OCTOBER 2023 NEWSLETTER
The newsletter of the Feinberg School of Medicine Research Office
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Understanding How Sex-Based Differences Impact Health Outcomes |
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Sex is a major determinant in disease prevalence and treatment response, caused by a vast number of genetic differences between men and women. However, the inclusion of both sexes in clinical and scientific research had not been mandated by federal law until nearly the turn of the century. Feinberg investigators across specialties are studying how sex-based differences impact various aspects of health and disease, including behavior, cognitive function in response to stress, and the manifestation of pain. |
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Rise Program Empowers Medical Students Pursuing Research |
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Now in its second year, Feinberg’s Research Intensive Scholarly Emphasis (RISE) program supports medical students engaging in an additional year of research during their medical school career. |
Faculty ProfileStudying and Improving Parental Mental Health and WellbeingSheehan Fisher, PhD, ’12 GME, is an associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Division of Psychology and associate dean of for Diversity and Inclusion for The Graduate School at Northwestern. His research and clinical interests focus on parental mental health, with an emphasis on father’s mental health during the perinatal period and their impact on the family dynamic and child outcomes. |
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Staff ProfileLeading and Supporting the Facilitation of Ground-breaking ResearchWilliam Edwards is the manager of Research Administration for the Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM). He works with investigators to prepare proposals, training grants and other efforts to support research within IPHAM. |
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Student ProfileTraining to Lead in Neuroimmunology and NeuroinflammationZhangying (Jennie) Chen is a fifth-year PhD-MPH student in the Driskill Graduate Program. Through her work in the laboratory of Steven Schwulst, MD, associate professor of Surgery in the Division of Trauma and Critical Care, Chen has identified potential cellular culprits for predicting traumatic brain injury outcomes in aged mice. |
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Campus Events |
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Research in the NewsThe Washington Post, October 10 Chicago Tribune, October 5 NPR, October 4 |
NUCATS CornerNUCATS Launches Pair of Seminar SeriesNavigating the Research Enterprise Get more information on the NUCATS website. Developing and Enhancing Mentoring Relationships This is a set of monthly 90-minute workshops exclusively for faculty. Registration will be available until the day of a given workshop. View the schedule on the NUCATS website. |
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Sponsored ResearchTitle: Local Tumoral Delivered Immune Checkpoint Blockades Immunotherapy and Radioembolization Combination Therapy
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Sponsored ResearchTitle: Healthy Hearts in Manufacturing: Improving Cardiovascular Care in Worksite Health Clinics
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Breakthroughs PodcastDrinking Alcohol Impacts Aging with Lifang Hou, MD, PhDBoth long-term alcohol consumption and binge drinking can speed up biological aging, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in the journal Aging. Lifang Hou, MD, PhD, chief of Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention in the Department of Preventive Medicine led the study and discusses the link between genetics and lifestyle in the context of preventing disease. |
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New FacultyJoo-Seop Park, PhD, joined Feinberg in March as professor of Medicine in the division of Nephrology and Hypertension. His research explores how stem/progenitor cells differentiate into specific cell types using the mouse kidney as a model system. His lab aims to determine the roles of developmental signaling pathways in nephron formation, identify transcription factors that define cell identities for each cell type found in the nephron and elucidate how these transcription factors coordinate with signaling pathways in gene regulatory networks. Previously Park was faculty at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and University of Cincinatti College of Medicine. He completed his doctoral degree at Cornell University Molecular Biology and Genetics and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. He also holds a master’s degree in biochemistry and a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Seoul National University. |
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Galter LibraryCore Support ServicesIn addition to our physical and online collections, Galter offers specialized support services to meet the research needs of the Feinberg community. In this issue of Breakthroughs, we offer a broad overview of some of the services you could add to your research plan to ensure you are utilizing all available resources. |
High Impact ResearchAkula SK, Chen AY, Neil JE, Shao DD, Mo A, Hylton NK, DiTroia S, Ganesh VS, Smith RS, O'Kane K, Yeh RC, Marciano JH, Kirkham S, Kenny CJ, Song JHT, Al Saffar M, Millan F, Harris DJ, Murphy AV, Klemp KC, Braddock SR, Brand H, Wong I, Talkowski ME, O'Donnell-Luria A, Lai A, Hill RS, Mochida GH, Doan RN, Barkovich AJ, Yang E, Amrom D, Andermann E, Poduri A, Walsh CA. Exome Sequencing and the Identification of New Genes and Shared Mechanisms in Polymicrogyria. JAMA Neurology. 2023;80(9):980-988.Borlaug BA, Kitzman DW, Davies MJ, Rasmussen S, Barros E, Butler J, Einfeldt MN, Hovingh GK, Møller DV, Petrie MC, Shah SJ, Verma S, Abhayaratna W, Ahmed FZ, Chopra V, Ezekowitz J, Fu M, Ito H, Lelonek M, Melenovsky V, Núñez J, Perna E, Schou M, Senni M, van der Meer P, Von Lewinski D, Wolf D, Kosiborod MN. Semaglutide in HFpEF across obesity class and by body weight reduction: a prespecified analysis of the STEP-HFpEF trial. Nature Medicine. 2023;29(9):2358-2365. Bouffet E, Hansford JR, Garrè ML, Hara J, Plant-Fox A, Aerts I, Locatelli F, van der Lugt J, Papusha L, Sahm F, Tabori U, Cohen KJ, Packer RJ, Witt O, Sandalic L, Bento Pereira da Silva A, Russo M, Hargrave DR. Dabrafenib plus Trametinib in Pediatric Glioma with BRAF V600 Mutations. New England Journal of Medicine. 2023;389(12):1108-1120. Burks HE, Pokorny JL, Koetsier JL, Roth-Carter QR, Arnette CR, Gerami P, Seykora JT, Johnson JL, Ren ZY, Green KJ. Melanoma cells repress Desmoglein 1 in keratinocytes to promote tumor cell migration. Journal of Cell Biology. 2023;222(11). |
Featured CoreGenomics Compute Cluster on QuestNorthwestern IT provides the Genomics Compute Cluster (GCC), to foster and empower computational genomics research across Northwestern. Principle Investigators doing genomics research and their graduate students may apply to use the GCC. The GCC is a 6,500-core allocation on Quest, consisting of 113 compute nodes, three high-memory nodes, two GPU nodes and 355 TB of dedicated scratch space. The GCC can be used to align sequencing data, run RNA-Seq, ChIP-seq, single-cell analysis, whole genome analysis, custom code, utilize GPUs for machine learning and model training and more. |
NIH NewsNIH Designates People with Disabilities as a Population with Health Disparities Eliseo J. Perez-Stable, MD, director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), designated people with disabilities as a population with health disparities for research supported by the NIH. The designation is one of several steps NIH is taking to address health disparities faced by people with disabilities and ensure their representation in NIH research. Designated populations experience significant disparities in their rates of illness, morbidity, mortality and survival, driven by social disadvantage, compared to the health status of the general population Further Clarifying NIH’s Foreign Subaward Agreement Policy: Addressing Community Feedback In response to the feedback received from the research community, Dr. Lawrence Tabak, Acting Director of NIH and Michelle Bulls, Director, Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) released the final guide notice clarifying NIH’s long-standing policy on foreign subaward and consortium written agreements. Based on the feedback, the most recent notice modifies the requirements to state that “subaward agreements must stipulate that foreign subrecipients will provide access to copies of all lab notebooks, all data and all documentation that supports the research outcomes as described in the progress report, to the primary recipient with a frequency of no less than once per year, in alignment with the timing requirements for Research Performance Progress Report submission.” |
Funding Opportunities
Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Awards in Neuroscience
Mechanisms of Alcohol Tolerance (R21/R33 Clinical Trial Optional)
More Resources |
Thank You For ReadingWe are testing an updated format for this newsletter. We welcome your feedback. Please share it with us via email. |
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