News
07.01.2024
We are thrilled to announce that Navdeep S. Chandel, PhD has been selected as one of the inaugural recipients of a Pat & Shirley Ryan Family Research Acceleration Fund award. The fund was established to advance promising translational research in engineering and medicine at Northwestern. Chandel's proposal uses gene therapy to engineer the yeast protein NDI1 to regenerate NAD+, which is impaired in many primary mitochondrial diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s. Please read more about this award, its inaugural recipients, and their proposals in this article in Northwestern Now. Congratulations!
04.26.2024
Please join us in congratulating Simpson Querrey Data Science Fellow Rogan Grant, PhD, who has been named a 2024 Schmidt Science Fellow. The Schmidt Science Fellows program supports exceptional early-career scientists pursuing an interdisciplinary approach to solving problems of global urgency. In his interdisciplinary pivot from Systems Biology to Molecular and Cell Biology, Dr. Grant plans to identify pharmacologically actionable targets that can reduce neuroinflammation to delay or prevent the development of dementia. You can read more about Dr. Grant and his path-breaking research at Northwestern in this article in Northwestern Now.
03.22.2024
In an opinion piece published in the journal Trends in Genetics and featured on the front page of cell.com (Cell Press), Thomas Stoeger, PhD and coauthors show that biological aging is associated with decreased expression of longer genes. To describe this phenomenon, they introduce the term gene-length-dependent transcription decline (GLTD). GLTD is seen in multiple species, including humans. Cell types such as neurons that express longer genes are particularly susceptible to GLTD. Consequently, GLTD appears in Alzheimer's disease, an illness associated with aging. You can read more about this discovery and its potential implications in this press release by Cell Press. See also this article in Northwestern Now.
03.20.2024
Warmest congratulations to SQLIFTS Director G.R. Scott Budinger, MD, who has been named a 2024 Faculty Mentor of the Year by the Medical Faculty Council. This award was established in 2008 to recognize and celebrate the importance of mentorship within the Feinberg academic community, encourage all departments and divisions to actively support and promote mentoring, and acknowledge established faculty members who foster the professional growth of junior faculty to help them achieve their full potential. Congratulations again to Dr. Budinger on this well-deserved award! Please read more about Dr. Budinger and his tips for mentors in this article.
02.22.2024
We are proud to announce that Momen M. Wahidi, MD, MBA has been selected as one of the top reviewers of the journal CHEST during the past year. This select group has been chosen based on the volume and quality of their reviews, which support the success of the journal. Dr. Wahidi was also named a 2023 Distinguished CHEST Educator. Please join us in expressing our appreciation to Dr. Wahidi for his dedication and congratulations on this achievement.
We would like to congratulate Benjamin Singer, MD on his recent induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), one of the oldest medical honor societies in the United States. Membership of the ASCI is composed of more than 3,000 physician-scientists dedicated to advancing medical research and improving treatments, as well as mentoring future physician-scientists. Congratulations also to SeungHye Han, MD, MPH, who was honored with the ASCI Young Physician-Scientist Award, which recognizes physician-scientists who are early in their first faculty appointment and have made notable achievements in their research. You can read more about Drs. Singer and Han and their impactful research at Northwestern in this article.
02.12.2024
Please join us in congratulating Lisa F. Wolfe, MD, who has been selected by the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) to receive the Clinical Achievement Award. This award, newly established in 2024, honors a sleep clinician who has made transformative contributions to clinical sleep care. This award is well deserved by Dr. Wolfe, a fantastic clinician who is passionate about patient care. Congratulations!
We are pleased to announce that Navdeep S. Chandel, PhD and Richard G. Wunderink, MD were named to the 2023 Highly Cited Researchers list, published by Clarivate Analytics. It is a testament to the impact of the work we do that two of the twelve investigators who received this recognition from Feinberg are part of SQLIFTS. See the announcement in this article. Congratulations!
Congratulations to Karen M. Ridge, PhD, who has been invested as the Ernest S. Bazley Professor of Pulmonary Sciences. Endowed Chairs represent an important and meaningful recognition from Northwestern University and its supporters for the outstanding contributions of our most accomplished scholars to our missions. For the past two decades, Dr. Ridge has led Pulmonary and Critical Care's research programs in epithelial cell biology and made critical contributions to our understanding of the signaling role of the intermediate filament network. She is also a leader in education through her direction of the Kimberly Querrey Summer Research Program, the Training Program in Lung Sciences (T32), and the SQLIFTS Health Education Program.
Congratulations to Navdeep S. Chandel, PhD as a co-recipient of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) 2023 Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Chandel is the David W. Cugell Professor of Medicine, Biochemistry, and Molecular Genetics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He began his career in 2000 as an independent investigator in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. His lab was an early pioneer in developing the concept that mitochondria as signaling organelles control physiology and diseases beyond ATP production. SQLIFTS is proud to include Dr. Chandel among its leaders. See the announcement in this article, and read more about Dr. Chandel and his research in this feature in Northwestern Medicine Magazine.
Congratulations to two investigators of SQLIFTS, SeungHye Han, MD, MPH and Navdeep S. Chandel, PhD, for their recent study published in published in Nature. Their collaboration led to demonstration that mitochondria regulate essential signals for the development of alveolar epithelial cells in the lung. Dr. Han, a physician-scientist, is finishing her K08 grant under the mentorship of Dr. Chandel. Dr. Han’s laboratory is following up the study by examining whether mitochondria-dependent signaling is disrupted during lung repair after injury resulting in lung diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis or prolonged viral pneumonia. This research could open new avenues for treatments that target mitochondria-dependent signaling in diseases involving lung damage and repair. You can read more about this important research in this article.
Northwestern Medicine scientists led by Alexander V. Misharin, MD, PhD helped develop the largest and most comprehensive cell map of the human lung in a recent study published in Nature Medicine. Revealing the great diversity of cell types in the lung and key differences between health and disease, the Human Lung Cell Atlas will be an important new resource for lung investigators. Read more in this article.
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has launched the new Simpson Querrey Lung Institute for Translational Science (SQLIFTS), ushering in a new era of lung research, education, and patient care at Northwestern Medicine. Read the announcement in this article.