Research in the Department of Anesthesiology
The main goal of our Anesthesiologists is to minimize pain and maximize perioperative comfort for our patients. Our researchers work from different directions and with varying methods and perspectives. Whether our researchers are investigating the toxicology related effects of specific molecules or whether they are looking at process improvement, they all strive to acheive the common goal of making the patient's experience safe and comfortable.
Investigators in the Department conduct a great deal of research in Clinical areas, however there are also important endeavors underway in Basic Science and other academic topics. The academic and systematic research is particularly important for the Department because investigators who focus on process improvement, patient safety, and clinical operations allow us to continually improve our patient care and enable the Department to operate at the cutting edge of hospital services. This research also includes studies conducted on simulation-based education as well as methods to improve the education of physicians.
According to the NIH, Northwestern University received $184,539,450 in funding 506 unique research projects in fiscal year 2009. The department of Anesthesiology is among those projects who have received federal funding, but the department includes many projects that receive other sources of funding in addition to those funded by the NIH.
To better serve NU investigators, the department supports the Mary Beth Donnelley Clinical Pharmacology Core Facility. According the Core Mission, the center provides a wide range of clinical-pharmacologic support to help Northwestern University’s research investigators transition drugs from the lab bench to the patient. The Core provides services in small molecule concentration, modeling of concentration histories, as well as consultations on research planning, grant preparation and many others. To see the full list of services and consultations offered, as well as contact information, please visit the Core Facility here.
Research in the Department is not limited to strictly clinical or basic science topics--it also encompases a wide variety of research in areas including Process Improvement, Patient Safety, Clinical Operations, Education and Simulation. Endeavors in these areas contribute to the overall hospital experience in tangible ways and are indispensible to the Department. Investigators conduct a signficiant amount of research in these fields, as a notable example PI Christine Park, MD recently received a grant for her project "Simulation and Team Training." To see more information specific to Simulation Research conducted in the Anesthesia Patient Safety Simulator Center in NMH, please visit the section on Scholarly Activity in Simulation.
Featured Projects
| Raymond Glassenberg, MD is collaborating with scientists (including Rod Eckenhoff, MD, PhD) from the University of Pennsylvania, Argonne National Laboratories, and Northwestern University Department of Chemistry to develop chelating molecules that have the potential to stop toxic reactions and to terminate the toxic side effects of local anesthetic drugs, including cocaine. Dr. Glassenberg, is currently looking at the ability of curcurbiturils to mitigate the effects of drug overdose. These circular organic molecules may act as a means to clear harmful alkaloid bodies from the bloodstream faster than usual methods. For more information, see Dr. Glassenberg's information under Basic Science Research. |
Models of cucurbiturils composed of 5, 6, and 7 repeat units created using Chem3D Pro. Created by M. Stone, March 2006. Link to original photo. |
Northwestern University
Dr. Gildasio De Oliveira received a $147,800 grant by Baxter Healthcare Corporation to study " Comparison of Desflurane VS Sevoflurane on Time to Awakening and the Incidence and Severity of Cough after Ambulatory Surgery using Laryngeal Mask Airway".
Cynthia Wong, MD along with co-investigators David Green, MD, Susan Gerber, MD, Robert McCarthy, PharmD and Sharon Grouper, MD have received a grant for $25,000 from the Women's Board of Northwestern Memorial Hospital as part of the Eleanor Wood-Prince Grant Initiative to study the “Coagulation factor changes associated with postpartum hysterectomies”.
Cynthia Wong, MD has been awarded a 2004 Clinical Scholars Research Award grant from the International Anesthesia Research Society for her study entitled "Neuraxial vs. systemic analgesia for latent phase labor analgesia in nulliparous parturients with induction of labor: effect on rate of operative delivery". These $75,000 grants are awarded to further the understanding of clinical practice in anesthesiology and related sciences through clinical investigations. Robert McCarthy, PharmD is Dr. Wong's co-investigator and mentor for the project.
Vania Apkarian, PhD, associate professor of physiology, has received $310,440 from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for his study on "Cortical Dynamics for Pain Reception in Behaving Rats."
Children's Memorial Hospital
Children's Memorial has completed construction of a $24 million addition that doubles space for the Children's Memorial Institute for Education and Research.
In 2003, medical school faculty members based at Children's obtained more than $18 million in external research support, an increase of more than 20 percent from the previous year. The Department of Surgery also recruited new faculty members in several pediatric specialty areas including neurology, transplantation, pediatric surgery, and urology.
Please click here for information regarding anesthesia research at Children's Memorial.
Subspecialty Studies
Contrary to previous research, spinal-epidural analgesia given early in labor (cervical dilation of less than four centimeters) does not increase rates of Cesarean section, according to Cynthia A. Wong, MD, and her colleagues. This landmark study appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Clinical research studies are focused in the areas of general and regional anesthesia, intensive care, and pain medicine. Externally funded investigators, Robert Fragen, MD, Shireen Ahmad, MD, William Peruzzi, MD, and Charles Coté, MD, each direct several clinical trial studies investigating the pharmacology of anesthetic and analgesic drugs in adult and pediatric patients and new forms of therapies for patients with a variety of pulmonary diseases and insults. The pain medicine group, led by Honorio Benzon, MD; the obstetrical service group led by Cynthia Wong, MD; and the intraoperative regional anesthesia group, led by Antoun Nader, MD; conduct studies aimed at validating the efficacy and advantages of new modes of regional and systemic analgesia in their patient groups.
The pain medicine group is investigating innovative approaches to postoperative pain management. The obstetrical anesthesia group is also investigating the effects of labor analgesia on obstetric outcome and new therapies for post dural puncture headache and postoperative pain.
The pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of anesthetic drug onset are being studied by Michael Avram, PhD and Tom Krejcie, MD. These efforts concentrate on the early events following intravenous drug administration as determined by intravascular mixing and early tissue distribution when maximum drug action is achieved.
The department has recently initiated a new basic science program in pain research with the successful recruitment of three scientists: Jaime García-Añoveros, PhD, Anne Duggan, PhD, and Vania Apkarian, PhD , who all have joint appointments in the physiology department.
