Overview
The Department of Medicine has a long tradition of conducting original and rigorous biomedical and clinical research of fundamental significance and the legacy of previous and current high profile investigators is engrained deeply into the Department’s culture. Within the Biological Sciences Division and the entire University, the Department is the largest department both in terms of the number of faculty and research funding (nearly $172M), with nearly 3/4 derived from the National Institutes of Health. Nearly one third of our faculty devote at least half their time performing research, which is characteristically original, rigorous, highly collaborative, and impactful. In addition, many of our dedicated clinicians produce practice-changing clinical research published in high impact journals. Recognition of these research programs is indicated by our consistent ranking among the top 20 NIH-funded departments of medicine. In FY21 the Department’s research portfolio totaled nearly $125M in federal awards, $25M in clinical trial earnings/industry funding and almost $22M in other non-federal awards.
The Department’s investigative programs are diverse and span the translational research spectrum. Most are multidisciplinary and involve faculty across the BSD and, often, other University units including Argonne National Laboratory, the Marine Biology Lab, and the Physical and Social Science Divisions. We are home to NIH funded program or center grants in asthma, diabetes, digestive diseases, healthcare disparities, hypoxia, transplantation, computational medicine, systems biology, and experimental therapeutics, as well as ten T32’s and three K12 training programs. Our faculty also lead several multidisciplinary, intersectional or interdepartmental programs, including the: Comprehensive Cancer Center, Institute for Translational Medicine, Institute for Integrative Physiology, Center for Personalized Therapeutics, Sleep Metabolism and Health Center, Heart & Vascular Center, Center for Data Intensive Science , Kovler Diabetes Center, Center for Health and the Social Sciences, Digestive Disease Research Core Center, MacLean Center for Clinical Ethics , Bucksbaum Center for Clinical Excellence, Chronic Disease Center, Asian Health Center and the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination.
Within the clinical research realm, the Department has a robust and highly productive therapeutic clinical research program and broad expertise in drug development especially targeted therapies and epigenetics. In FY21, the Department conducted more than 1,700 clinical research studies. The Department‘s 15 subspecialty sections currently occupy approximately 130,000 square feet of research space among 11 different buildings on campus.
Leadership
Vice Chairs for Research:
- Yoav Gilad, PhD
- Bana Jabri,MD,PhD (Basic Research)
- Raghu Mirmira,MD,PhD (Translational Research)
Associate Vice Chair for Translational Research:
- Jing Chen,PhD
Associate Vice Chair for Clinical Research
- Hedy Kindler,MD
Associate Vice Chair for Research Faculty Development
- Monica Peek,MD
Questions?
Email the vice chairs at:
adtmed@medicine.bsd.uchicago