The University of Chicago 2005 Annual Report

CHICAGO CHANGES THE WORLD THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 2005 ANNUAL REPORT A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT ur founding President, William bear on real data. Nor does it place limits on who Rainey Harper, famously remarked can have new ideas or about what. Here you will that we must remain “one in spirit, see that undergraduates at the University of if not necessarily in opinion.” The Chicago participate in that spirit every bit as much Ofollowing pages bear witness to that spirit, which as distinguished faculty, subjecting hard problems remains incomparably vigorous at the University to hard-headed thinking and changing the world in of Chicago. One might call it thinking otherwise. the process. Like the annual reports of other kinds of No university in the world exhibits such a spirit institutions and enterprises, this one includes some in such a concentrated form. It is what causes account of assets and liabilities in financial terms. every student who passes through this community, Alumni and friends of the University should take whether undergraduate or graduate, to be changed pleasure in the fact that, in those terms, the for life and to leave it with an intellectual University’s assets have increased through careful armament equal to unimagined challenges and stewardship and the generosity of many. But it opportunities. To return to the language of other is that spirit, as embodied in our people, that kinds of annual reports, this is the value-added constitutes our most important asset. The proposition of this enterprise. It is a kind of value following pages give a powerful account of that that society around the world needs as it has never spirit at work today. needed it before. That spirit does not recognize the boundaries between traditional academic disciplines, it does not admit that any problem is too hard or too complicated, and it does not let received opinion constrain it in the face of new ideas brought to Don Michael Randel, President President Don Michael Randel stands in the three-story atrium of the new Center for Integrative Science. The atrium is the structure’s central point of synthesis, the largest of many spaces in the center where scientific investigators can meet to exchange ideas. Not black or white— challenging assumptions about breast cancer “We were able to show that African women actually get a different disease than women of European ancestry.” —Olufunmilayo Falusi Olopade he results of the study were amazing: get the fastest growing and perhaps the deadliest the university of chicago Among one hundred young Nigerian form of breast cancer.” women with breast cancer, 80 percent These extraordinary insights contributed to 3 had the most aggressive form of the Olopade’s being named a 2005 MacArthur Tdisease. “I could hardly believe it,” says Fellow—an honor popularly known as the “genius Olufunmilayo Falusi Olopade, Professor in grant.” In the September announcement of Medicine and Director of the Center for Clinical Olopade’s selection, the John D. and Catherine T. Cancer Genetics at the University of Chicago MacArthur Foundation cited her work “translating Hospitals. “So we sampled another hundred findings on the molecular genetics of breast cancer women, then another and another. We looked at in African and African-American women into the tumors of four hundred women, and I kept innovative clinical practices in the United States seeing the same results, so finally I believed it.” and abroad. 2005 report annual The research, which compared women of “In bridging continents with her innovative African and European ancestry, showed that the research and service models,” the foundation tumors in African women were very different— continued, “Olopade is increasing the probability they were more likely to originate from basal-like of improved outcomes for millions of women of cells than from the milk-secreting cells in the African heritage at risk for cancer.” breast, they did not depend on estrogen for growth, and they were unresponsive to drugs such The root of the problem as tamoxifen. Although in the United States it has long been “We were able to show that African women known that young black women are much more actually get a different disease than women of likely to get breast cancer and to die from it than European ancestry,” says Olopade. “While most white women, the inequity is often blamed on white women get slow-growing breast cancers, such environmental factors as poverty or lack of African and African-American women more often access to health care. Olopade’s team and their The Cancer Risk Clinic at the University of Chicago Hospitals—directed by Olufunmilayo F. Olopade— identifies and cares for individuals and families who have an increased risk of cancer. Here research program manager Dawn Elliott meets with a participant in Olopade’s study of the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to breast cancer. the university of chicago 4 colleagues at the University of Calabar in Nigeria mammograms. But for women with the most and the University of North Carolina overturned aggressive form of breast cancer, beginning this idea by discovering that nature plays a very mammography at age forty—the standard significant role in determining who gets breast recommended practice in the United States—is far cancer and who survives. The team also challenged too late. Physicians need to rethink how soon and two other long-held assumptions: that breast how often to screen women at risk for the most cancer is one disease—it may well be five or six, aggressive forms of breast cancer, she says. In her Olopade believes—and that researchers should not Cancer Risk Clinic at the University of Chicago annual report 2005 report annual look at black women and white women differently— Hospitals, high-risk women and their daughters in fact, black women experience breast cancer so begin annual mammograms at age twenty-five, differently that they must have new methods of plus they are screened every six months with both prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging. “We’ve thrown out assumptions and gone to the roots of the problem, literally,” Olopade says. Thinking differently “Now that we know why some women are so much Olopade, who grew up in Nigeria, was a more likely to get breast cancer, we can do some- postdoctoral fellow at Chicago when she became thing about it.” interested in genetics. “One of the first things I The implications of the team’s discovery for learned about Chicago is that you’re expected to health care practices are enormous, Olopade says. think differently and not accept the conventional For example, white women in the United States wisdom,” she says. “Genetics seemed to offer a tend to get breast cancer in their fifties and sixties, great number of new answers to many of the and their tumors are more easily detected by questions I was interested in.” Olufunmilayo F. Olopade is driving research that can lead to improved treatment outcomes for millions of women of African heritage at risk for breast cancer. At left are two examples of highly invasive breast carcinomas that are more likely to produce poor outcomes. Hundreds of these tissue samples are analyzed at a time in the lab by the tissue microarrayer (top). the university of chicago 5 One year, returning to Nigeria for Christmas, she social) factors that contribute to breast cancer and found herself spending a lot of time talking with and to differences in its incidence and nature among teaching African physicians about breast cancer. “If black and white women. She and her team are now you come from the University of Chicago, that’s developing ways to detect these cancers earlier and what you do—you teach,” she says. “You can’t help creating an integrated breast cancer program for it; it stems from the spirit of inquiry you find here women at risk. among faculty and students alike, with everybody “Most researchers are afraid to engage the learning from each other.” It was on that trip that community in research about genetics and race,” Olopade observed that the Nigerian physicians says Olopade. “But I don’t see this as a question of 2005 report annual seemed to be treating a different kind of disease. black or white but rather a question of genetics— “That’s what started this whole project,” she says. what genes are common to what groups. In Olopade’s work exploring differences in breast Chicago, we can have that conversation because of cancer among black and white women is the first the incredible diversity of the community. project of the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Everyone understands that my interest in this Disparities Research based at the University’s research is to find cures for everybody.” Institute for Mind & Biology. The center, one of Coming full circle back to Olopade’s homeland, eight in the United States funded by the National the University is now partnering with Nigeria’s Cancer Institute, was established to understand University of Ibadan to establish a modern and eliminate health differences among pathology laboratory. This is the first laboratory in populations. Olopade is one of four principal a sub-Saharan African country (other than South investigators working to sort out all the genetic Africa) that can detect the kind of cancer women and environmental (lifestyle, socioeconomic, and have and diagnose it early. “TALK IS CHEAP, SO LET’S DEBATE” RICHARD A. EPSTEIN V. THE WORLD AT LARGE (AND HAPPILY SO) “The single best way to deal with people who hold fundamentally different views is not to be apologetic about your opinions, but to go right after them.”—Richard A.

Load more