Daniel Sulmasy, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Ethics in the Dept. of Medicine and the Divinity School, and Assoc. Dir. of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago, has been named to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
Mitchell Posner, MD, the Thomas D. Jones Professor and vice chairman of surgery and section chief of general and oncologic surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center, was sworn in as president of the Society of Surgical Oncology on March 6, 2010, at the Society's annual business meeting in St Louis.
At age 55, men can expect another 15 years of sexual activity, but women that age should expect less than 11 years, according to a study by University of Chicago researchers published March 10 by the British Medical Journal. Men in good or excellent health at 55 can add 5 to 7 years to that number. Equally healthy women gain slightly less, 3 to 6 years.
A paralyzed patient implanted with a brain-computer interface device has allowed scientists to determine the relationship between brain waves and attention. The experiments, published this week in the journal Neuron, reveal the intricate dynamics of the attentive brain.
A new assay capable of examining hundreds of proteins at once and enabling new experiments that could dramatically change our understanding of cancer and other diseases has been invented by a team of University of Chicago scientists.
Sleeping is known to help humans stabilize information and tasks learned during the preceding day. Now, researchers have found that sleep has similar effects upon learning in starlings, a discovery that will open up future research into how the brain learns and preserves information.
A Chicago research team is one year into a three-year project to collect and analyze the genetic sequence and variations of every gene expressed by 1,000 tumors with a long-term goal of translating genomic discoveries into diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies.
In the next 25 years, the number of Americans living with diabetes will double and spending on diabetes will triple, rising from $113 billion to $336 billion. This will add to the existing strains on an overburdened health care system.
Although morphine has been the gold-standard treatment for postoperative and chronic cancer pain for two centuries, a growing body of evidence is showing that opiate-based painkillers can stimulate the growth and spread of cancer cells. Two new studies show that shielding cancer cells from opiates reduces proliferation, invasion and migration.
A genetic search using patients and mouse models has uncovered an unlikely gene involved in Dandy-Walker malformation, a common birth defect which causes mental retardation, motor delays and sometimes autism. This newly discovered function of the gene, which is never expressed in the brain, reveals a novel role for the skull in directing brain development.
Advances in neonatal care enable two-thirds of premature babies born with respiratory problems to be ready for school at an appropriate age, but those living in poverty are far less likely to be ready on time. Although several medical factors were associated with lower school readiness, the most powerful factor was low socioeconomic status.
A comparison of the effects of estrogen and retinoic acid, a derivative of vitamin A, on the genome of breast cancer cells showed that they have a "yin-yang" effect, with estrogen tipping the scales towards cell proliferation and retinoic acid inhibiting cellular growth. The finding could lead researchers to a new set of drug targets for this disease.
Results from a small, early clinical trial show that combining grapefruit juice with the drug rapamycin can be effective in treating various types of cancer. The grapefruit juice increases drug levels, allowing lower doses of the drug to be given.
A multi-center study of prostate cancer patients appearing in today's Journal of Urology recommends that for some men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer, opting not to initially receive treatment can be safe if they are closely monitored.
Large-scale data mining of gene networks in fruit flies has led researchers to a sensitive and specific diagnostic biomarker for human renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer. The biomarker known as SPOP is produced by 99 percent of clear cell renal cell carcinomas but not by normal kidney tissue.
One extra hour of sleep per night appears to decrease the risk of coronary artery calcification, an early step down the path to cardiovascular disease. Calcified arteries were found in 27 percent of those who slept less than five hours a night, 11 percent of those who slept five to seven hours and six percent of those who slept more than seven hours a night.
At least one in 25 older adults, about 2.2 million people in the United States, take multiple drugs in combinations that can produce a harmful drug-drug interaction, and half of these interactions involve a non-prescription medication.
Learning how leukemia takes over privileged "niches" within the bone marrow is helping researchers develop treatment strategies that could protect healthy blood-forming stem cells and improve the outcomes of bone marrow transplantation for leukemia and other types of cancer.
An international coalition of physicians and researchers has developed new systems to standardize studies of neuroblastomas across the world. The International Neuroblastoma Risk Group outlines the new systems to enable faster processing of clinical trials and identification of optimal treatments for this sometimes hard-to-manage form of pediatric cancer.
A 10-year-old girl born with an abnormally small bladder that made her incontinent has become the first patient to benefit from a new robotic-assisted bladder-reconstruction procedure. The surgeons describe the case in the December 2008 issue of Urology. They have now performed the operation six times.
A study from corresponding author Monica Peek, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center, finds that heightened cultural sensitivity training for physicians and caregivers could influence African-American women to get mammograms. Better communication is also needed to encourage this high-risk patient group to get screened for breast cancer.
The 20th annual conference of The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago will honor the Center's founder and director, Mark Siegler, MD, and examine his work and influence on the field.
Because of the increased number of patients, growing reliance on multiple medications and the shift toward more expensive new medicines, the annual cost of diabetes drugs nearly doubled in only six years, rising from $6.7 billion in 2001 to $12.5 billion in 2007. The single greatest contributor was the use of newer, more expensive medications.
In the last two years a team at the University of Chicago Medical Center has been able to wean more than 30 children who appeared to have type-1 diabetes off of insulin. This is not a miracle cure but a clever application of modern genetics and the tweaking of ion channels.
Scientists from London, Cambridge and Chicago have identified one of the smallest dinosaur skulls ever discovered as coming from a very young Heterodontosaurus, an early dinosaur. This juvenile weighed about 200 grams. This skull suggests how and when the family of herbivorous dinosaurs that includes Heterodontosaurus made the transition from eating meat to eating plants.
Newly exposed parts of Tiktaalik roseae, the intermediate fossil between fish and the first animals to walk out of water onto land, are revealing how this evolutionary event happened. The first detailed look at the internal head skeleton of Tiktaalik shows how it was gaining structures that allowed it to support itself on solid ground and breathe air.
Two innovative programs--the Pritzker Initiative and REACH--are transforming the curriculum at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine and attracting young physicians to practice in underserved communities.
Microwave ovens should be equipped with safety controls to prevent children from opening them and being burned by hot foods and drinks, according to a study by University of Chicago Medical Center researchers.
A new magnetic resonance imaging procedure can detect very early breast cancer in mice, including ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a precursor to invasive cancer. Some of the tumors detected were less than 300 microns in diameter, the smallest cancers ever detected by MRI.
A study, based on DNA-sequence comparison of thousands of bacterial samples collected from human patients and animal carriers, found that 97 percent of campylobacteriosis cases sampled in Lancashire, UK, were caused by bacteria typically found in chicken and livestock.
The first objective study on the effect that on-call workloads have on the quality of the education medical residents receive found that the complexity of care patients require has just as much impact on residents' training as the number of hours they work.
The NIGMS has awarded more than $15 million to the University of Chicago to support The Chicago Center for Systems Biology--to study how networks of genes work together to enable cells and organisms to respond to change. The Chicago Biomedical Consortium, with support from The Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust, will provide an additional $3 million.
The largest study to date of testing errors reported by family physician offices in the United States found that problems occur throughout the testing process and disproportionately affect minority patients.
Precisely targeted radiation therapy can eradicate all evidence of disease in selected patients with cancer that has spread to only a few sites, suggests the first published report from an ongoing clinical trial. Radiation therapy controlled all signs of cancer in 21 percent of patients who had five or fewer disease sites.
On June 16, 2008, Barbara Ganschow of Palatine, IL, became the first person in the world to be successfully treated with a new device designed to make it safer and easier for heart specialists to create a hole in the cardiac atrial septum. The hole, created by the NRGTM Transseptal Needle, allows cardiac catheters to cross from the right side of the heart to the left side.
Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH) and the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine have agreed on an academic affiliation that will place medical students, residents and fellows from the University of Chicago Medical Center at the three ENH hospitals in Evanston, Glenbrook and Highland Park for part of their educational experience.
Recently rediscovered flatfish fossils have filled a puzzling gap in the story of evolution and answered a question that initially stumped even Charles Darwin Opponents of evolution have insisted that adult flatfishes, which have both eyes on one side of the head, could not have evolved gradually. A slightly asymmetrical skull offers no advantage. No such fish--fossil or living--had ever been discovered, until now.
The University and Medical Center Boards of Trustees gave final approval June 5 for the University of Chicago Medical Center's New Hospital Pavilion, a technological and architectural tour de force, designed to accelerate medical progress and collaboration between clinicians and researchers.
When a young gene known as sphinx is inactivated in the common fruit fly, it leads to increased male-male courtship. Such behavior is widespread in many fly species, but not in Drosophila melanogaster, which has the sphinx gene. Other fly species do not. When two D. melanogaster males that lack the sphinx gene are put together, they court each other.
A drug developed to fight cancer is showing early promise as a treatment for pulmonary hypertension. In the first human trial of sorafenib for pulmonary hypertension, 8 out of the first 9 patients increased their ability to exercise. Six out of 9 had improved right ventricular ejection fraction. Four had a decrease in pulmonary artery pressures.
The decreased incidence of invasive breast cancer in the United States seen in 2002 and 2003 did not extend to women of African ancestry. Much of the disparity may have come from differences in biology. African Americans, less likely to develop breast cancers that are receptive to estrogen, benefited less by discontinuing HRT in 2002-03.
Variation in a gene known as CHI3L1 increases susceptibility to asthma, bronchial hyperresponsiveness and decline in lung function. The gene variant causes increased blood levels of YKL-40, a biomarker for asthma. A slightly different version lowers YKL-40 levels and protects against asthma.
One group of small, non-coding RNA molecules could serve as a marker to improve cancer staging and may also be able to convert some advanced tumors to more treatable stages.
Following free drug sample receipt, patients who receive these samples have significantly higher out-of-pocket prescription costs than those who don't, according to the first study to look at the out-of-pocket cost associated with free-sample use.
A drug that blocks production of an enzyme that enables ovarian cancer to gain a foothold in a new site can slow the spread of the disease and prolong survival in mice, but only if the drug is given early in the disease process.
A new drug, soon to enter clinical trials for malaria treatment, also appears to be 10 times more effective than the key medicine used to toxoplasmosis, which infects nearly one-third of all humans. The drug, known as JPC-2056, is extremely effective in mice against Toxoplasma gondii, the parasite that causes toxoplasmosis, without toxicity.
Targeting and killing the non-malignant cells that surround and support a cancer can stop tumor growth in mice.
Differences in gene expression levels between people of European versus African ancestry can affect how each group responds to certain drugs or fights off specific infections. An unbiased whole-genome approach found significant differences in several processes.
Many of the genetic variations that have enabled human populations to tolerate colder climates may also affect their susceptibility to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of related abnormalities such as obesity, elevated cholesterol levels, heart disease, and diabetes.
Moving an active gene from the interior of the nucleus to its periphery can inactivate that gene report scientists from the University of Chicago Medical Center in Nature. Attachment to the inner nuclear membrane, they show, can silence genes, preventing their transcription--a novel form of gene regulation.
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