Category: Research Briefs

A team of Northwestern Medicine investigators has discovered novel DNA methylation patterns in the blood of patients with Parkinson’s disease, according to findings published in Annals of Neurology.

Investigators led by Tsutomu Kume, PhD, professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology and of Pharmacology, have identified novel genetic mechanisms that regulate blood vessel growth in the retina and may also serve as therapeutic targets for retinal vascular disease, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in Nature Communications.

A multi-institutional team of investigators has discovered that targeting a specific protein interaction within immunosuppressive breast cancer cells may increase antitumor immune responses in otherwise difficult to treat solid tumors, according to recent findings published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The drug semaglutide, sold under brand names Ozempic and Wegovy, can help reduce heart failure symptoms and reduce heart failure hospitalizations in patients with obesity, according to a pair of studies published in The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine.

Investigators led by Northwestern University and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a new, first-of-its-kind sticker that enables clinicians to monitor the health of patients’ organs and deep tissues with a simple ultrasound device, as described in a study published in Science.

Patients with lung cancer who were Asian/Pacific Islander, Black or Hispanic experienced a higher intensity of end-of-life care compared to white patients, according to a Northwestern Medicine population-based analysis published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Northwestern Medicine investigators have developed a method to measure protein expression in an individual neuron, a discovery that will enable scientists to study how this process goes awry in disease, according to a study published in Molecular Psychiatry.