The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has elected Everett Vokes, MD, Chair of the Department of Medicine, to serve as its president for the 2021-22 term. Dr. Vokes, the John E. Ultmann Professor and Physician-in-Chief at UChicago Medicine and Biological Sciences, will take office as president-elect during the ASCO annual meeting in Chicago in June 2020 and serve a one-year term as president beginning in June 2021. An internationally renowned expert in the treatment of head and neck and lung cancer, Dr. Vokes has maintained an active clinical practice for more than 30 years. He has a long history … Read More

Analysis of more than 29,000 adults listed on the national heart transplant registry from 2006 to 2015 shows how rules that give hospitals discretion in determining who gets a transplant result in large discrepancies in how sick patients are when they receive heart transplants at hospitals across the United States. The study, published on November 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), focuses on a metric called survival benefit, which is the difference between a patient’s expected chance of survival after five years with a heart transplant versus without a transplant. Survival benefit is scored as the percentage increase … Read More

The 2019 Department of Medicine Annual Report: Discovery and Innovation is now available. This past academic year the Department of Medicine achieved remarkable success in every aspect of our tripartite mission.  We described innovative pathways to diagnose and treat disease,we made major discoveries to advance science and medicine, and we used this vast knowledge to train the next generation of physician scientists. Over the past year, Medicine investigators successfully competed for a record  high of $169M in total cost research funding, and continued to translate basic research into clinical practice with multiple seminal discoveries, publishing thousands of impactful papers with … Read More

The Department of Medicine is pleased to announce the appointment of Raghavendra Mirmira, MD, PhD, as Professor of Medicine in the Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism, and Director of the newly established Translational Research Center effective November 1, 2019.  Dr. Mirmira is an international leader in Type 1 diabetes research—specifically the biology of islet cells. Dr. Mirmira recently served as the Eli Lilly Professor in Pediatric Diabetes, Director of the Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research, Director of the Center for Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases and Co-Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at Indiana University School … Read More

New research suggests that the chronic stress that comes with low social status in adult monkeys continues to influence their immune system up to a year later, even after their social status has improved. The study by researchers at the University of Chicago and Duke University found that the adult monkeys’ previous status in their community’s social hierarchy had a lingering effect on how their genes behaved. The findings extend established ideas around biological embedding, which suggest that it is experiences in the first few years of our lives – such as being raised in a safe, caring environment, versus … Read More

Since commercial approval two years ago to treat some blood cancers, CAR T-cell therapy continues to show so much promise that University of Chicago Medicine researchers have expanded their studies to see how else the breakthrough treatment can be used to fight other forms of the disease. In 2017, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of CAR T-cell therapy for adults with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and for children and young adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. UChicago Medicine became the first site in Chicago and Illinois to be certified to offer both treatments, which involves a revolutionary process that uses … Read More

EngAGE is a new pilot project helping adults 65 and older stay active with a little assistance from Amazon’s voice-controlled speaker Alexa. The project is part of a 14-week research effort that’s underway at the University of Chicago Medicine to see whether Amazon Alexa’s technology can coach older adults through daily exercises designed to increase their mobility, balance and stay active while at home. This is something especially vital for those who’ve recently been hospitalized and to help avoid disability and falls. “I can order physical therapy to jump-start rehabilitation, but, unfortunately, most people don’t continue the exercises on their … Read More