Recent News

September 8, 2003 Contact: Megan Fellman at (847) 491-3115 or atfellman@northwestern.edu Findings May Lead to Design of New Drugs EVANSTON, ILL.— Scientists at Northwestern University have acquired new insight into how a specialized sensor protein that acts as an early warning system detects dangerous amounts of the “coinage metals”—silver, gold, and copper—inside cells. For the[…]

Medical Faculty Members Honored for Teaching This year’s Founders’ Day Convocation on August 29 offered the essential ingredients for an official opening of an academic year: a hearty welcome for the Class of 2007; words of wisdom by J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, Irving S. Cutter Professor and chair of medicine; and recognition of the[…]

Recruitment Publication Wins AAMC Award Highly regarded by premed students and advisers, the Feinberg School’s primary recruitment publication for the MD degree program will receive national recognition on November 8, when it will receive an Award of Distinction from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) at the group’s annual meeting in Washington. Published in[…]

In Memoriam (Donald Bell) Donald I. Bell, MD, associate professor emeritus of medicine, died August 17 in Evanston, Illinois, at age 87. A native of Joplin, Missouri, Dr. Bell received his MD degree from Northwestern University in 1942 and completed his internship and residency at Evanston Hospital. A diabetes specialist, he served as head of[…]

Chicagoan Takes Pathway to Medicine When Alfred J. Cook Jr. graduated with the Feinberg School of Medicine’s Class of 2003, he achieved not only a personal milestone but also a major goal of Northwestern’s Pathways to Medical Education (PME) initiative. A member of the inaugural group to participate in PME—a program created in 1992 to[…]

Feinberg School Welcomes MD Class of 2007 This week the Feinberg School welcomes the 170 medical students of the Class of 2007. Orientation Week is filled with introductory sessions about the school, professionalism in medicine, and the curriculum as well as myriad social events. These include tours of Chicago, visits to its renowned museums, and[…]

August 12, 2003 Genetic Risks Missing from Patient Charts CHICAGO— Standard history-taking in internal medicine practices may not fully capture patients’ risks for developing certain diseases, and internists may lose opportunities to provide preventive medical recommendations, according to a study from the Feinberg School of Medicine. Researchers on the study included Theresa M. Frezzo, MS,[…]

August 19, 2003 Contact: Megan Fellman at (847) 491-3115 or atfellman@northwestern.edu Protein May Be Factor in Alzheimer’s Disease EVANSTON— Researchers at Northwestern University have discovered for the first time in humans the presence of a toxic protein they believe to be responsible for the devastating memory loss found in individuals suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. An[…]

August 22, 2003 Risk Factor Almost Always Present in Most Heart Attacks CHICAGO— Results of a large-scale study from the Feinberg School of Medicine dispute claims that, at least half the time, fatal and nonfatal heart attacks occur in individuals who had shown no previous evidence of at least one coronary heart disease (CHD) risk[…]

Student Investigators Experience Challenges of Exploration This summer 65 eager young investigators participated in Northwestern’s Medical Student Summer Research (MSSR) Program. Successfully competing for funding, participants worked with Feinberg School faculty mentors during the 10-week program. While they may not have made great breakthroughs, the students most certainly experienced the challenges of exploration in basic[…]

Feinberg School Annual Report Now Online The Feinberg School of Medicine’s last annual report is now available online. Only the Best 2001–02, which is available in a PDF document, chronicles the school’s efforts during the past academic year to be among the best in education, research, and clinical care. Leading off a year-end review of[…]

Construction Season in Full Swing As the foundation of Northwestern University’s Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center is completed and its superstructure begins to rise, excavation of the site for Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s (NMH) new Prentice Women’s Hospital has begun. Pending receipt of the final permit from the City of Chicago, Turner Construction has scheduled[…]

July 29, 2003 Estrogen Therapy Raises Risk Factors CHICAGO— Women who use estrogen replacement therapy to relieve menopausal symptoms are more likely to develop risk factors for potentially fatal irregular heartbeats (arrythmias) and heart attacks than women who take hormone therapy combining estrogen and progestin. Prior to the early termination of the estrogen plus progestin[…]

Helping Minority Students Achieve Goals The Feinberg School of Medicine is serving as home base for more than 40 students taking part in the Minority Medical Education Program (MMEP) that runs from June 16 to July 25. Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Association of American Medical Colleges, the program aims to help[…]

July 8, 2003 Immune System Genes Stave Off HIV Infection CHICAGO— Researchers have new answers as to why some HIV-infected individuals don’t progress to full-blown AIDS as rapidly as other HIV-positive people. Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine scientist Steven M. Wolinsky, MD, and colleagues found that individuals with certain rare variations, or alleles, of[…]

July 8, 2003 Stem Cell Therapy Doesn’t Improve Cancer Outcome CHICAGO— Adding high-dose chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation to conventional chemotherapy offers little benefit for women with primary breast cancer who are at high risk for recurrence, finds a study reported in the July 3 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. Moreover, toxicities[…]

July 29, 2003 ‘Suicide’ Enzymes May Be Missing Alzheimer’s Link CHICAGO— Feinberg School of Medicine researchers have found that caspases, a family of protein-cutting enzymes involved in programmed cell death (apoptosis), may be a missing link in the chain of molecular events leading to Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative condition affecting an estimated[…]

June 11, 2003 ‘Lost’ Protein Key To Prostate Treatment? CHICAGO— Northwestern University researchers have found that a protein normally made in the body is critical for normal prostate growth regulation because mice that lack this protein develop an enlarged prostate. The excessive prostate growth in these animals resembles the human disease benign prostatic hyperplasia. In[…]

Feinberg School Leads Research Funding at NU In 2002 the Feinberg School of Medicine received $158,026,695 in research awards, more than any other Northwestern school. Medical school awards accounted for more than 48 percent of overall awards to the University, which totaled $324,507,137. This is the first time in University history that research volume has[…]

June 12, 2003 Contact: Pat Vaughan Tremmel at 847/491-4892 or atp-tremmel@northwestern.edu Study on Differences in Female, Male Sexuality EVANSTON, ILL.— Three decades of research on men’s sexual arousal show patterns that clearly track sexual orientation—gay men overwhelmingly become sexually aroused by images of men and heterosexual men by images of women. In other words, men’s[…]