The majority of RNA expression differences between individuals have no connection to the abundance of a corresponding protein, report scientists from the University of Chicago in Science. The results point to a yet-unidentified gene regulatory mechanism.
In patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, infusion of pembrolizumab produced durable responses in almost one out of five patients. One of the 27 patients had a complete response and four had a partial response. Seven more patients had stable disease.
The University of Chicago Medicine is taking formal steps to raise the age limit of its pediatric trauma program by two years to include 16- and 17-year-old children.
The University of Chicago is collaborating with the National Cancer Institute to establish the nation’s most comprehensive computational facility that stores and harmonizes cancer genomic data generated through NCI-funded research programs.
The University of Chicago has received certification from the Gluten Intolerance Group’s Gluten-Free Food Service (GFFS) Accreditation Program for its medical center and campus food service operations.
A protein complex known as STING plays a crucial role in detecting the presence of tumor cells and promoting an anti-tumor response by the body’s innate immune system, according to two separate studies in Immunity. The results have major implications for the growing field of cancer immunotherapy.
The 2014 MacLean Center Prize in Clinical Ethics will be presented to Susan Tolle, MD, for pioneering work improving communication regarding end-of-life care. Tolle will receive the largest award in clinical medical ethics during this week’s MacLean Fellows conference at the University of Chicago.
The Chicago Biomedical Consortium is announcing a $3 million Infrastructure Initiative to promote investment in high-impact, next-generation scientific equipment at its member universities. The Initiative aims to make modern and powerful tools available at a time when federal grants for scientific infrastructure are scarce.
Children who had their tonsils and adenoids removed for obstructive sleep apnea also had dramatic reductions in acute asthma exacerbations, acute status asthmaticus, asthma-related hospitalizations and ER visits in the first large study of the connections between OSA surgery and asthma.
The University of Chicago Medicine is partnering with BroadcastMed Inc. to launch Learning at the Forefront, a new digital education platform for medical professionals.
A new drug, OTS964, can eradicate aggressive human lung cancers transplanted into mice. It inhibits the action of a protein that is overproduced by several tumor types but is rarely expressed in healthy adult tissues. Without it, cancer cells fail to complete the cell-division process and die.
SIRT6—a protein that inhibits the growth of liver and colon cancers—can promote the development of skin cancers by turning on an enzyme that increases inflammation, proliferation and survival of sun-damaged skin cells. This suggests that SIRT6 could provide a useful target for cancer prevention.
Two studies published in the October 2014 issue of Health Affairs by a University of Chicago health economist examine spending on oral anti-cancer drugs as well as a federal program designed to help the poor, which researchers say instead helps hospitals boost profits.
The inability of older adults to identify scents is a strong predictor of death within five years. Almost 40% of those who failed a smelling test died during that period, compared to 10% of those with a healthy sense of smell. Olfactory dysfunction predicted mortality better than a diagnosis of heart failure or cancer.
Sequencing the genomes of monarch butterflies from around the world, scientists have made surprising insights into the insect’s genetics. They identified a single gene that appears central to migration – a behavior generally regarded as complex – and another that controls pigmentation, as well as shed light on the evolutionary origins of the monarch.
To protect their gut microbes during illness, sick mice produce specialized sugars in the gut that feed their microbiota and maintain a healthy microbial balance. This protective mechanism also appears to help resist or tolerate additional harmful pathogens, and its disruption may play a role in human diseases such as Crohn’s disease.
University of Chicago scientists have identified a brain region that appears central to perceiving the combination of color and motion. These neurons shift in sensitivity toward different colors and directions depending on what is being attended. The study sheds light on a key neurological process.
The presence of Clostridia, a common class of gut bacteria, protects against food allergies, a new study in mice finds. The discovery points toward probiotic therapies for this so-far untreatable condition
The University of Chicago Medical Center added six new members to its governing Board of Trustees, and named a new president of the medical staff.
Scientists from the University of Chicago have developed a new method to reveal the ancestral ranges of New World birds, and discovered that bird migration in the Americas evolved in species that resided in North America. Their work also offers evidence that many tropical bird species descended from migratory ancestors that lost migration.
The University of Chicago has completed the Warren Woods Ecological Field Station, the first Passive House-certified laboratory in North America and only the fifth worldwide.
Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence named two new faculty members as Master Clinicians, continuing the mission of improving the doctor-patient relationship through research and teaching.
John Maunsell, PhD, a pioneering researcher in the neuroscience of vision and editor-in-chief of the prestigious Journal of Neuroscience, has been appointed inaugural director of the Grossman Institute for Neuroscience, Quantitative Biology and Human Behavior at the University of Chicago.
Cancer care has a new side effect. Along with the distress of a cancer diagnosis and the discomforts of treatment, patients now have to deal with “financial toxicity,” the expense and anxiety confronting those who face large, unpredictable costs, often compounded by decreased ability to work.
Historians can only speculate on what might have been, but a team of evolutionary biologists studying ancient proteins has turned speculation into experiment. They resurrected an ancient ancestor of an important human protein as it existed hundreds of millions of years ago and then used biochemical methods to generate and characterize a huge number of alternative histories that could have ensued from that ancient starting point.
The first two awards under the University of Chicago Medicine’s new $100,000 UCM Innovations Grant Program were presented at last month’s 9th Annual Quality and Safety Symposium.
Researchers from the University of Chicago have pioneered a new method to simplify the study of protein networks. Through the use of synthetic proteins, they revealed a key interaction that regulates the ability of embryonic stem cells to change into other cell types.
Researchers have pinpointed exactly what goes wrong when chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients develop resistance to ibrutinib, a highly effective, precisely targeted anti-cancer drug. The finding could guide development of new agents to treat drug-resistant disease.
Seeing people use electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) increases the urge to smoke among regular combustible cigarettes users, according to a new study of young adult smokers. This elevated desire is as strong as when observing someone smoking a regular cigarette.
Poor-quality sleep during the third trimester of pregnancy can increase the odds of weight gain and metabolic abnormalities in offspring once they reach adulthood. The effects, caused by epigenetic modifications, impose lasting consequences on the next generation.
Heavy social drinkers who report greater stimulation and reward from alcohol are more likely to develop alcohol use disorder over time, report researchers from the University of Chicago, May 15 in the journal Biological Psychiatry. The findings run counter to existing hypotheses that innate tolerance to alcohol drives alcoholism.
A team from the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center has received a five-year, $3.9-million award from the National Cancer Institute to serve as a Lead Academic Participating Site for the newly created National Clinical Trials Network.
In the May issue of Health Affairs journal, David Meltzer, MD, PhD, and chief of the Section of Hospital Medicine and Gregory Ruhnke, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Section of Hospital Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine, propose a hybrid.
The University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s hospital has become the first in Illinois to offer MIBG therapy for neuroblastoma and other difficult-to-treat cancers.
Monica Vela, MD, associate dean for multicultural affairs at the University Of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, will receive the 2014 Herbert W. Nickens Minority Health and Representation in Medicine Award
Marshall Chin, MD, MPH, the Richard Parrillo Family Professor of Healthcare Ethics in the Department of Medicine, is the new president-elect of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) for the 2014-2015 year.
Genetic variants associated with enjoying the effects of d-amphetamine—the active ingredient in Adderall—are also associated with a reduced risk for developing schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), report scientists from the University of Chicago .
A gene linked by genome-wide association studies to risk of cardiac arrhythmia is found to play only a minimal role in the heart. The mutations within the gene in actuality regulate a different gene, which appears to be the primary gene responsible for cardiac arrhythmia risk, according to a study published March 18 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The shortage of oxygen created when kidney cancer cells outgrow their blood supply can accelerate tumor growth by causing a nuclear protein called SPOP—which normally suppresses tumor growth—to move from the nucleus to the cytoplasm, where it has the opposite effect, promoting rapid proliferation.
An analysis of 100 million US medical records reveals that autism and intellectual disability rates correlate with genital malformation incidence in newborn males, an indicator exposure to harmful environmental factors. The study also finds that Autism and ID incidence decreases dramatically in states with stronger regulations on diagnosis.
American Muslims who interpret negative events in life as punishment from God are less likely to believe that donating organs after death is ethical than those with a more positive outlook, according to a survey conducted by researchers from the University of Chicago’s Program on Medicine and Religion.
An international team of scientists has discovered that the obesity-associated elements within FTO interact with IRX3, a distant gene on the genome that appears to be the functional obesity gene. The FTO gene itself appears to have only a peripheral effect on obesity. The study appears online March 12 in Nature.
The 3rd Annual Conference on Medicine and Religion reflects on issues relating to medicine and the frailty of the human body.
A new study analyzing the origins of the adipose fin, thought by some to be vestigial, finds that these fins arose repeatedly and independently in multiple species—a striking example of convergent evolution. Adipose fins also appear to have repeatedly and independently evolved skeleton, offering a glimpse into the evolution of vertebrate appendages.
Activation of beta-catenin, the primary mediator of the ubiquitous Wnt signaling pathway, alters the immune system in lasting and harmful ways, causing chronic inflammation in the intestine and colon, eventually leading to cancer. Researchers unravel the mechanism of this transition.
Although the time and cost of sequencing the human genome has plummeted, analyzing the 3 billion base pairs of genetic information can take months. Researchers working with Beagle—one of the world’s fastest supercomputers devoted to life sciences—report they can analyze 240 full genomes in 50 hours.
The elusive progenitor cells that give rise to innate lymphoid cells—a recently discovered group of infection-fighting white blood cells—have been identified in fetal liver and adult bone marrow of mice.
Genetic adaptations for life at high elevations found in residents of the Tibetan plateau likely originated around 30,000 years ago in peoples related to contemporary Sherpa. These genes were passed on to more recent migrants from lower elevations via population mixing, and then amplified by natural selection in the modern Tibetan gene pool, according to a new study by scientists from the University of Chicago and Case Western Reserve University, published in Nature Communications on Feb. 10. The transfer of beneficial mutations between human populations and selective enrichment of these genes in descendent generations represents a novel mechanism for adaptation to new environments.
The University of Chicago Medicine named its first two deans for faculty affairs, appointments designed to support the needs of faculty within the Biological Sciences Division.
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