to figure out what makes a good egg that will produce a healthy embryo. It’s a particularly critical question for fertility doctors deciding which eggs isolated from a[…]

Summer Research Program Prepares High School Students for Careers in Science, Medicine Neel Patel (left), a junior at Northside College Preparatory, is spending his summer vacation assisting in a cancer research laboratory led by John Salsman, PhD, research assistant professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences. Four Northwestern University faculty members volunteered to host[…]

Feinberg Researcher Michael Wolf Awarded Fulbright Scholarship As a Fulbright Scholar, Michael S. Wolf, PhD, MPH, MA, associate professor of medicine and associate division chief of research in the Feinberg Division of General Internal Medicine, plans to focus on several research projects that investigate the feasibility of promoting health literacy in the areas of medication[…]

$10.2 Million to Expand Study of Delinquent Youth Funds will be used to investigate how incarceration affects health disparities in HIV/AIDS Linda A. Teplin, PhD, Owen L. Coon Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, is the principal investigator on a study recently awarded $10 million-plus from the National Institutes of Health to expand research on[…]

PA Program Offers Students an Innovative Curriculum that is Directly Applicable to Clinical Practice The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Department of Family and Community Medicine recently welcomed the first class of students to its Physician Assistant (PA) Program, a two-year graduate program that awards students a Master of Medical Sciences degree. James Van[…]

New Arsenic Nanoparticle Blocks Aggressive Breast Cancer You can teach an old drug new chemotherapy tricks. Northwestern University researchers took a drug therapy proven for blood cancers but ineffective against solid tumors, packaged it with nanotechnology and got it to combat an aggressive type of breast cancer prevalent in young women, particularly young African-American women.[…]

Scientists Discover Human Sperm Gene is 600 Million Years Old Just as styles in sexy clothes or fashion change from year to year and culture to culture, “sexy” genes, or genes specific to sex, also change rapidly. But there is one sex-specific gene so vital, its function has remained unaltered throughout evolution and is found[…]

Extra Pounds Reduce Memory The more an older woman weighs, the worse her memory, according to new research from Northwestern Medicine. The effect is more pronounced in women who carry excess weight around their hips, known as pear shapes, than women who carry it around their waists, called apple shapes. The study of 8,745 cognitively[…]

New Animal Model Uncovers the Role of Beta-2 Nicotinic Receptors in the Activity-rest Cycle, Natural Reward, and Anxiety Researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have created a new mouse animal model to study a rare form of human epilepsy. The research team, led by Anis Contractor, PhD, published their first findings in the[…]

Third-Year Medical Students Accept New White Coats in Transition to Clerkship At the ceremony, medical students were given new white coats symbolizing a new beginning — the start of their two-year clerkship, a period where they will work directly with patients and learn alongside trained clinicians. Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine held an Introduction[…]

Clinical Psychology PhD Program Trains Students to Become Academic Psychologists Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology — located in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (DPBS) — remains one of only a few U.S. programs based in an academic medical center and the sole clinical psychology doctoral program housed[…]

Hands-on Approach to Breast Exams Simulated breasts, genitals can help students learn proper techniques for physical exam By Dawn Turner TriceThe Chicago Tribune Carla Pugh, MD, PhD, associate professor of surgery at Feinberg, has developed simulators that help medical students learn the proper techniques for administering breast and pelvic exams. As a little girl, Carla[…]

New Ophthalmology Chair Named Nicholas Volpe is nationally recognized in ophthalmic education Nicholas J. Volpe, MD, Professor and Adele Niessen Chair in Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, has been named the new chair of opthalmology at Northwestern Medicine. Nicholas J. Volpe, MD, Professor and Adele Niessen Chair in Ophthalmology at the[…]

New Formula Gives First Accurate Peak Heart Rate for Women Women who measure their peak heart rates for exercise will need to do some new math, as will physicians giving stress tests to patients. A new formula based on a large study from Northwestern Medicine provides a more accurate estimate of the peak heart rate[…]

New Target Identified for Scleroderma Therapy Investigators at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have identified the molecule Egr-1 (early growth response factor 1) as a new therapy target for scleroderma, an autoimmune disease for which there currently is no cure. Scleroderma, also known as systemic sclerosis, is a chronic autoimmune disease in which the[…]

White Coat Ceremony Initiates First Class of Students to Feinberg PA Program The 30 members of the Physician Assistant Program inaugural class hail from 23 states and 20 undergraduate institutions, and boast 20 undergraduate majors. The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Department of Family and Community Medicine recently welcomed its first class of students[…]

The Feinberg Student Senate Serves as the Liaison for the Student Body, Elects 2010-2011 Board Members The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Student Senate represents the student body in their interactions with each other, the university, medical school faculty and deans, and hospital administration. The senate also organizes and funds educational and social activities[…]

Protein Could Heal Erectile Dysfunction After Cancer Surgery After men have surgery to remove a cancerous prostate gland, up to 80 percent of them will lose the ability to have an erection because of damage to a critical nerve that runs along the prostate. New research from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine shows the[…]

Sex Bias in Trials and Treatment Must End Women remain vastly underrepresented in biomedical research despite significant differences in the way they experience many diseases, medications, and therapies compared to men. Despite federal mandates to include women in studies, there is much that still needs to be done, says Teresa Woodruff, PhD, a leading women’s[…]