Breakthroughs

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is home to a team of premier faculty and staff biostatisticians who are a driving force of data analytic innovation and excellence. In this episode, Denise Scholtens, PhD, a leader in biostatistics at Feinberg, discusses the growing importance of the field of biostatistics and how she leverages her skills to collaborate on several projects in Maternal and Fetal Health.

Northwestern Medicine scientists are at the forefront of research investigating the most effective ways of treating obesity in children and teens and improving their access to care.

In this episode, Justin Ryder, PhD, a clinical and translational obesity scientist at Feinberg, talks about the use of new GLP-1–based medications for childhood obesity and his work on several NIH-funded projects focused on understanding how pediatric obesity impacts chronic disease risk and how biology drives weight regain.

An estimated 32,000 Americans are currently living with ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord.

Northwestern investigators have uncovered novel cellular mechanisms involved in two types of genetic ALS that might lead to future targeted therapies. Evangelos Kiskinis, PhD, shares insights on these findings recently published in Science Advances and Cell Reports.

Inflammation is a common feature of many diseases and Northwestern Medicine investigators have identified how a calcium channel contributes to inflammation in the brain and lungs. This could aid in finding new types of therapeutics for inflammation-related diseases and conditions. In this episode, Murali Prakriya, PhD, discusses the evolution of this groundbreaking research in ion channels as well as his latest findings published in Nature Communications.

Teens are reporting struggles with their mental health at unprecedented rates, but resources to help these young people deal with anxiety or depression can be difficult to access.

In this episode, Ashley Knapp, PhD, assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Robert Simmons, MA, director of social services and public safety at Oak Park Public Library, discuss an innovative community partnership between Northwestern Medicine investigators and a Chicagoland library and how it could be a model for future health interventions.

Thanks to advancements in synthetic biology, scientists are now engineering bacterial communities with the goal of using these cells to monitor and treat diseases. In this episode, Arthur Prindle, PhD, explains how his lab is reprogramming bacteria that may be used in the future to detect disease and deliver therapeutics for many different conditions, including cancer, diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease.

A new study published in the journal Nature details breakthrough T-cell immunotherapy research from Northwestern Medicine. In this episode, Jaehyuk Choi, MD, PhD, senior author of the paper, explains how a gene mutation found in T-cells of patients with lymphoma could hold the key to a potent cancer-fighting immunotherapy for solid tumor cancers, which account for 90 percent of all cancers.

When most of us think about dopamine, we think about reward signals. But new research from Northwestern Medicine, published in Nature Neuroscience, has found a genetic subtype of dopamine neurons that do not respond to rewards at all, and instead, fire when the body moves.

Rajeshwar Awatramani, PhD, and Daniel Dombeck, PhD led this work. In this episode they explain how the results could change the field of dopamine research

As the primary investigator of The NIH Toolbox®, Richard Gershon, PhD, has led a team of hundreds of scientists to develop and evolve state-of-the-art digital assessments of cognition, motor, sensation and emotion which has been used by clinicians, investigators and academics for nearly two decades.

In this episode, Gershon explains how the third version of The NIH Toolbox® app developed for the iPad, provides test batteries for cognition, motor, emotional and sensory functioning.

Mitochondria are widely known as cellular "powerhouses" for their role in producing energy for cells. But pioneering research from Northwestern Medicine investigators over the last 20 years has proven mitochondria are also major players in lung disease, cancer, brain disease and immune-related diseases. Navdeep Chandel, PhD, a 2023 recipient of the Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, leads this research. In this episode he discusses how his team's recent findings could advance the design and implementation of new therapies.