The latest issue of the Department of Medicine Women’s Committee newsletter may be found at the link below. The newsletter highlights the remarkable achievements of the women faculty and trainees in the Department of Medicine over the past 6 months and is also a testament to the positive evolution of the working environment for women here at the University of Chicago. Enjoy this issue of Women at the Forefront. Spring/Summer 2023 Newsletter

The NIH has awarded $6.9 million to the Department of Medicine’s  Diabetes Research and Training Center (DRTC).  This funding renewal marks more than four decades of research at the DRTC, making the center one of the longest running NIH-funded diabetes research programs. The award will fund cutting edge research on diabetes development and progression at both the University of Chicago and other local institutions, including Northwestern University, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). The DRTC enables investigators to tackle questions at the forefront of discovery in diabetes by providing … Read More

The University of Chicago has received a new Research Education Training Program grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) to develop a program to train and inspire students at the Pritzker School of Medicine to pursue careers in diabetes research. The program will offer students a full continuum of training, from basic science and translational research to the type of interdisciplinary care needed to care for patients with diabetes. The program, called DULCE (Diabetes InqUiry through a Learning Collaborative Experience), will provide students with concrete experiences in diabetes research, clinical care, reflective observation through … Read More

Nearly one in five American adults has diabetes. But that doesn’t mean the common condition is simple to treat or manage. Diabetes and its complications are the No. 1 cause of kidney failure, adult blindness, and lower-limb amputations. It’s also the seventh-leading cause of death in the U.S. As with so many chronic conditions, diabetes also disproportionately affects the most vulnerable in our communities, further exacerbating existing health disparities. In a new supplemental issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine released March 28, physicians at the University of Chicago Medicine and colleagues nationwide are publishing the results of the Bridging the Gap: … Read More

Michael Kurz, MD has been appointed as Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Section of Emergency Medicine effective April 1, 2023.  Dr. Kurz recently served as Professor in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Kurz received his MD from University of Virginia School of Medicine and concurrently received an MS in Health Evaluation Sciences. He graduated from The University of Chicago Emergency Medicine Residency Program in 2006 and went on to complete his fellowship training in Emergency Cardiac Care at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Dr. Kurz joined the faculty … Read More

Pulmonary fibrosis is a devastating disease characterized by progressive scarring in the lungs, killing up to half of patients within five years of a diagnosis. Little is known about whether there are differences in how the condition affects individuals of different ethnicities. New research at the University of Chicago Medicine has found that Black patients with pulmonary fibrosis are significantly younger than their Hispanic and white counterparts across a wide variety of disease metrics, including diagnosis, first hospitalization, lung transplant and death. “Pulmonary fibrosis is a deadly disease, and people are often diagnosed right around the time they retire,” said Ayodeji Adegunsoye, … Read More

Raghu Mirmira, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism) and Vice Chair for Translational Research, has been named as the recipient of the 2023 Albert Renold Award by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the training and mentorship of diabetes research scientists and in the development of communities of scientists to enhance diabetes research. Dr. Mirmira is an international thought leader in the field of diabetes whose work is focused on Type 1 diabetes research—specifically on the pathogenesis of diabetes mellitus and the biology of islet cells. Among his many achievements, Dr. … Read More

Immunotherapies have been successful in treating many cancer conditions. However, not much success has yet been achieved in metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). A study published March 2 in Clinical Cancer Research has revealed new insights into why immunotherapies don’t tend to work as well in prostate cancer. The team, led by Akash Patnaik, MD, PhD, MMSc, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center, discovered that the immune system promotes the growth of cancer — instead of suppressing it — through recruitment of abnormal tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) that express PD-1 into the tumor microenvironment. Therapy resistance spells trouble for … Read More