Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH) and the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine have agreed on an academic affiliation that will place medical students, residents and fellows from the University of Chicago Medical Center at the three ENH hospital locations in Evanston, Glenbrook and Highland Park for a portion of their educational experience.

The Pritzker School of Medicine is one of the most selective medical schools in the United States, with a long tradition of close interaction between students and their mentors, the full-time medical school faculty. Although students and residents participate in several small programs for clinical training off-campus, the majority of medical student training has always been centered at the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC). That will not change.

This new affiliation, however, will make the ENH hospital locations the primary off-site learning environment for Pritzker students and residents.

Leaders at both organizations believe the fit is a natural, bringing together Pritzker, one of the premiere medical schools in the country, with ENH, one of the nation's leading teaching hospitals. Both share a commitment to the highest levels of patient care and medical research, yet they expose students and residents to different patient populations, operational systems, and an urban-academic-medical-center vs. suburban-community-teaching-hospital patient care setting.

"With an abundance of combined yet very different experiences and a shared commitment to medical education, clinical investigation, and the effort to connect patients to the very best treatments, ENH and the University of Chicago Medical Center will usher in a new generation of healthcare on the North Shore and beyond," said Mark R. Neaman, ENH President and Chief Executive Officer.

"The partnership takes our medical school, one with a top national reputation and highly ranked programs, and makes the educational experience that much stronger," said James L. Madara, MD, Dean of the Biological Sciences and the Pritzker School of Medicine and CEO of the University of Chicago Medical Center. "Both organizations have many similarities across their missions of teaching and research. But we also have a variety of differences in our enterprise strategies that actually complement rather than compete with one another."

The ENH system is one of the most fully integrated, multi-hospital, research and primary care organizations serving northern Illinois. ENH has an established reputation for its emphasis on advanced information technology and the highest quality of health care. UCMC, meanwhile, has a sharp focus on complex care and biomedical science, with many distinguished programs that draw patients from around the country.

The affiliation became effective July 1, 2008, and includes a one-year transition period. In July 2009, medical students and residents from Pritzker-sponsored training programs will begin to gain clinical experience at ENH, working closely with physicians who are part of the ENH-based faculty.

"Health care takes place in a variety of different settings," said Holly J. Humphrey, MD, Dean for Medical Education at the University of Chicago. "Medical schools achieve a diversity of settings by linking up with affiliates, in addition to their own teaching hospitals, to give students a richer variety of patient care experiences. That kind of broad educational exposure is incredibly robust."

"One of the most important elements is the quality and excellence of the physician faculty," she added, "and ENH's physician faculty are among the very best in the country."

The ENH-UCMC affiliation will create opportunities for collaborative research projects that take advantage of each institution’s respective strengths, particularly in the areas of clinical outcomes, clinical trials, oncology and imaging.

ENH and UCMC also intend to mirror efforts in community service. UCMC has a longstanding, deeply-rooted commitment to its community on the South Side. Already among the leading providers of Medicaid in Illinois, the Medical Center recently stepped up its efforts to increase physician access for area residents. It recently embarked on a model for delivering community health, the Urban Health Initiative. That effort represents a collaboration with multiple South Side hospitals and clinics, forming a coordinated network of care so that patients are appropriately seen in the least invasive and least costly setting for their maximum benefit.

"Similarly, as part of this new affiliation agreement," said Neaman, "ENH will oversee an expanding program to establish a health initiative in Lake County, IL, that parallels UCMC's efforts on the South Side of Chicago, in order to improve access to quality health care in underserved areas."

ENH serves a patient base from dozens of communities. It is recognized as a leader in implementing information technology to improve the safety and quality of patient care. Hospitals and Health Networks magazine has named ENH one of the "Most Wired" healthcare organizations in the nation. ENH is also the top 5 percent of all institutions that receive funding from the National Institutes of Health and among multi-specialty independent research hospitals, it ranks 9th in the nation.

The University of Chicago Medical Center, a national destination for patients with the most serious diseases, is in the top one percent of all institutions that receive funding from the National Institutes of Health and is fifth in the nation in NIH grants per faculty member. UCMC serves a diverse patient population. It has made a substantial and increasing commitment to providing care for underserved populations on the South Side of Chicago, establishing a series of partnerships with other South Side institutions to improve health and access to health care.

About Evanston Northwestern Healthcare
Located in Chicago’s northern suburbs, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH) is an integrated healthcare system that includes Evanston, Glenbrook and Highland Park Hospitals, ENH Medical Group (comprising 65 medical offices and facilities), ENH Home Services, ENH Research Institute and ENH Foundation. ENH is the only Illinois hospital named a 15 Top Major Teaching Hospital by Thomson Healthcare®, and one of the nation's 100 Top Hospitals® 12 times.

At Evanston Hospital, two major construction projects are underway. One is a complete makeover of the 12 operating rooms to create state-of-the-art facilities for patients and surgeons. The other is an expansion of the Kellogg Cancer Care Center, including a new 5-story building on the Evanston campus to serve the increasing health care needs of cancer patients and their families.

About the University of Chicago Medical Center
Located in Hyde Park, on the South Side of Chicago, the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC), is ranked 17th out of more than 5,000 U.S. Hospitals, according to U.S. News & World Report, and is the only area hospital ever included on the Best Hospitals "Honor Roll." A nationally recognized leader in numerous areas of specialty care, UCMC is fifth in National Academy of Science membership per faculty. Eleven winners of the Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology have been associated with the University. The Pritzker School of Medicine is the area's highest rated medical school and has risen faster through the rankings than any other medical school in the nation according to U.S.News & World Report. Two of its programs, evolutionary biology and paleontology, are ranked number one in the country.

As part of its history of commitment to the medical and scientific community, the Medical Center funds research and education each year in an amount exceeding $50 million. The Medical Center and the University are the largest employers on the South Side of Chicago. UCMC is one of the state's largest providers of care for those covered by Medicaid.

UCMC will break ground in 2009 on a $700 million, 10-story, 1.2 million-square-foot New Hospital Pavilion (NHP), designed by renowned architect Rafael Viñoly to provide the optimal setting for patient care and collaborative clinical research with the flexibility to adapt to and drive forward the rapid changes sweeping through medicine. The NHP will connect to both the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital, which opened in 2005, and the Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine, the Medical Center's outpatient care facility. It will be adjacent to two new, cutting-edge research facilities: the 430,000 square-foot Gordon Center for Integrative Science, which opened in 2005, and the 330,000 square-foot, 12-story Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery, to open in 2009.

A genetic variation that may have protected people of African descent against a pandemic of malaria long ago now appears to increase their susceptibility to HIV infection, a report published this week shows.

The variation, described in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, is one of the first genetic risk factors for HIV to be identified only in those of African descent, and puts a spotlight on the differences in our genetic makeup that play a critical role in susceptibility to HIV-AIDS.

In a population of 1,266 HIV-positive U.S. military personnel and 2,000 non-infected healthy personnel, researchers studied the gene that expresses Duffy antigen receptor. This molecule on the surface of red blood cells serves as the docking site for the malaria species Plasmodium vivax.

“Subjects who have a genetic variation do not express Duffy antigen receptor and are known to be less likely to contract malaria vivax,” said Sunil K. Ahuja, M.D., professor at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and a senior lead author of the study. “But now it turns out having this variation is a double-edged sword.”

“Duffy antigen influences levels of inflammatory and anti-HIV blood factors called chemokines,” noted Weijing He, M.D., senior post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Ahuja’s laboratory and first author of the paper. “Other as yet undefined host factors likely exert population-specific effects on HIV-AIDS, such that individuals of European or African descent are likely to have distinct host factors that affect their respective susceptibilities to HIV and AIDS.”

HIV affects 25 million people in sub-Saharan Africa today, an HIV burden greater than any other region of the world. Sexual behavior and other social factors do not fully explain the large discrepancy in HIV prevalence compared to populations worldwide, the authors note.

“In sub-Saharan Africa, the vast majority of people do not express Duffy on their red blood cells,” said senior lead author Robin A. Weiss, Ph.D., of University College London. “This is one of the first genetic factors particularly common in Africans that has been shown to confer more susceptibility to HIV.”

Paradoxically, the research team noted that once people become infected, the Duffy-deficient variation actually prolongs survival. Again, this was noted in the U.S. military personnel population.

“This is a clinical cohort of people who have been followed for nearly 25 years,” said a senior lead author, Matthew J. Dolan, M.D., of the Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program, Uniformed Services University, in Bethesda, Md.

“The advantage is we have long-term follow-up, the population is ethnically balanced between European and African Americans, and everyone has had the same employer, health care and HIV medication access.”

Drs. Ahuja, He and Dolan; Hemant Kulkarni, M.D.; and other co-authors have published a series of papers on other genetic variations that play a role in HIV-AIDS susceptibility.

“The Duffy finding is another valuable piece in the puzzle of HIV-AIDS genetics,” Dr. Ahuja said.

Dr. Ahuja is a professor of medicine, microbiology, immunology and biochemistry at The University of Texas Health Science Center and director of the Veterans Administration Research Center for AIDS and HIV-1 Infection in the South Texas Veterans Health Care System. Drs. He and Kulkarni are members of the HIV/AIDS Center.

About the UT Health Science Center San Antonio:

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $576 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $15.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $35 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 23,000 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and allied health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, allied health, dentistry and many other fields. For more information, visit http://www.uthscsa.edu.

At Florida State University, the collective strength of biomedical research and the scientists who lead it has earned a $2 million High-End Instrumentation (HEI) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The one-year award will help FSU buy a state-of-the-art robotic electron microscope to advance cutting-edge studies of HIV/AIDS, heart disease, hypertension and cancer.

FSU will have $4.8 million in total funding after it matches the $2 million NIH award with $2.8 million from monies the university has set aside specifically to support research.

“Installing this groundbreaking technology will place us among the very top imaging centers in the world,” said FSU College of Arts and Sciences Dean Joseph Travis. He declared the competition “unbelievably tough” for HEI grants, which come from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a part of NIH that provides laboratory scientists and clinical researchers with the tools and training they need to understand, detect, treat and prevent a wide range of diseases.

For its $4.8 million investment, FSU will get a fully automated cryo-electron microscope that provides rapid, 3-D imaging of frozen specimens around-the-clock via remote operation, then transmits them over the Internet. In addition to significantly speeding the collection of crucial data, researchers in biology and chemistry at FSU and colleagues at other institutions will get unprecedented views of -- and 24/7 access to -- the intricate interactions of individual proteins and molecular machines within the living cells of complex biological structures.

“Currently, the world’s only working installation of this microscope is in Germany,” Travis said. “In the U.S., FSU will have one of only four. The others will be installed at NIH itself; the University of California-Berkeley; and the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research at the University of California-San Diego -- all acknowledged as the best in the nation for structural biology and structural biological imaging. FSU soon will have capabilities unmatched by all but a few institutions in the nation.”

Travis noted that it’s extremely rare to see an HEI grant, especially such a large one, awarded to a single group of investigators; typically awards of that type go to national centers or nationwide facilities serving multiple groups. “It’s quite a testament to the scientific ingenuity of the group that will comprise the instrument’s primary users, the importance of the work they do, and the commitment FSU has made to their research areas,” he said.

“Innovative biomedical research requires frequent access to the newest and most advanced technology,” said Barbara Alving, M.D., director of NCRR. “Such tools play key roles in the study of disease and the fundamental mechanisms of biological function, ultimately leading to new advances and treatments for diseases.”

Expected to stand 16 feet high and weigh 1.7 tons, the new microscope will serve as a crucial tool to the cadre of FSU scientists who will share it once required renovations to the building in which it will be housed are completed in 2009.

“This instrument will be cutting-edge in several ways,” said biological science Professor Kenneth Taylor, the principal investigator on FSU’s award-winning grant application.

“Not only is it robotic, collecting data continually without operation attention, in fact it can only be operated remotely,” Taylor said. “There’s no conventional ‘binocular’ for the user to view the image. What’s more, the microscope can be operated and the images viewed by anyone in the U.S. with high-speed Internet capability and the required, specially designed workstation.”

Five major FSU research projects helped secure the NIH-NCRR grant for 2008.

Among them is a cell adhesion study led by Taylor, a member of the unique interdisciplinary FSU Institute of Molecular Biophysics (http://www.sb.fsu.edu/), where the current research focus is structural biology. Taylor’s work is focused on integrin, a key adhesion/signaling protein, and is critical to a better understanding of why cancer cells don’t respond to the positional signals that encourage good behavior, and instead, wander away to colonize other tissues (metastasis).

The other four collaborating scientists and their winning research include:

*Professor Kenneth Roux (Department of Biological Science), who uses electron microscopy to analyze AIDS virus envelope (Env) proteins, several of which are being considered as vaccine candidates. The work supports the design of neutralizing antibodies and other disease treatments.

*Professor Thomas Roberts (Department of Biological Science), who studies the biophysics and cell biology of crawling motion by amoeboid cells and the structure of certain proteins crucial to that process.

*Assistant Professor Scott Stagg (Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; member, FSU Institute of Molecular Biophysics) who studies the three-dimensional structures of large biological molecules that play a key role in transporting proteins and fats from the inside of the cell to the outside. Disrupting these functions can cause cell death or one of several diseases.

*Former FSU Professor Dr. Michael Chapman (Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry). Now at Oregon Health Sciences University, he’ll use the new microscope remotely for research begun at FSU on the structure of the Adeno Associated Virus -- which has potential for use in gene therapy.

In addition, the grant application highlighted relevant research by FSU Francis Eppes Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Sir Harold W. Kroto, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; and Professor Geoffrey F. Strouse, a member of the Department of Chemistry and the Institute of Molecular Biophysics.

*In the emerging fields of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Kroto and colleagues in Germany and Mexico have shown that nanotubes can grow by carbon migration through a metal catalyst and segregate in much the same way that a skin forms on a surface. They will use FSU’s new microscope to help develop novel ways to control the morphology of nanoscale structures.

*Strouse designs biomedical drug therapies combining nanoscience technology and biology’s natural machinery to personalize drug therapies to the individual patient. Using nanomaterial produced at FSU and 1,000 times smaller than a human hair, the technology may one day be used to treat genetic disorders such as heart disease, sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis.

“When it is installed next year, our new-generation cryo-electron microscope will complement the sophisticated imaging components FSU already has in place at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and in labs on its main campus, and should attract an enormous amount of attention from the rest of the country,” said FSU Vice President for Research Kirby Kemper. “As a result, we expect to draw even more of the nation’s best students to Florida State for some of the world’s best science research opportunities.”

For 2008, FSU (http://www.fsu.edu/) was one of 100 institutions that submitted applications to NCRR (http://www.ncrr.nih.gov) for an HEI grant and among the 20 that garnered one of the coveted awards, which ranged from nearly $851,000 to $2 million. For additional details on this year’s HEI awardees, visit http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/hei_2008. For more information about NIH, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, go to http://www.nih.gov.