Innovation Spotlight: Empowering Feinberg's Unsung Heroes

This story was published in the March 2024 issue of The Philanthropist, a newsletter for supporters and friends of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Read past issues here.

Each day, our faculty, students, and trainees at Feinberg dedicate time to innovate new ideas and programs that will move the needle in medicine and science. Here, we spotlight some of the exciting work that often happens behind the scenes and beyond daily clinical care.

Thank you to all of the donors who contribute to these efforts, now and in the future. Your philanthropy fuels these projects and programs—enabling their very existence and empowering them to grow for the benefit of patients today and tomorrow.

Connecting Sleep, the Nervous System, and Aging

Daniela Grimaldi, MD, PhD, is a research associate professor in the Ken and Ruth Davee Department of Neurology and member of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine. Dr. Grimaldi’s research focuses on understanding the connection between sleep and the autonomic nervous system. Her main goal is to identify how the link between sleep and the autonomic nervous system impacts cardiometabolic and cognitive functions, including in the context of aging. Dr. Grimaldi and her team have learned of a physiological connection between noradrenergic activity—activity involving norepinephrine—during the day and homeostatic regulation of sleep: Sleep oscillations will slow in older adults, which can result in insomnia or insomnia-related cognitive impairment. These findings will help develop innovative therapeutics for older adults with insomnia, a population at risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Dr. Grimaldi’s goal is to identify modifiable markers of autonomic-sleep-circadian regulation that can be targeted to improve cognition and cardiometabolic health.

For more information about supporting the efforts above, contact Jordan Sund at 312-503-2706 or jordan.sund@northwestern.edu.

Limiting Post-Heart Attack Damage

William A. Muller, MD, PhD, the Janardan K. Reddy, MD Professor of Pathology, is on the cusp of dramatically decreasing the amount of heart damage that occurs as a result of a heart attack. Today, more than two million Americans receive “stents,” a minimally invasive, lifesaving procedure, after suffering a heart attack. But by rapidly restoring blood flow, stents can sometimes cause a condition called “ischemia reperfusion injury” (IRI), which, paradoxically, increases the amount of heart muscle that dies and leads to future complications. Currently, we lack therapies to prevent IRI. However, Dr. Muller and his team have developed a drug that reduces IRI by 50% in the closed-chest porcine heart attack model. The success of these trials brings hope that this therapy will soon move to human trials. Dr. Muller’s next step is to conduct more exacting pre-clinical trials for FDA approval. This work will require philanthropic support to bring it to fruition.

For more information about supporting the efforts above, contact Kathleen Praznowski at 312-503-0762 or kathleen.praznowski@northwestern.edu.

Improving Rheumatoid Arthritis During Pregnancy

Damini Jawaheer, PhD, research associate professor of Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology, is focused on investigating how pregnancy induces a natural improvement of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and why a small proportion of women still worsen during pregnancy. For the first time, Dr. Jawaheer and her collaborators have identified genetic markers among women planning to become pregnant that could potentially predict whether they will improve or worsen during pregnancy. Since many women with RA are reluctant to take medications during pregnancy because they do not want to expose their unborn child to these medications, Dr. Jawaheer’s research can, in the long term, enable these women to make informed decisions about whether to stop taking medications to plan their pregnancy. The research will also allow health professionals to focus treatment on those women whose RA will worsen during pregnancy. Dr. Jawaheer’s ultimate goal is to uncover how pregnancy causes an incurable disease like RA to improve naturally without side effects, so that safer and more effective treatment for RA can be developed for all patients.

For more information about supporting the efforts above, contact MaryPat Mauro at 312-503-1090 or marypat.mauro@northwestern.edu.