Latest Releases

A new Northwestern Medicine study challenges a common belief in what triggers Parkinson’s disease. Degeneration of dopaminergic neurons is widely accepted as the first event that leads to Parkinson’s. But the new study suggests that a dysfunction in the neuron’s synapses — the tiny gap across which a neuron can send an impulse to another neuron — leads to deficits in dopamine and precedes the neurodegeneration.

Renowned researcher Jeffrey Hubbell has received the 2023 Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine, a biennial award given by Northwestern University’s International Institute for Nanotechnology to one scientist for outstanding achievements in the field. Hubbell’s work has revolutionized the fields of nanoscale bioengineering and regenerative medicine.

Northwestern University has been awarded $50 million over five years from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Simons Foundation to establish the National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology (NITMB), to be based in downtown Chicago. The institute will be the first of its kind in the U.S.

Patients who received the trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy saw their PTSD symptoms decline an average of 30% from baseline to termination. The overarching success of the study was in how well the city was able to implement and sustain the therapy’s adoption and reach over 10 years.

If the Chicago region replaced 30% of all on-road combustion-engine vehicles — including motorcycles, passenger cars and trucks, buses, refuse trucks and short- and long-haul trucks — with electric versions, it would annually save more than 1,000 lives and over $10 billion, according to a new Northwestern University study.

Producing the fertilizer urea using electrified synthesis could both denitrify wastewater while enabling low-carbon-intensity urea production. The process, which includes converting carbon dioxide and waste nitrogen by using a hybrid catalyst made of zinc and copper, could benefit water treatment facilities by reducing their carbon footprint and supplying a potential revenue stream.

COVID patients exhale high numbers of virus during the first eight days after symptoms start, as high as 1,000 copies per minute, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study. It is the first longitudinal, direct measure of the number of SARS-CoV-2 viral copies exhaled per minute over the course of the infection — from the first sign of symptoms until 20 days after.

The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University will present “Rosalie Favell: Indigenous Artists Facing the Camera” from Sept. 20 to Dec. 3.

Northwestern University researchers have developed the first electronic device for continuously monitoring the health of transplanted organs in real time.

Northwestern University’s Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for Performing and Media Arts in Chicago will host three innovative productions this fall including Roger Guenveur Smith and Marc Anthony Thompson’s “Otto Frank,” a reading of “In the Beginning There Was House” by Universes founders Steven Sapp and Mildred Ruiz-Sapp and the U.S. premiere of “Confessions of a Cockney Temple Dancer” by U.K. performer Shane Shambhu.