FALL 2020 Confronting SARS-CoV-2 of theCOVID-19 pandemic meet theunprecedented challenges Researchers, cliniciansandtrainees SCIENCES DIVISION BIOLOGICAL OF THE UNIVERSITY

Dean’s Letter The University ofChicago Executive Vice President for BiologyandMedicine and thePritzker SchoolofMedicine Dean oftheBiologicalSciences Division The Richard T. Crane Distinguished Service Professor Kenneth S.Polonsky, MD COVID-19 orSARS-CoV-2. articles that have studied published about200journal physicians andscientists have University ofChicagoMedicine Since thepandemicbegan,

L of course student, satdown foradeepandthought-provoking conversation (ACGME), andCourtneyAmegashie, athird-year Pritzker SchoolofMedicine Officer forthe Accreditation Councilfor Graduate MedicalEducation a publichealthcrisisinQ&AthatbeginsonPage 12. the University ofChicagoMedicine’s Urban Health Initiative, discussracism as Translational Research, andBrenda Battle, BSN, MBA, RN, Vice President of Monica Peek, MD, MPH,AssociateDirector oftheChicagoCenterforDiabetes systemic racism, whichthreatens thehealthofourpatientsandcommunities. Chicago healthorganizations inissuingapublichealth calltoactionend communities. Inthesummerof2020, UChicago joinedwith35other as clinicaltrials, contacttracing andepidemiology. story whoplayed key roles inaspectsofourCOVID-19 response insuchareas six BiologicalSciencesDivisionfacultymembersprofiled inthisissue’s cover Associate Professor intheDepartmentofEcologyandEvolution. Sheisoneof improve treatment and,ultimately, develop avaccine. work tirelessly tobetterunderstand thenovel coronavirus, control thespread, unique toourinstitution, ascliniciansandscientists throughout thecountry SARS-CoV-2 sincethepandemicbegan.Thisextraordinary productivity isnot alone have publishedmore than200journalarticlesrelated toCOVID-19 and Dear Colleagues, Dear Colleagues, health, andallthebest intheyear ahead. families sustain you inthischallengingtime. Iwishyou andyour familiesgood contributions thatyou are makingtothehealthof your patientsandtheir patient care, research andmedicaleducationare vital.Ihopetheimportant a difficultwinter. Asclinicians, scientists and trainees,to yourcontributions formerly housedasteel mill. Side toseethenatural beautyandabundantplantlifethat exists onlandthat In astory thatbeginsonPage 26, shetakes usonalakefront touroftheSouth is anurbanecologist andexpert ontheflora andfaunaoftheCalumet Region. solace. University ofChicagofacultymemberAlisonAnastasio, SM’05, PhD’09, professional lives, spendingtimeinnature canberestorative andprovide watch thefullconversation online.) The story isonPage 8. (You may visitmbsaa.uchicago.edu/WilliamMcDade to William McDade, PhD’88, MD’90, ChiefDiversity, EquityandInclusion Tragically, COVID-19 hastaken adisproportionate tollinBlackandbrown “We have amoral obligationtodothiswork,” saidSarah Cobey, PhD, Pandemic fatigueisreal, andthere isnoquestion thatwe are likely facing As we copewiththeways thepandemichasupendedourpersonaland

ooking backat10monthsoftheCOVID-19 pandemic,it’s remarkable a shorttime. University ofChicagoMedicine physicians andscientists how muchthemedicalandscientificcommunityhasaccomplishedin — on advancing diversity, equityandinclusioninmedicaleducation. — via Zoom, via Zoom,

IN THIS ISSUE

COVER STORY

Meeting COVID-19 head-on 16 Volume 73, No. 2 Fall 2020 The Medicine’s multidisciplinary response to the pandemic A publication of the University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences Division. spans clinical care, research and community outreach. The cover story profi les Medicine on the Midway is published for friends, alumni and faculty of the six physicians and scientists — in fi elds such as , surgery and public University of Chicago Medicine, Biological health — and how they stepped up during this extraordinary time. Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine. Email us at [email protected] Write us at Editor, Medicine on the Midway The University of Chicago Medicine 950 E. 61st St., WSSC 322 A. Murat Eren, PhD Chicago, IL 60637 The University of Chicago Pritzker School 4 of Medicine and Biological Sciences Executive Leadership Kenneth S. Polonsky, MD, Richard T. Crane Distinguished Service Professor, Dean of the University of Chicago Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine, and Executive Vice President for and Medicine for the University of Chicago T. Conrad Gilliam, PhD, Marjorie I. and Bernard A. Mitchell Distinguished Service Professor, Dean for Basic Science, Biological Sciences Division Thomas E. Jackiewicz, President of the University of Chicago Medical Center 32 Halina Brukner, MD, Dean for Medical Education, Pritzker School of Medicine Chin-Tu Chen, PhD'86 Editorial Committee Chair Jeanne Farnan, AB’98, MD’02, MHPE Chris V. Albanis, AB’96, MD’00 Dana Lindsay, MD’92 Robert Mitchum, PhD’07 Coleman R. Seskind, AB’55, SB’56, MD’59, SM’59 (Lifetime Member) Abby Stayart, AB’97, PhD’12 Carol A. Westbrook, AB’72, PhD’77, MD’78 FEATURES 26 Student Representatives Shira Fishbach, LAB’13, AB’17 (Pritzker) Helen Wei (Pritzker) James Zhang (Pritzker) Tiny life Jessica Morgan (BSD) lessons 4 Alexandra Smith (BSD) A. Murat Eren, PhD, University of Chicago Medicine Marketing and Communications teaches microbial ’omics Anna Madrzyk, Editor to a class of thousands. Gretchen Rubin, Associate Editor 8 Editorial Contributors Courtney Amegashie, MS3, and William McDade, PhD’88, MD’90 Emily Ayshford Ellen McGrew Alumni Jamie Bartosch Meghan O’Connell 7 Stephan Benzkofer Angela Wells profi le Alison Caldwell, PhD O’Connor Paleobiologist Lauren DEPARTMENTS Kate Dohner Sarah Richards Sallan, SM’09, PhD’12, Urban Ashley Heher Gretchen Rubin communicates the Midway News Pritzker News Louise Lerner Elise Wachspress aesthetics 26 Tiha M. Long, PhD Lorna Wong dynamic nature of Tom Jackiewicz Students reach out to extinction. Exploring Chicago’s Photo Contributors ecosytems with Alison takes the helm at Chinese community Tony Chiappetta University of Chicago Anastasio, SM’05, PhD’09. UChicago Medicine 2 during COVID-19 38 Andrew Collings Photographic Diversity Jessika Fuessel Archive, Special BSD News 2020 Schweitzer Jean Lachat Collections dialogue 8 Fellows 38 Anne Ryan Research Center, The era Faculty honors and A physician and a Joe Sterbenc University of awards 36 AAMC honors Nancy Wong Chicago Library medical student nuclear of curricular innovation 39 John Zich compare experiences medicine 32 BSD alum awarded Design with equity and UChicago’s role in MacArthur Fellowship 37 Your News 41 Wilkinson Design inclusion. advancing nuclear science Cover Illustration In Memoriam 43 Richard Paul for medical use.

1 UCHICAGO MEDICINE Tom Jackiewicz named UChicago Medicine President and COO

Midway News Midway change. During his almost nine-year tenure at Keck Medicine, he grew USC’s medical enterprise from two for-profit hospitals to a $2.1 billion regional academic health system with internationally renowned physicians, care quality in the top quar- tile in the country and strong scientific research capabilities. Under his leadership, Keck Medical PHOTO COURTESY OF KECK MEDICINE OF KECK COURTESY PHOTO Center of USC was ranked No. 16 on the U.S. News & World Report 2019-20 Best Hospitals Honor Roll, and Keck Hospital of USC achieved Magnet recognition in 2018, the highest national honor for excellence in nursing and patient care. Jackiewicz previously served in leadership roles in both medical schools and academic health systems at the University of California, San Diego, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University School of Medicine and Columbia University Medical Center. He is the former president of Global Health Tom Jackiewicz Data @ Work, which uses data, medical evidence, om Jackiewicz joined the University of and professional insights from the world’s best Chicago Medicine in August as the President healthcare systems to promote more timely, of the University of Chicago Medical Center T equitable and effective patient care globally. He is and Chief Operating Officer of the UChicago a former board member of the California Hospital Medicine health system. Previously, he served as Association, the University HealthSystem chief executive officer for Keck Medicine of the Consortium (now Vizient), and a former member University of Southern California and a senior vice of the Association of American Medical Colleges president for USC. (AAMC) Advisory Panel on Health Care and national He succeeds Sharon O’Keefe, who retired in July. chair of the AAMC Group on Business Affairs. His career has focused on executing ambitious He emerged as the top candidate in a competitive and broad transformations in academic medicine national search because of his deep knowledge and engaging physician leaders in organizational of academic medicine and experience with the tripartite mission of research, clinical care and medical education. “ I’ve admired UChicago Medicine and its pioneering approach “Tom is the right leader to succeed Sharon and to advancing clinical care through scientific research, and for help us continue the University of Chicago’s legacy of advancing the forefront of medicine through out- educating the next generation of physicians and scientists.” standing patient-centered clinical care, scientific discovery and innovation, and continued growth Tom Jackiewicz as an academic health system,” said Kenneth S. Polonsky, MD, Dean and Executive Vice President for Biology and Medicine at the University of Chicago and President of the UChicago Medicine health system.

2 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION Sharon O’Keefe leaves ‘rich and Faculty elected to National Academy of Medicine meaningful legacy’ University of Chicago faculty members Melody Swartz, PhD, and Holly J. Humphrey, MD’83, have been elected members haron O’Keefe retired in July as President of of the National Academy of Medicine — one of the highest the University of Chicago Medical Center, after Sa distinguished 46-year career in academic honors in the field. medicine. O’Keefe also served as Chief Operating Officer of the University of Chicago Medicine Swartz, William B. Ogden health system. Professor of Molecular During her 9 ½-year tenure at UChicago Engineering at the Pritzker Medicine, O’Keefe’s focus on improving the quality, School of Molecular safety and experience of clinical services resulted Engineering, was honored for in 17 consecutive “A” grades for hospital safety from “pioneering contributions” the industry watchdog Leapfrog Group. And in to the fields of lymphatic physiology, research 2018, the medical center received the prestigious and immunotherapy. She Magnet Recognition holds a joint appointment from the American in the Ben May Department Nurses Credentialing Melody Swartz, PhD for Cancer Research and is Center for excellence co-founder of the Chicago in nursing and patient Immunoengineering care. Innovation Center. Under her leadership, UChicago Medicine Humphrey, Ralph W. Gerard opened the 1.2 million- Emeritus Professor in square-foot Center for Medicine and President Care and Discovery; of the Josiah Macy Jr. acquired and integrated Foundation, was recognized the Ingalls Memorial Sharon O’Keefe for “transforming medical community health education learning environ- system; expanded outside of Hyde Park with the ments by creating cultures opening of ambulatory centers in Orland Park, the of equity, diversity and South Loop and River East; and opened a larger belonging that prepare future adult emergency department with a Level 1 Adult health professionals to care for diverse populations and Trauma Center. Holly J. Humphrey, MD’83 address social determinants “Sharon has had a profound impact on UChicago of health.” She was Dean for Medicine and is leaving a rich and meaningful Medical Education for the legacy,” said Kenneth S. Polonsky, MD, Dean and University of Chicago Pritzker Executive Vice President for Biology and Medicine School of Medicine from at the University of Chicago and President of the 2003 to 2018. UChicago Medicine health system. “She has been a superb clinical and organizational leader, driven by a passion to provide superior patient care and an ability to work effectively with physicians, nurses, other healthcare professionals and other members of our staff.”

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 3 Microbial ’omics for the masses

How an engaging young scientist’s ‘little course online’ wound up captivating even beginners from around the globe

BY ELISE So what would an Alexander Hamilton-type school in Ankara. After seeing his first computer WACHSPRESS dropped into the computer age look like? game, he decided a career as a computer engineer Maybe something like A. Murat Eren, PhD, better would allow him to play games his entire life. His known as Meren. undergraduate education at a poor university pro- From a boyhood in the Barhal Valley of moun- vided no access to cutting-edge tools, so he taught tainous northeastern Turkey to the University of himself the open-source Linux operating system Chicago, this young scientist has become a leading and serendipitously stumbled upon cryptography, proselytizer about the immense impact of microbes learning English from the few textbooks he could on our bodies and the environments we share. He is find on the subject. engaging people around the globe in ideas that stand Cryptography landed him at the Turkish National to turn the world of microbiology upside down. Research Institute, developing a new Linux-based His journey — as unlikely as A-dot-Ham’s and operating system. On a whim, he followed a friend to fueled by the same kind of restless intelligence, the U.S. with the plan of becoming a photographer, enthusiasm and energy — is inspiring a new genera- but his poor English made that impossible. To pay tion of scientists. the bills, he started a PhD in computer science, but Meren moved away from his family at 15 for high was fired from his PI’s lab during his third year for

4 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION TEAM MICROBIAL ’OMICS

his rebellious attitude. A chance meeting with a Iva Veseli microbiologist who needed a programmer landed Third-year graduate student in the Graduate Program in him a new placement. Biophysical Sciences; her interdisciplinary research spans the It was there that Meren fell in love with the tiny labs of Meren and Bana Jabri, MD, PhD. creatures that preceded us on Earth by billions of “Knowledge is power. We at the University of Chicago and years and populate every known environment on the other prestigious institutions are privileged to have many planet — including our bodies. In the trillions of opportunities and structures for our research. It’s easy to microbes with which we share the world, Meren had forget that science doesn’t always go so smoothly elsewhere. By making this series open and accessible, we are helping found an estimable target for his computational lens. to reduce that gap. The most inspiring part was seeing Through many more unlikely travels and adven- how many people from all over tuned in. In the midst of the tures, that love has stuck. One crystalizing event global pandemic and other worldwide issues, scientists and was a somewhat chance meeting with the legendary nonscientists from all backgrounds and stages of their careers microbial pioneer Mitch Sogin, PhD. Impressed and education joined us every week to listen, learn, ask by the confi dence and chutzpah demonstrated questions and help each other.” by Meren’s peripatetic youth, Sogin off ered him a job at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Emily Fogarty Hole, Massachusetts, and the past became just Fourth-year graduate student in the Committee on the prologue. Microbiology; her research focuses on mobile genetic elements in the human gut. Today, Meren is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine and Committee on “People were excited to learn more about ’omics approaches Microbiology at the University of Chicago, a Marine and seemed grateful for the course. In graduate school, we learn so much by osmosis from the people around Biological Laboratory Fellow and recipient of the us. It was thrilling to see how quickly people with little 2021 American Society for Microbiology Award for or no background in microbial ’omics were able to grasp Early Career Environmental Research. complicated techniques. I was particularly impressed by the And he is spreading his passion for microbes to the questions I received from undergraduate students in the farthest corners of the earth. course, demonstrating how much they had learned over the “I thought it would be nice to off er a little course six weeks.” online about microbes and the computational ways Andrea Watson to study them,” Meren said. He envisioned free classes, delivered over the Internet, that explained Fifth-year graduate student in the Committee on microbial ’omics — genomics, metagenomics, phy- Microbiology; her research focuses on bacterial colonization of the human gut. logenomics, etc. — for beginners. The course would be an interactive and breezy introduction to the “Working in the Meren Lab has been an amazing opportunity to combine computational and statistical methods with my “key concepts and strategies that enable us to study background in more traditional microbiology. It has been the ecology, evolution and functioning of naturally particularly exciting to use these approaches to try to unwind occurring microbial populations.” what it takes for microbes to colonize the human gut and to But when someone with 46,000 Twitter followers see how subtle genetic variations can have such a large eff ect off ers “a little course online,” it soon becomes a on colonization outcomes. It has been so rewarding to pass on gigantic project. Within 24 hours, over 2,000 had some of what I’ve learned to others.” registered for the six-week course, from every Jessica Pan continent but Antarctica — people from Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Macedonia, even tiny Réunion Island, Rising fi rst-year student at the Massachusetts Institute of east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. There Technology, whom Andrea describes as “the most impressive high school student I’ve ever met.” were registrants from time zones around the clock, for whom English was likely a third or even “This was incredible outreach, the sort of project that exemplifi es what UChicago can do for science education. The fourth language. The complications seemed to be methods in this course have the potential to revolutionize snowballing out of control. our understanding of environmental ecology, the human Luckily, Meren had an army of colleagues and microbiome and phylogeny — nothing like what I was taught students also captivated by the idea and ready to in high school biology. Honestly, I might recommend them to help. The fi rst order of business was just to fi nd the professor of my biology classes.” someone who could send several thousand emails at

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 5 once without landing them in past summer, adopted. She volunteered to transcribe everyone’s spam — that alone every word of the classes into subtitles, to help took several days and three participants for whom English was a struggle — and companies. there were many. Then there was the Others facilitated in multiple ways. Some provided problem with Zoom. short presentations on specifi c subjects: Jessica Though the pandemic now Mark Welch, PhD, from the Marine Biological had everyone familiar with Laboratory, on microbial interactions; Roland the technology, Meren’s Hatzenpichler, PhD, at Montana State University, on account was limited to the limitations of genetic sequencing alone; and 500 participants. The Mike Lee, PhD, of NASA’s Ames Research Center, on team was determined phylogenomics. Others assisted by weighing in on to make the sessions questions posed on the chat (often by participants interactive; in fact, they who were well past the “beginner” stage) and citing decided the classes would be structured with an the papers that could help the questioner. hour presentation followed by 45 minutes of Q&A. When it became clear that undergraduates might And the fi rst hour must allow for both live chat and be intimidated by the expertise refl ected in the the ability to unmute for questions in real time, to chats, Watson, Fogarty and Veseli volunteered to run make sure no one was left behind during the presen- an hour-long session before each class to help the tations. How would they manage this with more than college students get their “sea legs” on the subject, so PHOTO BY JESSIKA FUESSEL 500 people? Hosting to speak. the class in parallel on This writer listened to every word of all six YouTube meant they classes and found them amazingly understandable — could accommodate charming, actually — for a lay audience. In fact, I more people and make would put a 12-year-old in front of class No. 1. If you the lectures public for didn’t fi nd microbes fascinating after that fi rst hour, posterity. you might want to check your imagination-o-meter. The dual enterprise But the microbial ’omics team believes in data, took a village. Graduate not anecdotal responses. They wasted no time in student Iva Veseli (see surveying participants and analyzing feedback. Page 5) stepped up to Over 99 percent found the class useful. Many cited moderate the chat on the clever, hand-drawn diagrams and illustrations, Zoom. She would watch which really clarifi ed the content. Others noted carefully for questions the “lucidity of the creative analogies.” Nearly all that called for clarifi - articulated appreciation for the opportunity to get The professor confers with cation in order to understand the next concepts and questions answered in real time and the incredible Kiki Füßel, offi cial “mood then break in at opportune moments for Meren or responsiveness of the chat moderators. Participants regulator” for the Meren Lab. others to answer. Emily Fogarty, another graduate noted “the consideration put into making the student, would do the same on YouTube. Andrea seminars accessible to diff erent backgrounds, levels, Watson became the interface between the two: language backgrounds, etc.” that “helped a beginner She volleyed questions back and forth using Slack understand what is going on behind all the fancy and compiled them into the YouTube comments, words in ’omics papers.” which, to the easily distracted, seems like a job from For Meren, the “polymath, pain-in-the-ass” icono- hell. “There were a lot of windows open,” Watson clast, the entire enterprise was immensely gratifying. admitted, “but we wanted to integrate and document No Hamiltonian duels, not even verbal duels. Just the questions so people could review things they did a revolutionary exercise in how a team that works not understand at fi rst.” together can bring people from around the world Even more tedious was the job Jessica Pan, a rising together and into the most complex science. freshman at MIT who worked in the Meren Lab this

Revisit the entire course on YouTube: merenlab.org/momics-2020

6 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION ALUMNI PROFILE Next-generation paleobiologist

Lauren Sallan, SM’09, PhD’12, explains what BY KATE DOHNER paleontology can teach us about our world today

PHOTO BY JOE STERBENC rowing up in Chicago, Lauren Sallan Will something like it come back if it is was a self-described “dinosaur- eliminated?” Sallan explained. Gobsessed kid” who regularly visited For example, she notes that “polar bears” the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium. probably evolved from other bears multiple At age 8, she attended a talk by University times over various ice ages and are likely to of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno, PhD. appear again, even if current polar bears go Many kids go through a dinosaur phase. extinct. By contrast, lungfishes, which have But Sallan, SM’09, PhD’12, would go on to had low diversity for hundreds of millions pursue graduate studies in paleontology at of years and are only distantly related to the University. There, she found a deeply other fishes, are unlikely to come back. intellectual, supportive environment. With her experience as a TED Senior “The faculty not only provide you with Fellow, Sallan is a master of communicating a broad knowledge base, they encourage her work to the general public. Her you to take ownership of your work and TED Talks on surviving mass extinction, become a leading expert,” Sallan said. “I paleontology and fish form have received think that is why paleontology graduates over three million views. from UChicago are working around “Going through that high-pressure the world.” Lauren Sallan, SM’09, PhD’12, received the experience is amazing because it teaches Today, as the Martin Meyerson Assistant Distinguished Service Award for Early you how to deliver your ideas in their most Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies at the Achievement in 2018 from the UChicago Medical distilled form,” Sallan said. University of Pennsylvania, Sallan pushes & Biological Sciences Alumni Association. Sallan’s advice for other scientists who her students to identify gaps in knowledge seek to communicate their work in a more and develop questions that will drive them “I think that balance helps improve your accessible way? for the rest of their careers. work,” Sallan said. “In my experience, you “Remember what drew you to the field need downtime — time spent with family, in the first place, and then try out different traveling or doing hobbies — to come up approaches of explaining concepts to “Scientific research is meant to with ideas and connections that may not nonacademics,” she said. “Until your be a social endeavor, which have been apparent otherwise.” audience understands the basics, they requires constructive feedback According to Sallan, paleontology can cannot understand the nuance.” teach us a lot about our world today. and differing viewpoints.” Watch the full interview with Lauren Sallan “We often think of as static,” mbsaa.uchicago.edu/LaurenSallan Lauren Sallan, SM’09, PhD’12 Sallan said. “But species go extinct all the time, and it’s not always caused by humans. “I think of myself as a facilitator in the Species might end up in a habitat that’s not same way that my advisor, Michael Coates, sustainable or get infected by a random PhD, was for me,” Sallan said. “I try to virus.” ask the most cogent questions to help my Sallan’s work can help us predict which students rise above the bar.” species are most threatened, understand In her lab, Sallan seeks to emulate the their significance and learn how to direct welcoming environment she found at our efforts based on that information. UChicago and support a healthy work-life “We can ask questions, such as: Does balance. this kind of animal evolve repeatedly?

See Lauren Sallan’s 2019 TED talk at ted.com/talks. uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 7 Breaking down barriers in medical education: A conversation

BY KATE DOHNER illiam McDade, PhD’88, MD’90, Chief in my entering class and did some research to see if Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer for there were other Black students who had completed Wthe Accreditation Council for Graduate the program. Although I was the first Black student Medical Education (ACGME), and Courtney to graduate from the MSTP, there were other Black Amegashie, a third-year student at the University MD-PhDs who graduated from the University in of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, reflect on the 1940s. Discovering that gave me some degree of their experiences and share their perspectives on comfort because it meant I wasn’t the very first. advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in medical Amegashie: In my class at Pritzker today, there education. are 14 Black students. When I walk into the class- Courtney Amegashie: How did you first become room, I feel fortunate because I am never the only interested in studying medicine at the University of Black student. Chicago? I also relate to your experience realizing that there William McDade: I grew up on Chicago’s South were other Black students who came before you. One Side. During the summer before my third year at day, when I was walking through Mitchell Hospital, DePaul University, I talked with Don Steiner, SM’56, I wondered when the first Black women graduated MD’56, a biochemist at the University of Chicago from Pritzker. I found their pictures in the class who discovered proinsulin. Dr. Steiner arranged a composites, and now I think about them whenever I Courtney Amegashie, MS3, meeting for me with Joseph Ceithaml, SB’37, PhD’41, walk through the hospital corridor. It’s so encourag- is the 2019 Valerie Bowman the dean of students, who recommended I pursue ing to think, “They did it, and I’m going to do it too.” Jarrett Scholar in Medical the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) and McDade: The University of Chicago is a special Education at the University take graduate courses during my senior year to help place. Very few African Americans had the of Chicago Pritzker School prepare for medical school. opportunity to pursue education at the PhD or MD of Medicine. She serves On a Saturday morning in April, I remember level early on. Pritzker matriculated its first class as class representative for the Identity and Inclusion getting a call from Dean Ceithaml telling me I’d been of students in 1927, and by 1932, the first African committee (i2i) and leads admitted to the MSTP. To be told I would have the American graduated — Dr. William Moses Jones. Stop the Bleed workshops to opportunity to pursue my education at UChicago The period when I started medical school train community members was really quite a thrill. coincided with a backlash against affirmative on the South Side in the Amegashie: Once you got to Pritzker, what was action, which motivated me to become involved in bystander management of your experience like? recruiting and admitting more minority students. life-threatening bleeding McDade: During the summer, we studied anat- Although there were other Black medical students wounds. Amegashie majored in philosophy, omy, and I took a course with Albert Dorfman, MD, in the classes ahead of me, including Doriane Miller, neuroscience and PhD, which was amazing because he was one of the psychology at Washington pillars of pediatric endocrinology. University in St. Louis, James Bowman, MD, who was the only “ In anesthesia, if you’re a Black resident, where she worked as African American faculty member at that time, an emergency medical you are 10 times more likely to be recommended I study sickle cell disease. He said technician and was a dismissed from your program compared peer mentor with TRIO, a there were very few African Americans with my program supporting first- background in chemistry and physics who could to a white resident. In internal medicine, generation and low-income do the structural work to understand the disease the risk is 12-fold, and in orthopaedic college students. at the molecular level. So I took his advice and had a wonderful experience in the lab working with surgery, it’s 31-fold.” Robert Josephs, PhD. William McDade, PhD’88, MD’90 Years after I completed my training, I reflected on the fact that I was the only African American student

8 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION William McDade, PhD’88, MD’90, is Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Prior to his role at ACGME, McDade served as Executive MD’83, Catherine Harth, MD’83, and John Ellis, care, it’s especially important to train those who are Vice President and Chief MD’82 — there were only a handful of us. going to practice in underserved areas, and the data Academic Officer for the I helped to recruit people like Otis Brawley, SB’81, shows that underrepresented minorities are more Ochsner Health System MD’85, who recently received the Distinguished likely to do so. The AAMC’s matriculation survey in New Orleans. He was Service Award from the American Medical found that 60 percent of first-year African American previously a professor of anesthesia and critical care Association, served as Chief Medical and Scientific medical students said they plan to work in under- at the University of Chicago Officer for the and is now served areas, compared to much lower percentages Medicine, where he also a distinguished faculty member at Johns Hopkins. among white and Asian students. So it’s important served as Deputy Provost When I returned to join the University of Chicago we develop a workforce that has a greater tendency for Research and Minority faculty, I joined the Pritzker admissions committee, to practice in underrepresented communities facing Issues, and Associate Dean which I served on for 17 years. the greatest burden of disparities. for Multicultural Affairs for the Pritzker School When I first joined the committee, we admitted 12 Amegashie: That makes sense. I imagine trust of Medicine. While at underrepresented minority students. By my last year, also plays a role when it comes to patients in under- UChicago, McDade founded we admitted 21. It was exciting to see the progress. served communities accessing care. the Bowman Society, a The best part was recruiting minority students like McDade: Yes, walls of mistrust have built up lecture series honoring you who were exceptional. The work being done by over centuries between African Americans and the the legacy of Dr. James the committee today is incredible. It’s a delight to medical establishment as a result of historical abuses, E. Bowman, which brings see that the efforts I was so invested in are not only including the controversial experiments Marion together the University community to focus continuing, but are improving. Sims did on enslaved women, the Tuskegee experi- attention on celebrating Amegashie: That’s wonderful. I understand that ment and the “Mississippi appendectomy.” excellence in research and you previously served as deputy provost for research Trust is tied to better outcomes. Owen Garrick, discovery, eliminating health and minority issues and associate dean for multicul- MD, and Marcella Alsan, MD, PhD, published a disparities and increasing tural affairs for Pritzker. Can you share more about paper in 2018 in which they found that, when a diversity in medicine. your experience in those roles? Black male patient was randomly assigned to a Black McDade: When I came on as associate dean, I physician, the patient talked more to the physician, learned that many of our minority students didn’t and the physician wrote longer notes compared to understand what health disparities were — even non-Black physicians. Black physicians were also though they may have been victims of a system that more successful in getting patients to agree to inva- allowed such disparities to persist. So we started sive testing. Patients in racially concordant pairings teaching students about health disparities. were also more likely to return for follow-up visits. While it’s important to train everyone on the elim- Their work also suggested that racially concordant ination of health disparities and culturally competent patient-provider relationships could reduce the

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 9 Watch the full conversation mbsaa.uchicago.edu/WilliamMcDade

McDade: We are working to ensure that residency programs have inclusive environments that support underrepresented students and that we remove barriers that may have caused minority residents not to be as successful. I’m applying my understanding of Kaplan-Meier survival curves to resident success, comparing the loss of minority residents during the course of their training to non-minority residents. When you look at the data, it breaks your heart because you see that minority residents could be lost at any stage. In anesthesia, if you’re a Black resident, you are 10 times more likely to be dismissed from your program compared to a white resident. In internal medicine, the risk is 12-fold, and in orthopaedic surgery, it’s 31-fold. gap between Blacks and whites in cardiovascular Amegashie: As a Black woman in medicine and a morbidity by nearly 20 percent and mortality by first-generation college student, I am so grateful for nearly 10 percent. the work you’re doing. As it pertains to diversity in Research also shows that minority physicians medical education, where would you say we are now, care for a disproportionate number of people in and where do you think we’re headed? minority communities. African American physicians McDade: We’re at the very beginning in have a 23-fold greater chance of caring for African graduate medical education; we’re still identifying American patients than white physicians. Within the problems. At the ACGME, we’re engaging in primary care, the odds increase to 40-fold. So con- reverse ideation — instead of thinking about deficits cordant racial patterns exist in practice in healthcare that the learner brings to medical education, already, even though we don’t tell patients which we’re examining how we, as a system, contribute doctor to see or physicians where to practice. to a learning environment that adversely impacts minority residents. Once we understand that, we can find ways to improve the environment to allow “When I walk into the classroom, I feel underrepresented residents to flourish. fortunate because I am never the only We’re also developing resources that graduate Black student.” medical education programs can use and are build- ing learning committees across the country, where Courtney Amegashie, MS3 people can apply these ideas at their institutions and identify ways to remove barriers. I’m also advocating for the creation of associate Most recently, a paper in the Proceedings of the or vice deans for diversity in graduate medical National Academy of Sciences showed that Black education. Most institutions don’t have a physician- newborns, who die at three times the rate of white leader focused on increasing diversity and working newborns when cared for by white physicians, are to establish inclusive learning environments for their more than twice as likely to survive when cared for graduate medical education programs. by Black doctors. At UChicago, you are fortunate because Anita Putting all of this together, it becomes apparent Blanchard, MD’90, is the ACGME’s designated that racially concordant relationships can save institutional official and works with us to set the Black lives. academic policy for programs as a member of the Amegashie: How has this translated to the work Review Committee for Obstetrics and Gynecology. you’re doing at the ACGME? She is one of only about 15 African American

10 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION Minorities have higher attrition rates in all phases of medical education.

Attrition rates for underrepresented minority students 15% Lotte Dyrbye, MD, MHPE, at Mayo Clinic found that victims of discrimination have an accelerated path to depression and burnout, leading to feelings Attrition rates for of apathy and hopelessness, diffi culty concentrating, non-underrepresented and poorer job performance. This can cause minority minority students 4% residents to receive poorer evaluations compared to their peers. That is why it is important that we recognize the biases in our learning environments Source: ACGME and take down barriers. Amegashie: That is huge. Dr. McDade, what do you think most people misunderstand when it comes to diversity and equity? designated institutional offi cials in the country out of McDade: I think the word diversity is problematic the 800 institutions ACGME accredits. because people want to argue about what it means. Amegashie: Why do you think minority residents I’ve adopted the Association of American Medical may not be as successful compared to their peers? Colleges’ defi nition, which includes all aspects of McDade: There are a number of studies that have human diff erences — from socioeconomic status to investigated this. Dowin Boatright, MD, and col- race and ethnicity to ability, gender identity, age and leagues at Yale examined the microaggressions that more. Diversity is however you wish to defi ne it in minority residents are subjected to in their programs your environment. However, what is critical to me is that, by increasing whichever aspect of diversity you set your goals upon, you positively impact health disparities in your community. The second misunderstanding is related to equity. Some people assume it means the same thing as equality. Equity is when you give people what they need in order to be successful. People who’ve been privileged with advantages in the past probably don’t need as much help as people who have suff ered continued disadvantages. It diff ers from equality, which implies that everyone should be treated the same way. Amegashie: I imagine we are thinking of the same image, where a group of people are watching a baseball game and trying to see over the fence. When everyone is given the same size box to stand on, that is equality, but still not everyone can see the game. By contrast, when each person is given a diff erent number of boxes to stand on, in accordance to their height, then they can all see the game — that is equity. McDade: Exactly. And you might recall that in the last picture, the fence is gone. You’ve removed and published this in JAMA Internal Medicine this the systemic barrier. That’s where we need to be year. He found that African American women are the when looking at our institutions, which are often the victims of more microaggressions and discrimination sources of the problems. than any other group, which may be the result of the Amegashie: I agree. Removing those structural intersectionality of race and gender. barriers represents the future.

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 11 Q&A: Racism as a crisis

BY ANGELA WELLS O’CONNOR race, color, national origin and ethnic You were both key to the effort that group. This experience is historically linked recently declared racism a public to discrimination or exclusion of groups health crisis. What is the link between that are vulnerable to health and healthcare racism and health? disparities. Monica Peek: Racism is a public health crisis because it is the underlying driver The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the Brenda Battle: The healthcare industry has played a signifi cant part in how for the vast majority of health disparities poor health outcomes and chronic disease communities have experienced health in the U.S. Structural racism — diff erential that disproportionately aff ect African disparities, whether from the lack of access, access to goods and services based on American and Latinx communities. bias in decisions that aff ect the lives of race — is made possible because of policies, patients or uncoordinated and fragmented laws, norms and systems that we have in To tackle issues of racial and health care delivery. place. Access to safe housing, clean water, inequities surrounding COVID-19 in When you consider what health violence-free neighborhoods, strong educational systems, employment oppor- Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot convened disparities refer to — diff erences in health between population groups — these refl ect tunities and, yes, healthcare, all diff er by the Racial Equity Rapid Response Team. diff erences in access and quality of care. race, with African Americans historically The team includes Brenda Battle, MBA, Our institutions have contributed to these and contemporarily having less access. And BSN, RN, Vice President of the University disparities, which has led to increased all of these factors impact the health and well-being of people and the communities of Chicago Medicine’s Urban Health burden of illness, injury or mortality in which they live. Initiative and Chief Diversity, Inclusion in our communities. These are public health issues. Take diabetes. I’ve spent much of my and Equity Offi cer, and Monica Peek, MD, What we know is that groups of people time studying diabetes and diabetes- MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine have systematically experienced greater related health disparities. People ask and Associate Director, Chicago Center for obstacles to health on the basis of their me: “Diabetes disparities, are they really caused by racism?” You have to think Diabetes Translational Research.

Through this response team, a group of 45 healthcare organizations declared racism a public health crisis in an open letter to the community published in June, and pledged JOHN ZICH BY PHOTO to adopt several measures to address inequities in healthcare.

Brenda Battle, MBA, BSN, RN, with participants of the I Grow Chicago youth program, based in the city’s South Side Englewood neighborhood, in November 2019. Through community development, workforce training and personal empowerment, I Grow Chicago works to address the root causes and traumatic eff ects of violence and poverty. The group has received grant funding for violence prevention and trauma resiliency through UChicago Medicine’s Urban Health Initiative, which Battle leads.

12 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION PHOTO BY NANCY WONG In her role as one of two inaugural Faculty Fellows in the Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence at the University of Chicago Medicine, Monica Peek, MD, MPH, explores how racial and cultural barriers impact physician-patient relations and shared decision-making. about the diff erences in environments in which people live that can promote or hinder health. Are there grocery stores, pharmacies, recreational spaces, peaceful places for refl ection, green space? Are there walking groups, diabetes education classes and a strong sense of social cohesion among neighbors? Is there a health system nearby where the healthcare team sees the humanity in all its patients, empowers them with tools to manage their diabetes, and gives equitable, high-quality care? If these things aren’t equally available for African Americans like they are for whites — and I will tell you that they are not — then disparities in diabetes outcomes the length of the telomeres and increase the individuals face? Beyond genetics, what will result. And so here we are. risk of diseases like cancer. other factors impact their ability to receive Battle: That’s right. Race in and of itself Again, using the chronic stress model, and access care? Do they have everything is a social construct that is associated with racism can also cause pathophysiological they need in their communities, homes and power and privilege, and it’s not biological. changes in the body. The chronic social systems to better manage their care? So racism is the social reality that people microstressors and microaggressions of What do we do as healthcare providers live in. It gets linked to how groups get discrimination and interpersonal racism — to understand our patients’ needs so that access to care, jobs, where they live in like being followed around in retail stores they are equipped to have optimal care and communities and the resources within while shopping, being treated by colleagues well-being? these communities. with disrespect and being pulled over by Without this understanding, we make To Monica’s point, the diseases that the police with no stated violation — aff ect assumptions, which can highlight implicit members of our communities live with are the ways in which our bodies function over bias. We don’t spend enough time asking not diseases that just aff ect these com- time. They cause dysregulation in what we the right questions that will lead to the munities. The question is, why do some call the hypopituitary adrenal axis, which right care for all of the communities communities experience these conditions regulates stress hormones, among other we serve. at a rate that is disparate to other commu- things, immune systems and autonomic Peek: I think that for physicians, nities? What are the root causes of these nervous systems. People exposed to chronic because we have taken a Hippocratic Oath, social realities? The root causes are often racism are more commonly in that “fi ght we fi nd it harder to believe that we have linked to years of structural and interper- or fl ight state” that our body has evolution- implicit biases that negatively impact our sonal racism. Realities such as years of arily reserved for true emergencies — like patients. But ironically, the clinical encoun- marginalization, lack of access to care, not being chased by a lion in the Serengeti. So ter is ripe for implicit bias taking place. being provided the same options for care as this is clearly not normal. Racism is altering We are most likely to rely on our implicit others, lack of knowledge, etc. people’s bodies and putting us at risk for biases in circumstances when there is time Peek: The thing about structural racism chronic disease. pressure, uncertainty, and when there is that it also aff ects health by getting is a high cognitive demand. All of these under the skin and changing people’s circumstances occur in clinical medicine. How does interpersonal racism physiology and genes. So while race is a As a result, as we have to be more aware contribute to the public health crisis? social construct, racism can aff ect an that our subconscious biases might be in individual’s biology. For example, there play and step back and say, “Here’s the are these little caps at the end of our Battle: In healthcare, there is often patient in front of me, am I seeing them in chromosomes called telomeres, and they’re a lack of in-depth understanding of the all of their humanity as they are, or am I protective. And chronic stressors, like living individuals we serve and take care of. being aff ected by my perceptions of who I with the eff ects of structural racism, reduce What are the social realities that these think they are?”

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 13 We have to look in the mirror and ask, testing and start doing contact tracing “Am I doing the best that I can for people across South Side communities. who look like me and also for people who Also, we just went through a process to don’t look like me, especially those who are develop a new equity plan that incorporates socially marginalized based on race, gender, what we’re talking about today, including class, ability or other factors?” improving workforce diversity and Battle: We need to train our providers investing in disease management programs AN EXERCISE IN in implicit bias. As part of an 18-hour in our community. The plan represents IMPLICIT BIAS course for cultural competence, UChicago a diff erent but needed approach and Medicine has provided training in implicit involves all levels of the organization — the bias to hundreds of staff members. That’s Biological Sciences Division, hospital and hrough UChicago Medicine’s Urban just a start. medical school. Health Initiative and its Offi ce of TDiversity, Inclusion and Equity, more We need to continue to create an aware- It’s important to look at all policies than 500 staff and faculty have participated ness that bias is an impediment to health through an equity lens and identify where in implicit bias training as part of an 18-hour outcomes and care delivery. And we need there are barriers to equity. Then we’ve got cultural competence course. to design our systems so that implicit bias to change by dismantling the systems that In one implicit bias exercise, the facilitator doesn’t impact how care gets delivered. create inequity — in access, in care delivery asks participants to visualize an individual, This is critical. and in how we look at outcomes. based on a short description. The facilitator Also, we need a more diverse workforce Peek: Healthcare providers can advocate then assigns additional characteristics to the that better represents the communities for the patients who are not getting equal imagined subject; participants are asked to we serve. When someone is from a certain care in the health systems where they note any changes in the image they see. community, they have an inherent under- work. That is happening every day in this standing of the needs and perspectives institution, in this city and around the FOR EXAMPLE, participants are asked to of people from that shared community. country. It is an uncomfortable truth, but imagine an African American woman. What Diverse representation of healthcare one we have to confront if we want to aff ect does she look like? What is she wearing? providers, leadership and staff can inform real change. Where does she live? How does she get around? the care delivery process in such a way that We must also think beyond the walls helps all providers understand the needs of of healthcare institutions if we want communities. Without diversity within our to improve the health of marginalized THE FACILITATOR THEN ADDS: Imagine she is an African American woman who is a workforce, we lose not only the knowledge, populations aff ected by racism. Right now, single mother. What does she look like? What but the diversity of thought and innovation I’m really interested in fi nding out what is she wearing? Where does she live? How that can enable us to be better providers interventions are eff ective in improving the does she get around? of care and services to our communities. health of people who have complex med- ical and social needs. There’s increasing recognition of the contribution of struc- NEXT: Imagine that she is an African How can healthcare providers address American woman, who is a single mother, and tural determinants and individual social disparities in our communities? is extremely wealthy. What does she look like? risks on health. Recently, the hospital began What is she wearing? Where does she live? including in electronic medical records How does she get around? Battle: We need to invest in healthcare information about housing instability, in our communities. This is especially domestic violence, food insecurity and What were the diff erences between your important on the South Side of Chicago, other factors that science has shown to be initial images and your fi nal images? Which where we’ve got hospitals closing and a loss correlated with chronic diseases. descriptions were more challenging to of critical services, like maternity care. We And as healthcare systems, we must do imagine and why? What did you learn about also need to advocate for federal and state more to address the upstream factors that yourself? How might bias aff ect our work and interactions with others? funding to enable better access to care. aff ect health outcomes. We have to begin At the medical center, we are making looking at investments in communities to these investments. This includes standing bolster food and housing security, quality up the Level 1 Adult Trauma Center in education, safe neighborhoods and employ- 2018 to address the trauma care desert on ment opportunities. That is where health the South Side. And, most recently with policy is headed and that is where our COVID-19, we’ve been able to expand patients have long needed us to be.

14 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION #GIVINGTUESDAY

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uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE@UC MIDWAYhic agFALLoMB 2020SAA15 COVID-19 RESPONSE Pivoting in a pandemic

As COVID-19 reached Chicago, these six physicians and scientists stepped up to fi ght the virus on diff erent fronts, leading innovative eff orts to understand, treat and slow transmission of the infectious disease.

CLINICAL TRIALS

Soon after thoracic surgeon She aligned all the stakeholders Maria Lucia Madariaga, MD, to create the “operational machine” arrived at the University of Chicago needed to start the trial. “Policy Medicine, elective surgery came to had to be made at the same time an abrupt halt. as things were getting done,” said Madariaga, who had recently Madariaga, who was granted completed her fellowship training “lightning fast” approval from the in Boston, had joined UChicago Institutional Review Board. Medicine to focus on patients This initial trial looked at the with lung, esophageal and airway feasibility and safety of procedures disease and to direct the organ for identifying donors, collecting perfusion laboratory. plasma donations and adminis- With all inpatient clinical activity tering transfusions. Madariaga on hold, she turned her attention shared clinical data with Mayo to launching a convalescent plasma Clinic, which had opened a large clinical trial for COVID-19 patients multicenter study. at the medical center. “We learned that convalescent Hospitals around the world, plasma is a safe treatment for including a handful in China and COVID-19 patients,” she said. “And the U.S., had begun testing the we have anecdotal evidence that potential treatment for the rapidly it works.” spreading disease. UChicago Medicine has joined “There was a big barrier to a national randomized controlled widespread study in this country study to determine if convalescent “COVID-19 has changed because convalescent plasma plasma decreases mortality treatment requires broad cross- and improves outcomes. One of the way we do science.” discipline collaboration,” she said. Madariaga’s colleagues has taken

Maria Lucia Madariaga, MD “At UChicago Medicine, we had over the lead. And she is back in the the necessary teams — Biological operating room. Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery Sciences Division, Blood Donation — Gretchen Rubin Center, Department of Medicine, Transplant Institute and Department of Surgery — under one roof.”

16 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION Watch Emily Landon, MD, discuss how we can build a defense against future outbreaks during the next five years at news.uchicago.edu/videos/ covid-2025-facing-threat-future-pandemics- emily-landon.

“This virus is unforgiving.”

Emily Landon, MD Associate Professor, Department of Medicine EPIDEMIOLOGY

In early January, Emily Landon, educational videos and speaking at Her remarks went viral, cement- MD, was on high alert. The town halls to prepare healthcare ing her role as the state’s most infectious diseases specialist at the workers for what was ahead. prominent infectious disease voice. University of Chicago Medicine One morning, while her son Today, she consults with was talking with colleagues around watched a nature show, she spotted everyone from governors to the world about a mysterious half-face respirators worn by symphony conductors, often from illness. researchers in a jungle. Realizing the safety of her living room as she By the end of the month, her they’d be both comfortable and works remotely. She continuously tone was dire. protective, Landon grabbed a reminds people to wear masks, “A new virus, which everyone screen shot for the UChicago wash their hands and practice is susceptible to, can be very, very Medicine supply chain team. The social distancing. deadly, and it can spread very, very masks were ordered in bulk. As the pandemic persists, quickly,” she said on January 24, In March, she appeared with Landon hopes lessons learned the same day Chicago’s first case Gov. J. B. Pritzker when he during the early months will help was reported. “We absolutely need announced Illinois’ stay-at-home us safely navigate to the end. to be prepared.” order. “I hope the summer of 2021 Landon and her team spent the “This virus is unforgiving,” looks more like the summer of early months of the COVID-19 Landon said during the press 2019 and less like the summer of pandemic working around the conference. “Without drastic 2020,” she said. “But to do that, clock, leading personal protective measures, the healthy and it’s going to require us all to work equipment trainings, developing optimistic among us will doom hard, follow rules and change treatment plans, recording the vulnerable.” our behavior.” — Ashley Heher

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 17 “ We can move and shake

when we have to.” Rajlakshmi Krishnamurthy, MD, Health Centers and nursing homes. doesn’t like to sit on the sidelines. “Our pathology lab acquired PCR Rajlakshmi Krishnamurthy, MD As chief clinical transformation early on,” she said. “We needed to Associate Professor, Department of Medicine officer for the University of operationalize and support the test- Chicago Medicine, her role is to ing by creating protocols, setting up break down silos within the organi- orders, designing our testing site zation to improve care delivery. and acquiring the PPE.” “My goal is to get people to the From March until July, goal line by implementing and Krishnamurthy facilitated a daily executing to get things done,” she COVID testing status meeting on said. Her focus is on improving Zoom. Representatives from infec- pathways to medical care for high- tion control, infectious diseases, risk populations. pathology, nursing, administration, So, when UChicago Medicine information systems and phone needed to quickly stand up triage worked together to prioritize COVID-19 testing for employees and pivot as guidance from health and symptomatic high-risk patients authorities fluctuated and testing at the beginning of the pandemic, supplies ebbed and flowed. Krishnamurthy volunteered to lead “We had to move fast and the way. effectively,” Krishnamurthy said. She led a cross-disciplinary “COVID-19 forced all of us to team from the early days of limited think about why we allow barriers testing in Hyde Park, ramping up to get in the way of getting stuff capacity to offer testing to commu- done. Now our expectations have nity hospitals and ambulatory sites, changed.” which included Federally Qualified — Gretchen Rubin

TESTING

“By the time a patient’s COVID-19 test result comes back, transmissions may already have happened. We don’t wait for that test result; if it’s a high- prevalence area, we get contact tracing going.”

John Schneider, MD, MPH Professor, Departments of Medicine and Public Health Sciences CONTACT TRACING CONTACT

18 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION Epidemiologist Sarah Cobey, up most of the night working on PhD, spends her days awash in data these models,” she said. related to the number of people Before the coronavirus pan- in Illinois whose health has been demic, Cobey’s primary research impacted by COVID-19. focus was on the flu. Usually, she She is one of several University and her colleagues look at how of Chicago scientists, including our immune response shapes the researchers from Argonne National evolution and epidemiology of the Laboratory, supplying projections seasonal illness. to the Illinois and Chicago public Cobey hopes that drilling into health departments on how the the epidemiology of COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic is evolving. will reveal or confirm more about As a mathematical ecologist how respiratory viruses in general and evolutionary biologist, Cobey are transmitted. Take, for instance, provides this insight through how the coronavirus has spread so predictive models that help officials efficiently among people who work better understand complex aspects or live in crowded conditions. of the pandemic: how quickly “Crowdedness is one of the COVID-19 is spreading, how many major correlates of spread with people are seeking diagnostic tests, respiratory pathogens, and I think PREDICTIVE MODELING and how early surveillance of the that’s really coming home with disease could be improved. COVID-19,” she said. “I suspect that To do this work, she assembled a what we learn about COVID-19 will team of graduate students and post- help us manage a lot of different doctoral and assistant researchers, viruses — and that will be fabulous.” all working remotely on the data — Sarah Richards from their home offices. “Early on, members of my team were staying

“ We have a moral obligation to do this work.”

Sarah Cobey, PhD Associate Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolution

As an expert in how infectious In March, however, he wit- reassigned the clinic’s STI contact diseases spread in vulnerable nessed a different spark igniting tracers to investigate coronavirus populations, John Schneider, MD, in the clinic’s neighborhood: exposures. They were the first to MPH, does work akin to a forest SARS-CoV-2. perform COVID-19 contact tracing ranger perched in a watchtower, “We swabbed a patient who in Chicago. scanning for fires. had shortness of breath and a Since then, Schneider has A network epidemiologist cough, and they were positive for tweaked the program to best and the medical director of the COVID-19,” said Schneider. “We tackle the virus’ challenges. When Howard Brown Health 55th Street realized then that this was going to COVID-19 testing delays occur or community clinic in Hyde Park, be a big deal.” positivity rates are high, the team Schneider has spent years working A big deal that would need an begins contact tracing right away. with communities to reduce the agile response. When more of The team also worked to educate spread of sexually transmitted his clients tested positive for people on how COVID-19 spreads infections (STIs). COVID-19, Schneider temporarily continued on page 20 uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 19 continued from page 19 and to connect them with primary urban sites in the central U.S. testing patterns among under- care and social services. They’ll engage two disenfranchised served and vulnerable populations; Recently, Schneider and his populations: low-income Latinx strengthen the data on disparities colleagues at the Chicago Center individuals and people who have in infection rates, disease progres- for HIV Elimination were awarded been involved previously with the sion and outcomes; and develop $5 million over two years from criminal justice system, but are not strategies to reduce the disparities the National Institutes of Health currently incarcerated. in COVID-19 testing. to support a COVID-19 testing The goal of the project is to — Sarah Richards project across eight rural and better understand COVID-19

“ It’s time to shine a spotlight on what’s happening in nursing homes. It has to be a focal point of this COVID crisis.”

Tamara Konetzka, PhD Professor, Departments of Public Health Sciences and Medicine

COVID-19 hit nursing homes Making matters worse is a hard. That didn’t surprise Tamara flawed system that underfunds Konetzka, PhD, who has studied nursing homes that rely heavily on long-term care facilities for 25 Medicaid reimbursement. years. In May, she was called on “Facilities that rely on federal to bring her expertise to the halls aid the most — usually in minority of Congress. neighborhoods — actually lose A University of Chicago health money each year, leading to poor economist and health services staffing and no extra funds for researcher, Konetzka testified things like a pandemic response,” before the U.S. Senate Special she said. Committee on Aging on the high People shouldn’t be quick to rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths blame the nursing homes, she said. in nursing homes. When PPE and testing kits were in She told the senators about the short supply, hospitals received the research she and her team did supplies first. on 5,527 nursing homes in 12 Konetzka outlined short- and NURSING HOMES states, examining if nursing home long-term measures to reduce COVID-19 cases and deaths were the risks of COVID-19 in these related to quality of care. While no facilities. While calling for an meaningful relationship was seen immediate influx of resources to between quality and COVID-19 minimize transmission of the virus cases or deaths, the analysis and better infection control in the showed a strong and consistent facilities, she also recommended correlation with race. an overhaul of the funding system Nursing homes with the lowest for long-term facilities. percent of white residents were “Medicaid rates need to be twice as likely to have COVID-19 substantially higher to address cases or deaths than those with a our chronic underfunding of this high percentage of white residents, critical healthcare sector,” she said Konetza said. in her concluding remarks. — Jamie Bartosch

20 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION COVID-19 RESPONSE

Pritzker student challenges jailing practices, healthcare economics amid COVID-19

BY GRETCHEN RUBIN AND LOUISE LERNER

hroughout the COVID-19 pandemic, “This was the fi rst empirical study coronavirus has spread quickly showing that American policing practices Tthrough American jails and prisons — pose an enormous public health risk during including in Chicago’s Cook County Jail, the pandemic,” Reinhart said. “As arrested which early on became a hotspot. Though individuals were processed, the criminal advocates argued for changes in release justice system was multiplying COVID-19 policy to mitigate the spread, research cases and turning detainees into potential Eric Reinhart, MS4, is an MD candidate at the University of Chicago, PhD candidate in from Pritzker School of Medicine student disease vectors for their families, neigh- anthropology at and a Eric Reinhart, MS4, indicated such bors, and, ultimately, the general public.” candidate in adult psychoanalysis at The Chicago interventions were not suffi cient to address In the study and an op-ed he published Center for Psychoanalysis. He has conducted the problem in the context of high numbers in The New York Times, Reinhart called more than fi ve years of ethnographic research on of ongoing daily arrests for alleged petty for immediate action by shifting criminal Chicago’s South Side. crimes. justice strategies from arrests and incar- Using data from the Cook County Jail, ceration toward options like citations, Reinhart and fellow researcher, Daniel summonses, mental health services, and Chen, JD, PhD, analyzed the relationship food and housing support. between jailing practices and community Looking at COVID-19 from a diff erent infections. They found that cycling angle, Reinhart proposed another way the individuals through the jail — typically for pandemic could bring about lasting change. only a period of days between arrest and In an essay, published in July in The British release — was associated with 15.9% of all Medical Journal (BMJ), he and co-author documented COVID-19 cases in Chicago Daniel Brauner, MD, examined the and 15.7% in Illinois. history and consequences of the Current In the study published in June in Health Procedural Terminology (CPT) billing Aff airs, Reinhart and Chen, of the Toulouse system in American healthcare, which is School of Economics, reported that jail under new scrutiny during disruptions to cycling far exceeds race, poverty, public routine clinic visits and elective procedures transit use and population density as a as a result of COVID-19. predictor of community spread of the virus. Reinhart and Brauner argued for using From February 1 to April 19, each person these disruptions to implement changes cycled through Cook County Jail translated in the structures that determine “value” to, on average, 2.2 new cases of COVID-19 in healthcare in order to bring about more in their ZIP code of residence. eff ective, equitable care. Because Black neighborhoods in the “Genuine healthcare reform needs to U.S. are disproportionately policed and confront not only who pays (e.g. a single incarcerated, the authors pointed out, those payer or private insurers) but also for what practices may bear partial responsibility for we pay and who holds the power to decide the striking racial disparities in COVID-19 the ‘value’ of care,” Reinhart said. “We need cases. Their results showed that more a system in which our work as healthcare than 60% of the additional cases linked providers is guided by the interests of to jail cycling appeared in Black-majority patient care, not billing incentives designed ZIP codes. to protect fee for service and maximize revenue.”

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 21 COVID-19 RESPONSE

University of Chicago hosts COVID-19 medical imaging resource center

BY ALISON CALDWELL, PHD

new center hosted at the University Professor in the Department of Radiology, and integrating images and their data via of Chicago — co-led by the largest along with leaders from the American a dynamic, secure networked system, the A medical imaging professional College of Radiology (ACR), Radiological MIDRC will provide a large-scale, open, organizations in the country — will help Society of North America (RSNA) and common framework to enable techno- tackle the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic American Association of Physicists in logical advancements, guide researchers’ by curating a massive database of medical Medicine (AAPM). validation and use of AI, and translate images to help better understand and treat The funding is from the National clinical systems for the best patient man- the disease. The center also will develop Institute of Biomedical Imaging and agement decisions. means to expedite the translation of Bioengineering at the National Institutes of “We have not suffi ciently explored artifi cial intelligence (AI) to help solve the Health (NIH). imaging for its role in helping us fi ght pandemic. The MIDRC is responding to an unmet COVID-19, especially in terms of The Medical Imaging and Data need of the medical imaging community as developing machine intelligence tools and Resource Center (MIDRC) is an open doctors and scientists seek to better under- systems,” Giger said. “Having these top source database with medical images from stand SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes imaging organizations involved will make thousands of COVID-19 patients. It’s led by coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19, and a diff erence — almost every scientist or Maryellen Giger, PhD’85, the A.N. Pritzker its eff ects on the human body. By collecting clinician in medical imaging belongs to at

Medical Imaging Data and Resource Center (MIDRC)

The MIDRC involves fi ve The MIDRC executive advisory infrastructure development projects: committee also oversees 12 research projects in support of solutions to ■ Creation of a platform for the COVID-19 pandemic, overall COVID-19 imaging and providing funding and other associated data. resources to investigators at the ■ Development of a real-world American College of Radiology, testing and implementation Radiological Society of North platform with direct, real-time America and American Association connections to healthcare delivery of Physicists in Medicine, as well as organizations. across 20 universities and the Food ■ Implementation of quality and Drug Administration. assurance and evaluation procedures across the MIDRC. ■ Launch of a data commons portal for data intake, access and distribution. ■ Linking of the MIDRC to other clinical and research Ground-glass opacities are data registries. sometimes seen in CT scans of COVID-19 patients’ lungs

22 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION First human coronavirus PHOTO BY NANCY WONG Maryellen Giger, PhD’85, leads isolated at UChicago more the Medical Imaging and than 50 years ago Data Resource Center, which was awarded a $20 million, The fi rst description of a human coronavirus two-year federal contract (HCoVs) occurred more than half a century ago at to establish an open source the University of Chicago. database of medical images from COVID-19 patients. In 1962, University researchers isolated a previously unidentifi ed RNA virus during a study of upper respiratory infections among medical students. The researchers characterized this new virus and allowing researchers worldwide to access named it 229E (later HCoV-229E). The initial the images and accompanying clinical data work, published in 1966 in Experimental Biology to answer new questions about the disease. and Medicine, and the 1967 follow-up study in “The University of Chicago is well the Journal of Virology were able to give initial prepared to host the MIDRC, as members information on the growth times, virus size and of our faculty have led the development images of the virus particle infection within human of data commons repositories in the past, cells cultured in a dish. Researchers showed that least one of these organizations.” including the National Cancer Institute’s this new virus did not react to antisera for any Medical images provide important major known viruses, such as infl uenza strains, Genomic Data Commons,” said Kenneth S. windows into the detection, diagnosis and measles or mumps. Polonsky, MD, Dean of the Division of the monitoring of COVID-19; for example, Biological Sciences and Pritzker School X-rays or CT scans of the lungs have the of Medicine. “Under the leadership of potential to help doctors determine the Dr. Giger and representatives from the severity of the disease and decide on an top professional organizations in medical optimal treatment course for a patient. imaging, the MIDRC will provide a But examining individual images is time resource that will accelerate the transfer of consuming and diffi cult for physicians, and knowledge and innovation around SARS- automated systems can improve accuracy CoV-2 and give us the tools needed to fi ght and speed. For AI to accurately analyze any MICROBIOLOGY FOR SOCIETY AMERICAN the pandemic.” given scan, many thousands of images fi rst While COVID-19 is the initial focus of must be collected and annotated to train the $20 million, two-year federal contract, machine-learning algorithms. the team hopes to expand the MIDRC Electron micrograph from 1967 showing the fi rst Funded under the NIH’s special emer- isolate human coronavirus particles (solid black to become a resource that would span gency COVID-19 process, MIDRC is an dots) outside the cell after infection. diseases and disciplines, creating focused open access platform to collect, annotate, medical imaging data commons and store and share COVID-related medical A similar study from the National Institutes of machine intelligence pipelines for chronic images to enable eff ective and effi cient Health (NIH) in 1967 then confi rmed multiple and other infectious diseases. The federal other strains of this new group of viruses shortly clinical task-based distribution, analyses contract is renewable to $50 million over thereafter. This combination of work from and validations. fi ve years. UChicago and NIH defi ned a new group of viruses: “Through the MIDRC Data Commons “This eff ort will enable the rapid open human coronaviruses. Portal, investigators will be able to access distribution of curated COVID-19 imaging images and data to expedite research that Until the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory and associated data to empower a broad will provide solutions to the COVID-19 syndrome (SARS), human coronaviruses were community of data scientists in academia, associated with the mild symptoms of the common pandemic,” Giger said. “This will speed up government and industry to answer, cold. Yet scientists continued to study them, and the sharing of new research on COVID-19, quickly and rigorously, critical questions this work would prove valuable to the research answering questions about COVID-19 about patient care,” Giger said. “Ultimately, needed to combat SARS. The genomes of two cold presentation in the lungs, the effi cacy of it will be expanded to incorporate addi- viruses — HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43 — aided the therapies, associations between COVID-19 tional data from multiple registries and development of early coronavirus tests used for and other co-morbidities, and monitoring repositories to support the NIH’s data respiratory infections. These tests were able to be for potential resurgence of the virus.” used and refi ned as a beginning point for testing collection eff orts, allowing researchers The MIDRC is uploading up to 10,000 when SARS emerged as a novel virus, and now to address topics no single archive could COVID-19 thoracic radiographs and CT have been adapted for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that inform independently.” scan images via the existing input portals of causes COVID-19. the RSNA repository and the ACR registry, — Meghan O’Connell

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 23 COVID-19 RESPONSE

esidents across disciplines at the forums, moderated by trauma surgeon University of Chicago Medicine — Brian Williams, MD, residents shared their Residents Rfrom emergency medicine and experiences caring for patients during surgery to psychiatry and pediatrics — have the pandemic, off ered recommendations, stepped up to care for COVID-19 patients, and fi elded questions from community step up, while also off ering valuable insights and members. support to the local community. “We wanted to not only bring these reach out “Residents are contributing to this eff ort, conversations to the community,” Suah while also completing their training,” said said, “but to have them come from phy- Anita Blanchard, MD’90, Associate Dean sicians of color who have shared cultural BY KATE DOHNER for Graduate Medical Education at the experiences.” University of Chicago. “Many sacrifi ced Blanchard has been impressed by the other educational opportunities to help residents’ response. cover the COVID units.” “They’re going beyond the walls of the Early in the pandemic, residents met hospital to reach patients and people in with other physicians and hospital leaders the community,” Blanchard said. “Sharing to discuss how to information via Facebook and other online most safely care for platforms allows us to reach a much patients, including broader group of people.” those with COVID- Suah and Blanchard emphasized that 19, as well as those the University’s commitment to the local

PHOTO BY NANCY WONG NANCY BY PHOTO with other condi- community is part of an ongoing eff ort. tions who came “Many faculty members, residents and into the hospital. medical students have served the commu- Using guidelines nity, and will continue to serve it, for many developed by years,” Suah said. “Physicians like Doriane Vivek Prachand, Miller, MD’83, and Monica Vela, MD’93, MD, Chief Quality have dedicated their careers to supporting Offi cer in the under-resourced communities.” Department Despite the personal and professional of Surgery, to sacrifi ces they are making, UChicago Medicine’s residents remain grateful for Chief Surgery Resident Ashley Suah, prioritize medically MD, and fellow residents answered necessary, time-sensitive procedures, the opportunity to learn and grow. community members’ questions about residents — including Ava Ferguson Bryan, “I’ve always felt supported and nurtured COVID-19 in a series of discussions on AM’10, MD’18, in collaboration with as a resident at UChicago Medicine,” Suah Facebook Live. Kevin Roggin, MD, Program Director said. “I’m proud of how we’ve cared for our of the General Surgery Residency patients during this crisis. Our leadership Program — developed a new consent form recognizes that we’re a team — we are all to ensure patients have the information working together to provide the best care.” they need to make informed decisions about their care. Their work was published in Annals of Surgery. Residents also identifi ed new oppor- tunities for reaching local community members, especially Black and Latinx Anita Blanchard, MD’90, Associate individuals who have been dispropor- Dean for Graduate Medical Education, tionately aff ected by the pandemic. To second row, center, and members of help address these needs, Ashley Suah, the House Staff Diversity Committee in MD, chief surgery resident, and Alanna summer 2019. Burnett, MD, a resident in pediatrics and internal medicine, joined fellow residents in UChicago Medicine’s House Staff Diversity Committee to off er a series of discussions on Facebook Live. During these

24 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION COVID-19 RESPONSE

A surgeon’s COVID-19 experience

Spine surgeon Rey Bosita, MD’96, MBA, refl ects on the events of 2020 and Rey Bosita and his how his Pritzker School of Medicine education shaped his life and career son Dylan on a family camping trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The pandemic hits: COVID-19 shut down my surgical practice in March and April. This constituted the longest time I had not set foot inside a hospital to see a patient since 1995, the beginning of my third year of medical school! As life slowed down, I enjoyed the opportunity to love my wife and four sons more and to learn new skills in the kitchen.

Contracting the virus: I got COVID-19 in late May and was admitted to the hospital for fi ve days. The experience taught me much about how uncertain and powerless patients feel when they get sick. The personal loss of freedom necessary to maintain a safe working environment for my nurses and doctors is my starkest recollection. I was confi ned to a converted ICU room that didn’t have a shower. Then, I started to “compete” with unseen nothing could make me happier than being a relationship has been and will always be COVID patients on my fl oor. I’d gather husband, father and surgeon. my highest priority. HIPAA-compliant information from my I walked into the Biological Sciences nurses in regard to where I stood with Doctor as patient: Just as my practice Division an immature 20-year-old who oxygen saturation, medications, and even was getting back on track, both of my hands thought he knew everything. I left Hyde started falling asleep. Now I needed carpal Park with a degree and the knowledge that tunnel surgery. Just great. I knew only a fraction of what I needed to “ I’m amazed that in 2020 — 24 In the three weeks between booking know. But I was equipped with the tools years after medical school and 18 the surgery and walking into the surgery needed to succeed in life and in medicine. center, I had many thoughts: successive years after starting my career as The University did not teach me what waves of enthusiasm about feeling better; an attending surgeon — I am still I wanted to know; it taught me what I uncertainty about complications and lost needed to know. growing as a person and a doctor.” work time; rationalization that my symp- I humbly give thanks to the attendings, toms were getting better; intellectualization Rey Bosita, MD’96, MBA residents, administrators and my fellow upon considering my classic disease presen- students who contributed signifi cantly to tation and electrodiagnostic workup; and my medical education. Thank you to the volume inhaled on an incentive spirometer. fi nally, acceptance that surgery was the best entire University of Chicago community for For me, COVID-19 hospitalization became choice. While my experience was unique helping me develop into the person who I a race to survive and to leave the hospital. to me, now I can relate to my patients even am today. Those who lose go to the ICU, some get more closely on another level. Rey Bosita, MD’96, MBA, an orthopaedic intubated and a few get ECMO. I was not A strong foundation: My four years at surgeon at Texas Back Institute, has seen going to let myself lose this race. the Pritzker School of Medicine were the more than 10,000 patients, performed over Fortunately, my wife and sons did not basis for building my career in medicine. 3,000 surgeries and helped train more than contract the virus. Upon discharge, I used Pritzker taught me that the foundation of 50 spine fellows. He also loves extra virgin the mandatory two-week home quaran- everything we do as doctors is the doc- olive oil and making pizzas from scratch. tine to re-evaluate my life. I realized that tor-patient relationship. The sanctity of this

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 25 Defi ning nature

Urban ecologist Alison Anastasio, SM’05, PhD’09, with the undeveloped Chicago Park No. 566 behind her and the Chicago skyline in the far distance.

STORY BY STEPHAN BENZKOFER

PHOTOS BY NANCY WONG

26 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION To urban ecologist Alison Anastasio, the city is a laboratory for the study of environmental issues. And beauty abounds in slag heaps — if you know where to look.

n a soft summer evening, the kind that After the City of Chicago closed the popular reminds Chicago residents why they live lakefront to enforce social distancing rules, residents’ Ohere and makes tourists vow they’ll return, options for their daily walk or to find restorative time an urban ecologist leads a lakefront field trip outside became even more limited. A breeze off the water plays in the cottonwood “That really highlights how important these leaves and turns up a heady, sweet aroma that could spaces are,” Anastasio said. only be called fresh air. Pink clouds reflect the sunset, A common theme in her classes is how even and swallows dance and dive for their dinner. to define nature. “Is it only nature if it is far from It’s glorious. humans?” she said. “Is a tree in a sidewalk box nature False pennyroyal pushes “One of my favorite activities is to lead people or does it have to be in a forest?” up through a mix of gravel on nature walks,” said Alison Anastasio, SM’05, Now consider what it means when green space and hard-packed soil atop PhD’09, an assistant instructional professor in the isn’t equitably distributed. In a blink, an urban the slag. Environmental and Urban Studies program at the ecologist looking for answers about the lack of a University of Chicago. Her enthusiasm is irrepress- tree canopy must consider how redlining by govern- ible. She keeps up a lively commentary, intermingled ments, real estate agents and banks segregated Black with excited identifications of plants, about the com- and brown homeowners in select neighborhoods. plex interaction in an urban environment between How zoning laws allowed for acres of pavement but humans and nature — or, as she prefers to frame it, few parks across vast swaths of the city. Or, more the interplay of all living things, because humans are recently, how a manufacturer that has racked up nature too, despite our best efforts. numerous neighbor complaints and government In the first minute of the tour, not 40 yards from citations for pollution violations may be allowed to South Lake Shore Drive she points out sweet clover move from its Lincoln Park site to the Southeast Side. (“this is a non-native species”), mugwort (“also Which, conveniently, brings us back to the slag. non-native”), evening primrose (“this pretty one is native”) and Queen Anne’s lace (“non-native but really naturalized in this area”). None of these plants was our goal that evening. We were there for the slag. “The thing that really gets me excited is slag,” Anastasio said, explaining that the waste byproduct of steel production was dumped all over the Calumet Region, from the Southeast Side into Northwest Indiana. Indeed, on that beautiful summer evening, it is all around.

As an urban ecologist, Anastasio finds herself considering such sweeping issues as the COVID-19

pandemic, racial injustice and climate change, but Black-eyed Susans bloom also asking basic questions like “What is a weed?” in dredged soil brought in For example, as the pandemic forced millions In the late 1800s, the North Chicago Rolling Mill to cover the slag. of residents to limit travel and stay home, access Co. relocated from the North Side to the Southeast to green space became a precious commodity. For Side. Almost immediately, the steelmaker began many, neighborhood walks raised awareness and dumping slag and waste into the lake, according to appreciation of the overlooked maple down the a 2018 study of the region. By 1922, the company, block or the gnarled oak around the corner. But not which was now U.S. Steel, had created 573 acres of everybody’s neighborhood is conducive to a peaceful lakefront land. stroll; not every neighborhood has trees. This transformation of the shoreline would not continued on page 29 MAP IMAGE COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH PRO GOOGLE EARTH COURTESY MAP IMAGE

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 27 Take a tour of the Calumet Region’s hidden nature

The public is free to visit and explore these six sites, although some are small preserves with sensitive habitats and limited parking. 1 Stay on paths, take only photographs and leave only footprints.

2 3

6

4 5

1 Marian R. Byrnes Park 3 Eggers Grove

2200 E. 103rd St., Chicago. Clear park signage on north side of E. 112th St. & S. Avenue E, Chicago. Drive into the park and 103rd Street. Limited parking outside the gate, but if unlocked, all the way due south past picnic areas. Trailhead is at furthest lots of parking inside. The trail begins right at the gate. south point of parking lot.

Marian Byrnes was a fierce Southeast Side environmentalist. Early spring ephemerals abound in the restored woodland The park named after her hosts a slag wetland, with some of at Eggers Grove, but go further south in the summer to the same plants you’d find on the rare Illinois dolomite prairie, see the lush slag prairie and cottonwood savanna at Wolf and an accessible walking trail through a beautiful woodland. Lake Overlook.

2 Indian Ridge Marsh Park

11740 S. Torrence Ave., Chicago. Clear park signage and small parking lot on west side of Torrence Avenue. Trail begins from parking lot. Although it is a non-native species, the naturalized Once a dump site surrounded by the second largest Ford and familiar Queen Anne’s plant in the country, two truck routes, two rail lines, an active Lace adds beauty to the industrial river that is larger than the Chicago River — the surroundings. Calumet — and an abandoned steel mill, Indian Ridge Marsh has undergone an incredible transformation to one of the richest examples of regional flora and fauna, right in the City of Chicago.

Plants and flowers share a home with stones, pebbles and random pieces of metal on the lakefront slag. Share your observations and photos at inaturalist.org iNaturalist is a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society.

28 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION 4 Clark & Pine Nature Preserve continued from page 27 Pine Station Nature Preserve have been peaceful. Molten slag is thousands of degrees Fahrenheit when it is dumped from thim- North Clark Road, Gary, Indiana. Turn north on North Clark from Airport Road and drive less than 1 mile. Park on the side ble-shaped, ladle rail cars. Hitting the lake water, it of the road near park signs. If you cross a second set of railroad would have exploded violently, sending red-brown tracks, you’ve gone too far. clouds roiling into the air. At night, the red, orange and white-hot slag flow would have lit up the sky. Clark & Pine and Pine Station Nature Preserves are remnant Cooled slag is a glassy material resembling dune and swale habitats with rare plants and plenty of wetland volcanic rock. Neither it nor the decades of steel- birds, bordered by an industrial facility, three rail lines, and the road to a steel mill. Late summer is a great time to visit. making that followed was conducive to life. U.S. Steel closed its South Works site in 1992, fenced it off, and moved on. In the intervening decades, as redevelopment plans germinated and died, nature moved back in. Somehow, life did return. And for Anastasio, it became a living laboratory. Cities can be hostile environments. Miles of concrete and asphalt, elevated air pollution and the accompanying urban heat island all contribute to challenging growing conditions. Yet with more than half of all people now living in cities and pristine wilderness a thing of the past, it becomes vitally important to figure out how to transform urban areas into functional ecosystems, Anastasio said. “There’s human impact on every square millimeter on Earth’s surface.” So learning how plants, animals and insects live in the extremes might just show us the way. MAP IMAGE COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH PRO GOOGLE EARTH COURTESY MAP IMAGE When she first discovered the South Works site a Anastasio examines few years ago, she was amazed by the abundance and a common variety of life. Ivanhoe South Nature Preserve evening primrose, 5 still blooming “Oh my gosh,” she said. “So many plants had while developing managed to colonize the space. And they had been Colfax St., Gary, Indiana. Drive south on Colfax Street from seed pods. 5th Avenue and park in the small lot on the west side between basically undisturbed since the mill was shut down.” 7th Avenue and King Street. She wasn’t surprised to find non-native, opportu- nistic plants — those that are “native to cities” — but The remnant black oak savanna at Ivanhoe South doesn’t excited also to spot species that have been native to pretend to be untouched by humans. Monuments to its the Chicago region for a long time. Fighting for soil industrial surroundings can still be found among the lupines that paint shades of purple with their blooms in late spring. and nutrients were staghorn sumac and whorled milkweed and cottonwoods. But life on the slag is hard. 6 Cowles Bog Trail “You would expect decades-old cottonwoods to be big,” she said. “These were stunted, maybe four Indiana Dunes National Park, 1618 N. Mineral Springs Road, inches in diameter. That’s common. Many native Dune Acres, Indiana. Turn right into parking lot directly before security station. Trailhead begins directly west of Mineral plants can live on slag, but they’re of much smaller Springs Road. Additional parking at the south end of the stature.” marsh at 1050 N. Mineral Springs Road. The South Works discovery sent Anastasio on quests for slag sites all around the Calumet Region. Stop by Cowles Bog in February or March to find the thermo- “I started finding rare plants, ladies’ tresses genic skunk cabbage busting through the snow and attracting orchids, some endangered sedges and plants charac- flies, the earliest pollinators, with its carrion scent. Look to your left once you’ve crossed the boardwalk. This area is named teristic of healthy tallgrass prairie,” Anastasio said. after the father of American ecology and University of Chicago Listening to her, it’s easy to see how her under- botany PhD graduate and professor, Henry Chandler Cowles. graduate students find Anastasio’s curiosity, energy and insights engaging. Growing up with the constant threat of climate change, students from a wide range

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 29 of fields come to the Environmental and Urban middle of nowhere? But our nowhere is another Studies classes to better understand the issues — and community’s somewhere.” for answers. Anastasio lets that settle in. What they often hear from Anastasio, though, is: “Maybe what we need to do is create a less “It’s complicated.” toxic legacy.” That is complicated. The area between about 79th and 92nd Streets, When students are frustrated there isn’t a single east of South Lake Shore Drive, is the former home of correct answer, she tells them: “Welcome to the rest U.S. Steel South Works. A northern sliver is now Park of your life.” But that’s also what’s so exciting about No. 566, undeveloped land owned by the Chicago being in an interdisciplinary field, she said, and Park District. The bulk of it, from about 82nd Street “getting students to think about all the perspectives south to the mouth of the Calumet River, remains a of the different stakeholders.” For example, industry post-industrial brownfield — except for Steelworkers means jobs. There are benefits and there are costs. Park, a narrow 16.5-acre strip along the lake. “I can’t be an ecologist who says, ‘I just want to study this plant in this place because it is an inter- esting research question,’” she explained. “Urban ecology really brings into relief that humans are integral to this ecosystem.” Sam Joyce, AB’20, who received his degree in Environmental and Urban Studies, is now studying law at Stanford University, where he hopes to focus on environmental and natural resource law. He said he appreciated Anastasio’s real-world focus. “There is a tendency for people to be very theo- retical,” he said. “Dr. Anastasio has a big focus on knowing the place and getting outside and meeting with the people. That’s pretty unique.”

Anastasio grew up in Northern California, where “nature is big and in your face,” she said. “There are rivers and tide pools, mountains and meadows, Whorled milkweed is one Viewed one way, it is an eyesore, littered with so much variety.” She remembers a junior ranger of three milkweeds found rusted rebar, fragments of metal in tortured program run by the local park district that got her in the area. “Whorled shapes, and covered in weeds. But through the lens outside hiking and rock climbing. Her high school milkweed loves slag,” course choices included not just a field biology class Anastasio tells her students. offered by our tour guide, it was transformed into another garden in the city. Not pristine, but nature but also marine biology. And because she lived in nonetheless. a suburb on the eastern edge of the San Francisco We stand in a gap in the chain-link fence separat- metro area, Yosemite National Park was just over two ing Park No. 566 from the old South Works site. hours away. “There are so many complexities,” Anastasio said. “There are so many stakeholders.” Just one example: Some three decades ago, the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to dredge the Calumet River to make it more passable and to remove toxic sludge. “That’s a good thing, right?” Anastasio said. After 30 years, the plan was to cap the dump and turn it into a new park. Now, though, the Corps says it needs to continue using the site to dump for 20 more years. Understandably, community residents rebelled. “Where everyone always gets stuck is, well, then where are you going to put it?” Anastasio said of the Late boneset is native to the area and often found near toxic sludge. “Do we truck it off to dump it in the sources of water.

30 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION When she came to the University of Chicago as a Railroad spikes and other graduate student in 2002, friends warned her the big metal scraps remind visitors that the area once held a city would be foreign, devoid of nature. massive steel mill. But Anastasio found Chicago’s nature to be subtle, but sublime. Anastasio completed her master’s degree and PhD in the Department of Ecology and Evolution. In 2011, she was working as the graduate program admin- istrator for that department as well as Organismal Biology and Anatomy when she persuaded her bosses to let her teach an ecology class on the side. The Calumet Quarter focuses on the ecology, Under the wary eye of a coyote, the tour is making history, policy and planning of the Calumet Region. its way across Park No. 566, which was recently Teaching the biennial, experiential course — “study mowed. It’s like walking across a furrowed field. abroad in your backyard,” as she describes it — gave Anastasio calls attention to catnip, wild straw- Anastasio the chance to combine her growing berries and Black-eyed Susans. This section got an interest in the region, her expertise and passion for upper layer of topsoil, courtesy of another dredging ecology, and the challenge of teaching. program called Mud to Parks that transplanted tons “I try to show the “Most students didn’t know about the Indiana of lake sediment from Illinois waterways to the students that there Dunes, much less a pile of industrial waste on the Far shores of Lake Michigan. is nature in the South Side,” she said. “We had a field trip every Friday.” “Great idea, right?” she said. “Well, it turns out it city, that it might When she became associate dean of students and is super nutrient rich and full of seeds of non-native executive director of the Medical Scientist Training plants. It’s a challenge.” look different than Program (MSTP) in 2015, Anastasio still managed to Anastasio points out a clump of greenery — “a Yosemite, but it is make time for Calumet Quarter. beautiful native grass called side-oats grama” — that just as beautiful.” In 2018, despite enjoying her role in the MSTP, she is bouncing back quickly from the mowing and is somehow even still flowering. jumped at the chance to teach full time. Alison Anastasio, “Alison brought us something very unique, which Standing at the edge of Lake Michigan, the breeze SM’05, PhD’09 was the ecological studies perspective on urban is stronger. The shoreline is a jumble of black slag environments,” said Sabina Shaikh, PhD, Director boulders, crumbling concrete blocks and even more of the interdisciplinary Program on the Global rusted remnants of metal and rebar. Environment, which houses the Environmental and Anastasio stands atop one gnarled castoff of Urban Studies undergraduate program. “She’s also Chicago’s industrial history and talks about how extremely knowledgeable about the city of Chicago the challenges raised by pandemics, climate change and its urban ecosystems.” and social justice come together in urban ecology, Shaikh said she appreciated Anastasio’s com- and how the answers will come from the efforts of a mitment to undergraduate education and her multitude: urban planners, architects, government interactive, experiential curriculum. A growing officials, economists, engineers, community organiz- number of students are interested in urban issues, ers and scientists. from design to planning, and even as the program “That’s why we’re using the entire city of Chicago keeps adding sections, they fill up. basically as an educational lab for students to better “How do we develop critical inquiry around understand all the environmental issues,” she said. complex issues in cities?” Shaikh said. “Chicago can At her feet, improbably, a plant managed to find a be a microcosm for that.” roothold in the slag boulder and push its pale-green Anastasio agreed. leaves up toward the sky. The velvety rosette of a “This intersection of environment and urban, of The ecologist leans over and brushes a velvety leaf. great mullein grows out of a slag boulder. ecology in cities, is so fascinating,” she said, “I try to “This is a mullein,” she said. “You can see these show the students that there is nature in the city, that in vacant lots all over the city. And it is somehow it might look different than Yosemite, but it is just growing here too.” as beautiful.” “But,” she continued, pointing at a weedy-looking And in at least one way, she argues, it might be plant that did nothing to call attention to itself, “that more important. is native boneset, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that “If nature is always far away, someplace else, then in a vacant lot. But here it is too. Out on slag. And you don’t have the same impetus to pay it much that, that’s just so exciting.” mind,” she said.

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 31 From Stagg Field to the IBA Cyclone 18 cyclotron

A look at the history of nuclear medicine at the University of Chicago

PHOTO BY JOHN ZICH BY TIHA M. LONG, PHD

Chin-Tu Chen, PhD’86, led efforts for the installation of the IBA Cyclone 18 at the University of Chicago.

he nuclear era began in 1942 when the world’s radiopharmaceuticals — radioisotopes used for the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Tchain reaction took place at Stagg Field on Paul Harper, MD, completed his residency at the the University of Chicago campus. In the decades University and joined the Departments of Surgery that followed, University scientists made historic and Radiology in 1953. Harper worked closely with advances in harnessing this technology in the Lathrop to investigate medical applications of diagnosis and treatment of disease. radioisotopes. Mathematician Robert Beck, a longtime faculty Early nuclear medicine’s A-Team member in the Department of Radiology, joined In 1954, the Argonne Cancer Research Hospital — the the team in 1957 and began working on imaging largest facility ever built for the purpose of cancer instruments that could detect the signals from research and treatment using nuclear medicine — radioisotopes. Beck served as the assistant director Recent publications opened its doors. The facility attracted four scientists of Argonne Cancer Research Hospital from 1963 to Chang et al. Angew Chem whose work would launch the field of modern Int Ed. 2020. 1967 and became director of the Franklin McLean nuclear medicine. Persky et al. J Clin Oncol. Memorial Research Institute, the center that evolved 2020. Katherine Austin Lathrop, Professor Emerita from the Argonne Cancer Research Hospital. Solanki et al. Pract Radiat in the Department of Radiology, brought her Alex Gottschalk, MD, completed his residency at Oncol. 2020. biochemistry background to the University in 1945 the University of Chicago, then returned in 1964 to as a member of the Manhattan Project, the secret join the Radiology faculty and became director of the research program to develop the atomic bomb. She Argonne Cancer Research Hospital in 1967. became a pioneer in the development and testing of These scientists developed an imaging technique using a radiotracer labeled with technetium-99m

32 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION (99mTc), the most commonly used medical radioiso- system. The radiotracer interacts with molecules tope today. Clinical 99mTc imaging is used millions within specific tissues or cells of the body. The of times worldwide every year to detect cancer and emission of positron particles produces gamma rays other diseases. from precise locations in the body, and these rays can After numerous advances in nuclear medicine in be detected and processed by a scanning machine just two decades, the installation of new equipment recording images. and the development of powerful technologies The far-reaching idea to combine PET with allowed for rapid and expansive growth of the field. magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and comput- erized tomography (CT) marked another jump The state’s first and only academic forward. Chin-Tu Chen, with Charles Pelizzari, PhD, medical cyclotron and George Chen, PhD, then faculty members in the The first cyclotron at the University of Chicago, Department of Radiation and Cellular , installed in 1968, opened the door to creating numer- teamed up to figure out how to correlate PET with ous types of radioactive compounds for research, CT and MRI imaging to produce 3D information in a diagnosis and therapy. clinically relevant time frame. Progress through the A cyclotron is a stout, cylindrical-shaped particle late 1980s led to the PET/CT scanner becoming a accelerator. It speeds up charged particles from 2000 Time magazine “Medical Science Invention of the center outwards along a spiral path. It operates the Year.” by maintaining a static magnetic field that keeps “MRI provides a picture of the anatomy, and PET particles within a perpendicular central circular tells you the functional information,” Chen said. plane. At the same time, electrical charges oscillate “By lining up these two types of images, we can between the two semicircles that make up the understand exactly where the activity is happening.” central circular disk, causing the acceleration of the particles in a spiral motion. When particles reach the A new era of research and medicine Richard Freifelder, PhD, limits of the circumference, they are deflected to an After two decades without a cyclotron at the director of the cyclotron exit point through a beam tube that can be aimed at a University, Chin-Tu Chen led efforts for the instal- facility, works in the target. The beam of charged particles colliding with lation of a modern facility in 2017. The IBA Cyclone control room. a material creates positron-emitting isotopes, types 18, a massive 27-ton of atoms that are unstable and emit radiation. These instrument, sits in a radioisotopes have diagnostic and therapeutic utility, secure vault below the for example, as radiotracers for medical imaging. ground enclosed by The original cyclotron was decommissioned about thick slabs of concrete. 30 years after it was installed, in 1997. Interest in the It is surrounded by ster- program dimmed for almost two decades but would ile rooms for production re-emerge. of radiotracers, drug dispensing and quality PET: Precise and sensitive imaging control. Beck, with Chin-Tu Chen, PhD’86, Associate The University of Professor of Radiology, and his colleague, Malcolm Chicago Cyclotron Cooper, MBChB, had been key figures in the Facility, directed by installation of a positron emission tomography (PET) Richard Freifelder, PhD, facility in 1981 — an early nonclinical brain PET currently produces a scanner and the first system in the state of Illinois. In new FDA-approved 2004, the University of Chicago became one of the investigational drug, first local institutions to install a clinical PET scanner fluorothymidine, a for the routine care of patients. PET radiotracer used PET imaging uses radioactive materials that can to monitor response detect events in the body at the molecular level, to cancer therapy, and including the presence of biomarkers, and metabolic numerous other exper- and enzymatic processes. A radioactive solution imental compounds for called a radiotracer is injected into the circulation research and medicine. PHOTO BY JOHN ZICH

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 33 Few institutions can offer full access to radiophar- The common approach to tumor detection maceuticals and PET scanning. Due to the short involves the glucose analog 18F-FDG, a nonspecific half-life of most types of radiotracers, a cyclotron glucose molecule that can enter any fast-growing must be close by or on site with the PET imaging tissue. It detects cancer cells simply because they facility. UChicago has these advanced capabilities, metabolize increased glucose to produce energy which are invaluable tools for cancer diagnosis and enabling them to grow faster than noncancerous treatment. cells. Elevated concentrations of 18F-FDG in tumor PET is used to image primary and metastatic cells allows them to be detected anywhere through- tumors and to monitor responses to therapy. It can out the body. supply information to physicians to assist with the This new, more precise approach combines the characterization of tumors and treatment decisions. technology of PET imaging with the creation of a PET is an exquisitely sensitive tool that is able to novel chemical probe with covalent activity. The detect biochemical events that may appear ahead of recently developed radiotracer detects activity of any detectable tumor. the enzyme neutral cholesterol ester hydrolase

First nuclear reactor Recent advances include the creation and testing (NCEH1), allowing for the direct visualization of under construction of a first-in-class, activity-based PET radiotracer. active NCEH1, which is present in aggressive triple beneath Stagg Field. This accomplishment required the combined negative breast cancer. expertise of a medical physicist, a In addition to the capability to image aggressive 1942 biological chemist and a team of tumors, the researchers were able to make new researchers with the Cyclotron discoveries using the NCEH1-activity radiotracer. Facility. They found that the levels of NCEH1 were higher Raymond Moellering, PhD, in the leading edge of the tumors where growth Associate Professor in the and metastasis occur. Similar results were seen in a Department of Chemistry, and Chen prostate cancer model. created a novel radiotracer that can “This imaging technology could help clinical specifically label aggressive cancer teams determine whether a cancer is aggressive cells in breast cancer tumors in and inform treatment decisions,” Moellering said. whole body imaging. “NCEH1 is elevated in many different types of

1968

1959

Nuclear medicine at the University of Chicago

1942 1945 1954 1959 1963 1968 1981 1985 1986 2003 2005 2010 2017 2020 World’s first nuclear Research on Argonne Cancer Scientists First technetium- UChicago installs Positron emission Computational UChicago, Installation of Functional and Integration of Modern cyclotron Development reactor creates a radiotracers begins Research Hospital demonstrate the 99m (99mTc) brain first cyclotron tomography integration of Argonne National clinical PET scanner Molecular Imaging nanotechnology arrives at UChicago and testing of controlled, self- opens use of localized scan (decommissioned (PET) research PET+CT or MRI Laboratory and Core — PET, SPECT, and radiotracer first-in-class, sustaining nuclear radiation to treat in 1997) facility opens images Fermilab establish CT, Ultrasound, methodology activity-based chain reaction cancer Center for Imaging Optical — launches PET radiotracer Science

Paul Harper, MD, and

PHOTOS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF colleagues investigated CHICAGO PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE, the medical application SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER, 1950s UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARY of radioisotopes.

34 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION aggressive cancer, so if it works to track aggressive of the numbers of cycles of toxic drugs and reduce breast cancer, it may have utility in tracking many negative side effects, which will be welcomed other types of aggressive cancer.” by patients.” PET imaging may benefit patients with advanced Managing treatment decisions prostate cancer as well. Stanley Liauw, MD, For types and stages of cancer that are difficult to Professor of Radiation and Cellular Oncology, and detect, PET imaging may provide an option to see colleagues evaluated how PET contributed toward what other imaging techniques miss. treatment decisions for patients with recurrent Sonali Smith, MD, Elwood V. Jensen Professor of advanced prostate cancer referred for radiation Medicine, is an expert in the treatment of lymphoma. therapy. She has led recent clinical studies Prostate cancer recurrence after prostatectomy is 1985–2005 at UChicago, in collaboration with difficult to localize by conventional methods. Liauw other academic groups, to elucidate and colleagues investigated the use of PET imaging the role of PET-directed therapy in to guide treatment decisions after prostate cancer the management of lymphoma. recurrence. In a recently published study, In almost half of the men who underwent the test, patients with early stage diffuse the study found that PET imaging located tumors large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in the prostate bed, lymph nodes, pelvis and nearby were scheduled for PET scans sites. The results of the PET scan helped clinicians following their initial cycles of stan- to make better-informed treatment decisions for dard chemotherapy to determine these patients and led to management changes in a how to proceed with treatment. significant number of patients. Patients who had a negative PET Extraordinary achievements in the use of nuclear scan proceeded with only one cycle medicine to diagnose and treat cancer and other dis- of chemotherapy, whereas a positive eases take their place in the history of the University result by PET scanning, indicating of Chicago. The recently installed modern cyclotron that cancer was still present, required radiation plus and PET imaging facilities have ushered in a new directed radioimmunotherapy. era of discovery and research among clinicians and Both patient groups from the study had positive investigators. Novel radiopharmaceuticals and new outcomes. These results showed that PET-directed uses for PET imaging have the potential to evolve the therapy was helpful for guiding treatment decisions. field toward personalized approaches that increase “Overtreatment has been an issue in limited-stage precision and improve results and quality of life diffuse large B-cell lymphoma,” Smith said. “The use for patients. of PET-directed therapy may allow for a reduction

1942 1945 1954 1959 1963 1968 1981 1985 1986 2003 2005 2010 2017 2020 World’s first nuclear Research on Argonne Cancer Scientists First technetium- UChicago installs Positron emission Computational UChicago, Installation of Functional and Integration of Modern cyclotron Development reactor creates a radiotracers begins Research Hospital demonstrate the 99m (99mTc) brain first cyclotron tomography integration of Argonne National clinical PET scanner Molecular Imaging nanotechnology arrives at UChicago and testing of controlled, self- opens use of localized scan (decommissioned (PET) research PET+CT or MRI Laboratory and Core — PET, SPECT, and radiotracer first-in-class, sustaining nuclear radiation to treat in 1997) facility opens images Fermilab establish CT, Ultrasound, methodology activity-based chain reaction cancer Center for Imaging Optical — launches PET radiotracer Science

2017

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 35 AWARDS AND HONORS McNerney recognized for teaching

egan McNerney, PhD’05, MD’07, underlies her work in cancer biology — approach to teaching, in the classroom or Associate Professor of Pathology, and her teaching. outside, is to foster students’ independent was one of five recipients of this “My hope is always that by the end critical thinking skills. It is more Socratic BSD News M year’s Faculty Award for Excellence in of class, students appreciate how little than didactic.” Graduate Teaching and Mentoring. we understand the genome, but how Students of all levels receive the same McNerney says a quest for knowledge exhilarating it is to study,” she said. “My attention and encouragement to branch out, according to those who nominated McNerney for the award. They described an inclusive environment in which individual mistakes or failures were never penalized or judged, but calmly and thor- PHOTO BY JEAN LACHAT BY PHOTO oughly examined and worked through. “She is incredibly skilled at directing the projects in her lab and... goes above and beyond to read and understand our field, and yet she is always willing to take even the most junior students’ ideas into consideration,” one wrote. Asked for teaching advice for a new professor, McNerney says simply: “Measure your success by the success of those around you.”

Megan McNerney, PhD’05, MD’07

Kidwell honored with Esterhazy named a Golovkina recognized for paleontology prize Pew Scholar retrovirology research

Susan Kidwell, PhD, has been awarded Daria Esterhazy, PhD, who studies Tatyana Golovkina, PhD, Professor the 2020 Paleontological Society Medal immunological balance in the digestive in the Department of Microbiology, for her contributions to interpreting system, has been selected to join the 2020 has been awarded the 2020 KT Jeang the older fossil record and advancing class of Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Retrovirology Prize for her outstanding conservation paleobiology. Sciences by the Pew Charitable Trusts. contributions to The medal — the most prestigious Esterhazy investigates how immune the field. honor bestowed by the Geological Society equilibrium is maintained in the digestive Golovkina’s of America system and how imbalances can lead to research focuses (GSA) — is such disorders as food allergies, inflam- not only on how awarded to a matory bowel diseases, autoimmune the innate immune person whose diseases and system detects a eminence is based cancer. retroviral infection and initiates a neutral- on advancement Esterhazy is an izing response, but also how retroviruses of knowledge in assistant professor evolve new mechanisms to overcome paleontology. Kidwell was previously in the Department those protective immune responses. honored with GSA’s early career Charles of Pathology. She Some of her work laid the groundwork Schuchert Award in 1995. and the 21 other for a new understanding of how the gut Kidwell is the William Rainey Harper early-career scientists in this year’s class microbiome plays a role in viral infections, Professor in the Department of the of Pew Scholars will receive four years while other research has identified genetic Geophysical Sciences and a Committee of of funding to pursue breakthroughs that variants in humans that could potentially Evolutionary Biology faculty member. advance human health. contribute to the control or persistence of hepatitis B and C viral infections.

36 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION Nels Elde, PhD’05

GRADUATE EDUCATION BSD PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MACARTHUR FOUNDATION FOUNDATION OF THE MACARTHUR COURTESY PHOTO entering Class of 2020

78graduate students BSD alum awarded a MacArthur Fellowship

BY ALISON CALDWELL, PHD defend themselves. He is particularly interested 60 in understanding how evolution drives rapid undergraduate institutions or geneticist Nels Elde, PhD’05, it wasn’t just adaptations in hosts and pathogens. the University of Chicago’s reputation as a Funding from the MacArthur Fellowship will research powerhouse that helped launch his challenge Elde to go “off-roading a little bit” in his F scientific perspective — to try and answer “those scientific career. In the lab of his graduate advisor, Aaron Turkewitz, PhD, Elde also found the space ‘out there’ kinds of questions.” One line of research to have fun. he hopes to pursue involves the evolution of the 16 immune system in aquatic species. Since some of University of Chicago “Aaron is also a skilled artist and potter,” Biosciences said Elde, now an evolutionary biologist at the doctoral programs University of Utah, where he is an associate “The wildest ideas you sometimes just don’t professor of human genetics. “He encouraged explore, because you think they’re probably not his students to follow our curiosity and have fun. It was a really inspirational, foundational lesson going to work, but this is an opportunity to 27% from backgrounds dust those ideas off, shake them up and see if about mixing art and science that taught me how underrepresented to center creativity in my work.” there’s something to them.” in science Fifteen years after graduation, Elde’s innovative approach to research has landed him a MacArthur Nels Elde, PhD’05 Fellowship, which provides a $625,000, no-strings- attached award to individuals who have shown our oldest ancestors looked more like fish than 19 extraordinary originality and dedication in their international students creative pursuits. humans, discoveries in those species could help us As a PhD student in the Department of better understand the origins of our own immune The incoming class Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, Elde focused systems. participated in the first remote iteration of his dissertation on understanding how distantly He still credits the “breathtaking” intellectual energy he found at the University for helping him the National Science related species evolved unique solutions to solve Foundation-funded similar cellular problems, looking far out on the first blossom as a scientist. Quantitative Approaches branches of the evolutionary tree to combine cell “The faculty and students there were more than Boot Camp. biology with evolutionary genetics. Elde now just advisors,” Elde said. “They’re lifelong friends studies host-pathogen interactions and ways in and now my colleagues. I wasn’t just trained in which organisms evolve to better attack others or research techniques while I was there; I was trained in how to pursue a scientific life.”

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 37 PritzkerDean’s Letter News 38 A THE UNIVERSITY OFCHICAGO MEDICINE ANDBIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION Learn more at bridgeportfreeclinic.wixsite.com/covid19 community during COVID-19 Pritzker students supportChinese SERVICE community where theywere.” “Social mediaallowed ustomeetour self-protection andcare,” Zhang said. limit accesstocrucialinformation on English proficiency couldprofoundly run free clinic. communities theyserve atthestudent- to theChineseandAmerican informationonCOVID-19 up-to-date launched anonlineinitiative toprovide Allen Zhu,MSTP andSarah Sun, MSTP, Zi-Yi Choo, MS2;David Cao, MS2; Anthony Hung, MSTP; Julia Ran,MS2; stay safeduringthepandemic. students were eagertohelppatients COVID-19, Pritzker Schoolof Medicine Through awebsite, YouTube channel “We were concernedthatthelackof In April 2020, AmandaZhang, MS2; activities during the spread of activitiesduringthespread of Clinichadtoceaseclinical lthough theBridgeportFree

outside thebox.” to have had thisopportunitytothink patients,” Hung said.“We are grateful reimagine ourengagement withour our assetsasfuture doctors, and the pandemic. to take care ofallhealthneedsduring stressed theimportanceofcontinuing safety intheemergency departmentand extensive effortstaken toensure patient of thefacility. Thetour emphasized Department tocreate avirtualtour the UChicago Medicine Emergency over 2,500 communitymembers. first fourmonths, theinitiative reached Medicine medicalandnursingstaff. Inits questions from the University of Chicago get answers toCOVID-relatedmedical communitiescould Chinese-speaking and chatgroup, patientsinunderserved “COVID-19 pushedus toreevaluate The clinicalsopartnered with S hour community-based project. each Schweitzer Fellow launchesa200- with existing communityorganizations, Chicagoland residents. Incollaboration unmet healthneedsamongvulnerable leaders inserviceby helpingtoaddress program encourages students tobecome the ChicagoArea Schweitzer Fellows and Nobel laureate Dr. AlbertSchweitzer, learning program. Schweitzer Fellowship, ayear-long service Schweitzer Fellows students named Two Pritzker John Hawkins, MS2,andSuzette Guzman,MS2 tion care. affirming andHIV treatment and preven- resources formental health,gender erment andidentifyingcommunity-vetted The interventions willfocusonempow lesbian, gay, bisexual andqueerpeople. and formerlyincarcerated transgender, ments andhealtheducationforcurrently body positivityandexercise workshops. nutrition, andcookingclassesalongwith byself-esteem providing healthy eating, in afood-poorneighborhoodandpromote Named inhonoroffamedhumanitarian Hawkins willperformneedsassess- Guzman planstoaddress childobesity for the distinguished Chicago Area for thedistinguished ChicagoArea Hawkins, MS2, have beenselected uzette Guzman,MS2, andJohn - CURRICULAR INNOVATION A take-home tool kit that can save lives

BY ANGELA WELLS O’CONNOR

PHOTO BY NANCY WONG Sarah Follman, MS4, left a career in corporate finance when her volunteer work in hospitals and substance abuse programs inspired her to apply to medical school. The Pritzker School of Medicine student was instrumental in developing, piloting and implementing the O.P.I.A.T.E. initiative — Outpatient Principles in Addiction Training and Education — that launched in spring 2019 in UChicago Medicine’s Emergency Department. The initiative provides a protocol for screening patients who may be at risk for opioid overdose and supplies them with life-saving naloxone to take home. Close contacts of patients with opioid use disorder are also eligible for the take-home kit. Having naloxone available outside of the healthcare setting allows anyone to potentially treat someone who has overdosed, including those witnessing an overdose who may be reluctant to call 911.

The Association of American Medical Colleges Pritzker student Sarah Follman, MS4, helped develop the recognized the program with a 2019 Curricular initiative to identify ED patients at risk for opioid overdose. Innovation Award. “Medical students spend a lot of time learning detailed biochemical pathways and memorizing a “On a busy ED shift, it can be challenging to lot of rare diagnoses, but the topics of addiction and identify patients at risk for overdose and have a treatment of substance use disorders get relatively conversation about naloxone, so we trained medical 30 students have enrolled in little coverage for what feels like a sizeable students to help with the screening and training the elective and conducted problem,” Follman said. process,” said emergency medicine physician P. screenings in the ED since Through the program, first-year medical Quincy Moore, MD, who developed, implemented the program launched students enrolled in the Emergency Medicine and administers the elective receive a lecture on opioid use disorder, O.P.I.A.T.E. program. with special focus on the benefits of naloxone to “This adds significant treat opioid overdoses. During their ED shifts, the value to the ED team, students use a survey to screen patients to identify while also providing those at risk for opioid overdose. If a patient screens a critical educational 147patients have been screened positive, the student trains the patient on how to experience for the by the group identify and respond to an overdose, including how students.” to administer naloxone and the steps that should follow. After successful training, the student notifies the care team, who orders a naloxone kit to be >40% dispensed to the patient. of these patients were found P. Quincy Moore, MD, to be at risk of having or oversees the O.P.I.A.T.E. witnessing an overdose program in the Emergency Department.

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 39 Summer Research Program 2020 76 student participants Pritzker News Pritzker

56faculty mentors 35 judges

The Pritzker Summer Research Program, research, clinical trial enrollments and projects in an opportunity for students to conduct funded community and global health. research between their M1 and M2 years, was “We are exceptionally proud that everyone in conducted virtually in 2020 due to the COVID-19 the program not only persevered, but excelled in 23 pandemic. the face of extraordinary hardship,” said Vineet group leaders Throughout the spring, participants and their Arora, MD, AM’03, Herbert T. Abelson Professor faculty mentors worked diligently to salvage of Medicine and Assistant Dean for Scholarship research proposals and transition to socially and Discovery. “I was overwhelmed by what our distanced projects that could be done remotely. students accomplished given the backdrop of With the support from Pritzker staff and faculty, what was happening in our country and locally students completed virtual basic and translational in Chicago.”

Pritzker’s Class of 2024

81 MD students

14University of Chicago alumni

Medical Scientist9 Training Program (MSTP) students 42 undergraduate colleges and universities 28% PHOTO BY ANNE RYAN from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine 2/3 took one or more gap years

40 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION YOUR NEWS Your News 1960s for Occupational Safety and Health 2020-2021 ALUMNI COUNCIL and the Environmental Protection We Agency (EPA). He has received EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE numerous awards, including a Silver want to Chris Albanis, AB’96, MD’00 Medal from the EPA, the National hear from President Institutes of Health World AIDS Day you! Paul Rockey, MD’70 Award and the UChicago MBSAA Immediate Past President Distinguished Service Award (recently Doriane Miller, MD’83 renamed the Distinguished Alumni Share news about your life Vice President Award). Mark R. Aschliman, MD’80 and accomplishments: Alumni Awards Committee Chair and National Reunion Chair 1980s tinyurl.com/MBSAAUpdate Karyl Kopaskie, AB’07, PhD’14 Mark E. Brecher, MD’82, was honored Chicago Partners Program Chair by the AABB with the 2020 Tibor Jeanne Farnan, AB’98, MD’02 Greenwalt Memorial Award and Editorial Committee Chair Lectureship. This award recognizes associate director for translational Baruch Solomon Ticho, PhD’87, MD’88 individuals who have made major research. As a breast cancer and Regional Programs Chair Marvin Stone, SM’62, MD’63 (with contributions to hematology, trans- radiation researcher, he studies the honors), wrote the book, When to fusion medicine or cellular therapies. cellular processes that govern aging, ALUMNI COUNCIL Act and When to Refrain: A Lifetime Brecher is an emeritus professor at cellular metabolism, and cancer. Gius Lampis Anagnostopoulos, SB’57, of Learning the Science and Art of the University of North Carolina at previously worked at the Robert H. MD’61 ✱ Medicine. Stone trained at Barnes- Chapel Hill, and retired chief medical Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Andrew Aronson, MD’69 Jewish Hospital, the National Institutes offi cer of Laboratory Corporation of Northwestern University. Juliana Basko-Plluska, AB’04, MD of Health (NIH), Parkland Memorial America. He has a history of diverse contributions to the fi eld of transfusion Kenneth Begelman, MD’71 Hospital and the University of Texas 1990s and cellular therapies, including his Jennifer “Piper” Below, PhD’11 Southwestern Medical School. He was the fi rst chief of oncology and director work that helped prevent sepsis and Leonard Covello, AB’86, MD’90, Michael Boettcher, AB’89, MD’93 began a three-year term on the of the Baylor Sammons Cancer reduce its mortality risk. The AABB Alumni Council of the University of Kenneth Bridbord, MD’69, MPH Center in Dallas, positions he held for is an international, not-for-profi t Chicago Medical & Biological Sciences Ava Ferguson Bryan, AM’10, MD’18 ✤ 32 years. He has authored over 250 association representing individuals Alumni Association on July 1, 2020. Courtney Burrows, PhD’15, MBA’17 published articles and book chapters and institutions involved in the fi elds He is one of four new members on the Arnold Calica, SM’61, MD’75 ✱ dealing with hematology-oncology of transfusion medicine and cellular Alumni Council. Covello has been an Oliver Cameron, PhD’72, MD’74 and medical history. Stone is chief therapies. otolaryngologist in private practice emeritus of hematology and oncology Leonard Covello, AB’86, MD’90 David Soybel, AB’78, MD’82, became in the same suburban community at Baylor University Medical Center at Jennifer Ding ✤ the chief of surgery at the White in northwest Indiana for the two Dallas, a professor of internal medicine Hunter Eason, MD’18 ✤ River Junction VA Medical Center decades. He is the fi rst independent at Texas A&M College of Medicine and and professor at the Geisel School of surgeon in the country to perform Gail Farfel, PhD’93 clinical professor of humanities at the Jonathan Fox, AB’79, PhD’85, MD’87 Medicine at Dartmouth College after balloon dilation sinus procedures University of Texas at Dallas. moving to Vermont in March 2020. Jeff rey Goodenbour, PhD’09 under local anesthesia in the offi ce. Donald R. Hopkins, MD’66, was His wife, Shannon, continues her Andrew Hack, AB’95, PhD’00, MD’02 His interest in minimally invasive sinus honored by the Harvard T. H. Chan research and teaching as professor surgery led to a few method patents. Sadia Haider, AB’96, MD’01 School of Public Health in February of nutritional biochemistry at the Covello expanded his sinus work by Rajiv Jauhar, MD’91 2020 when it announced a new University of Massachusetts Lowell. establishing an endoscopic pituitary Lucy Lester, MD’72 program to increase diversity in Carter Van Waes, PhD’85, MD’87, surgery program at Community Daniel Leventhal, SM’13, PhD’16 doctoral programs would be named received a 2020 Team Science Award Hospital in Munster, Indiana, and Howard Liang, PhD’92, MBA’01 the Donald Hopkins Predoctoral from the American Association for became the founder of its surgical Julian Lutze ✤ Scholars Program. The new program Cancer Research during its June sleep program. provides opportunities for minority Jennifer McPartland, PhD’08 2020 virtual annual meeting for became the students to earn a two-year master Ian Smith, MD’97, Julia Mhlaba, MD’16 contributions to The Cancer Genome solo host of the television show, of science degree — in biostatistics, Vincent Nelson, MD’98 Atlas (TCGA). This award recognized The Doctors, for its 13th season in epidemiology or global health and 130 scientists on the current TCGA September 2020. Smith is the author Michael Prystowsky, MD’81 population — and qualify for admission project team who generated one of 18 books, including the New York Steven Server ✤ to a doctoral program. Hopkins earned of the largest-ever sets of tumor Times #1 bestsellers Shred, Super Coleman Seskind, AB’55, SB’56, a master’s degree from the Harvard characterization data and used it to Shred and The 4 Day Diet, as well as MD’59, SM’59 ✱ School of Public Health in 1970 and transform cancer research and care. three novels, The Blackbird Papers, Abby Stayart, AB’97, PHD’12 was awarded an honorary doctorate Van Waes helped lead the research The Ancient Nine and The Unspoken. Cynthia Thaik, MD’90 from Harvard University in 2013. He team that identifi ed molecular He is a longtime medical contributor currently works half time as special Barry Ticho, PhD’87, MD’88 characteristics that distinguish the to the Rachael Ray Show and the advisor for guinea worm eradication at Maimouna Traore ✤ genomic profi les of squamous cell former medical correspondent for the Carter Center and lives in Chicago Sapana Vora, PhD’14 carcinomas from the head, neck NBC’s TODAY Show and Nightly News. with his wife of 53 years, Dr. Ernestine Sydney Yoon, MD’86 and other sites, which is critical for He served two terms on President Mathis Hopkins. Russ Zajtchuk, SB’60, MD’63 ✱ developing more eff ective diagnoses Obama’s Council for Fitness, Sports Kenneth Bridbord, MD’69, MPH, and targeted treatment strategies for and Nutrition. ✱ LIFE MEMBER began a three-year term on the Alumni squamous cell carcinomas and other began a ✤ STUDENT OR RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVE Council of the University of Chicago specifi c cancer subtypes. Van Waes Vincent Nelson, MD’98, three-year term on the Alumni Council Medical & Biological Sciences Alumni is Clinical Director and Chief of the of the University of Chicago Medical & Association on July 1, 2020. He is one Head and Neck Surgery Branch at the Biological Sciences Alumni Association of four new members on the Alumni National Institute on Deafness and on July 1, 2020. He is one of four new Council. Bridbord is the senior scientist Other Communication Disorders. members on the Alumni Council. emeritus at the Fogarty International David Gius, MD, PhD’89, joined the Nelson is vice president of medical Center (FIC). Previously, Bridbord Mays Cancer Center, home to UT aff airs in the Offi ce of Clinical Aff airs worked as director of FIC’s extramural Health San Antonio MD Anderson, as (OCA) for the Blue Cross Blue Shield programs and at the National Institute professor of radiation oncology and Association (BCBSA). He ensures

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 41 From cradle to colleague

that the OCA and BCBSA incorporate Don M. Henry AB’76, MD’80, was close to retiring from a long career as an clinical guidance that aligns with obstetrician/gynecologist, but still had one career goal to check off his list: market demand and positively impacts the quality of healthcare while seeing a baby he delivered graduate from medical school. maintaining BCBS System leadership with members, providers and He got his wish in May 2020, when Mary Thomas, MD, MPH, graduated from stakeholders. Prior to joining BCBSA, Indiana University School of Medicine. Henry doesn’t remember the birth 27 Nelson was a senior medical director years ago — “which is good, since you only remember the ones where there

Your News Your and market chief medical officer for the central and west U.S. region at are problems,” he said — but he stayed in touch with the family, and when United Healthcare. Mary was in high school, he invited her to shadow him. When she was in medical school, Henry served as her mentor and her attending for her junior 2000s year OB/GYN rotation at Community Hospital in Munster, Indiana. “Being Gerald Wyckoff, PhD’00, became her mentor was something I very much enjoyed,” he said. “She was a very the inaugural chair of the Division of serious student.” Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Missouri- He attended Mary’s virtual graduation in May and retired to Colorado this Kansas City School of Pharmacy in June 2020. The new division is the past summer. Now he plans to spend his time as a gentleman scholar — merger of two previous basic science “typical for a University of Chicago alum,” he said — and hopes to continue units, and provides instruction to mentoring in the future, as a volunteer or a tutor. PharmD and PhD students. Wyckoff was also named the director of — Emily Ayshford research and graduate studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Pharmacy. 2010s Karyl S. Kopaskie, AB’07, PhD’14, became the Division of the Biological Sciences representative on the UChicago Alumni Board in July 2020. Kopaskie is senior principal of Sg2’s women’s health and pediatrics team, where she develops future-focused healthcare strategy for hospitals and healthcare organizations across the country. Previously, she was a Chicago Innovation Mentor fellow with Inspirotec, developing an indoor allergen detector for patients with asthma and other respiratory diseases. Kopaskie earned her doctorate studying Yersinia species under the mentorship of Olaf Schneewind, PhD. She has been a member of the Alumni Council of the University of Chicago Medical & Biological Sciences Alumni Association since 2015. Sapana Vora, PhD’14, began a three- year term on the Alumni Council of the University of Chicago Medical & Biological Sciences Alumni Association on July 1, 2020. She is one of four new members on the Alumni Council. In The Class of 1975’s Virtual Happy 2015, Vora joined the U.S. Department Whether in person or virtually — of State’s Biosecurity Engagement Hour during the June 5-6, 2020, Program (BEP) in the Office of we can't wait to meet again. weekend (when the 2020 Pritzker Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Reunion was originally scheduled). as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2021 PRITZKER SCHOOL OF MEDICINE REUNION More details on the 2020 Science and Technology Policy Fellow. Pritzker Reunion Classes virtual As BEP’s current deputy team chief, Plans are moving ahead for the 2021 Pritzker Reunion. Members of the Vora oversees BEP’s budget, helps get-togethers: mbsaa.uchicago. following classes will celebrate their milestone Reunion in 2021: 1961, shape CTR programmatic and policy edu/2020/06/pritzker-classes- strategies, and works closely with the 1966, 1970, 1971, 1975, 1976, 1980, 1981, 1985, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1995, reunite-virtually White House and across U.S. agencies. 1996, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2015 and 2016. Alumni will be Before joining BEP, she worked at the informed via email and on the UChicago MBSAA Reunion page as details National Academy of Sciences. are finalized.

Learn more at mbsaa.uchicago.edu/reunion

42 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION IN MEMORIAM In Memoriam

1940s the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame. Arnold King Brenman, MD’55, died Joseph Kye, JD’97; daughter-in-law, Schoenrich is survived by her children, on April 16, 2020. Born in Germany, Katelyn Kye, AB’94, JD’99; and five Edyth H. Schoenrich, MD’47, died grandchildren and great grandchildren. he came to the U.S. with his parents, grandchildren, including Thomas September 12, 2020, at the age of 101. She was preceded in death by her brother and uncle in 1934. During his Verheyden, LLM’19. husband, Carlos. time in medical school, Brenman was After receiving a bachelor’s degree in Harold G. Sutton, Jr., MD, Professor elected to the Illinois Beta Chapter 1941 from Duke University and com- Emeritus of Radiation Oncology, died at University of Chicago of the Alpha pleting graduate work in psychology, April 30, 2020. He was 93. Sutton 1950s Omega Alpha (AΩA) Honor Medical she became one of three women in was a devoted and proud faculty Society. From 1956 to 1968, he was the University of Chicago’s School John L. Sommer, PhB’48, SB’50, member of the University of Chicago’s stationed in Puerto Rico, serving of Medicine Class of 1947. Schoenrich MD’53, died on September 1, 2020. He Department of Radiation and Cellular as a physician in the U.S. Army. For completed her internal medicine was 93. Drafted by the Army in 1945, Oncology since the early 1970s. He almost 40 years, Brenman practiced internship and residency at The Johns Sommer served as a noncombatant valued being a teacher of residents otolaryngology and microsurgery of Hopkins Hospital. She was a longtime in various stateside posts. He met his and cared deeply for his patients. the ear in Philadelphia. He also made faculty member of the Johns Hopkins wife, Donna M. Sommer, MD’54, at Sutton’s initial medical training was contributions to the field of medical Bloomberg School of Public Health the University of Chicago. Sommer as a surgical resident. He used his photography. He is survived by his and served as the school’s Associate was a faculty member and practiced surgical skills as well as his ability to wife, Jeanne; his children, Caren, Paul Dean for Medical Affairs. In 1971, she urology at the University until 1966, work with colleagues to develop the and Steven; and his six grandchildren. became the first female associate dean when the family moved to Fremont, intraoperative brachytherapy program at Johns Hopkins University. She was California. He joined the Permanente at UChicago Medicine. Sutton was an advocate for the comprehensive Medical Group and began practicing Former faculty preceded in death by his wife, Marjorie, care of severely ill patients confined to medicine at Kaiser’s Hayward facility. who spent 20 years as a nutritionist on lengthy hospital stays and served as He also served as Physician-in-Charge Hoon T. Kye, MD, died on December the Wyler Children’s Hospital pediatric director of Maryland’s administration of Kaiser’s Fremont Medical Offices for 30, 2019 at the age of 83. He was an gastroenterology team. He is survived of the chronically ill and aging, where several years. Sommer retired in 1990. assistant professor in anesthesiology by his children, Harold III, Paul, Sarah she led state programs for disease He is survived by his son, Matthew; at the University of Chicago starting and Mary, and grandchildren, Sarah, control and prevention, and oversaw daughter-in-law, Ih-hae Chang; and in 1965. He is survived by his wife, Benjamin, Adam, Robert, Joseph and three hospitals for chronic disease and two grandchildren. He was preceded Francesca; his three children, including Alexander. rehabilitation and two tuberculosis in death by his older son, Andrew, and Cecelia Kye, AB’89, JD’93, and hospitals. In 2005, she was named to wife, Donna.

Former faculty Nancy E. Warner, SB’44, MD’49

ancy E. Warner, SB’44, MD’49 — physician, the Hastings Professor of Pathology, becoming the pathologist, teacher and pioneer for women first female chair at the USC School of Medicine and Nin medicine and academia — died on August also the first woman to chair a pathology department 17, 2020, at the age of 97. In 1944, Warner was one in a coeducational institution in the U.S. Warner was of only seven women admitted to the University instrumental in the establishment of the Medical of Chicago School of Medicine. She was inspired Faculty Women’s Association (MFWA) and the to pursue pathology by two UChicago faculty associated MFWA Research Fund, which was used members, Edith Potter, MD, and Eleanor Humphreys, to provide small grants for women initiating research Rush MD’31. Warner completed her residency in projects or in need of bridging funding gaps. She pathology and served as chief surgical pathologist received the USC Distinguished Emeriti Award in at the University of Chicago. She worked at Cedars 1996, and the USC Emeriti Center’s inaugural Paul E. of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles before joining Hadley Faculty Award for Service to USC in 2009. the faculty of the University of Washington’s School Warner was active in national initiatives that of Medicine in 1965. A year later, she was recruited supported women in academia, including Women by the University of Southern California School of in Medicine (WIM) and the American Association of Medicine (now Keck School of Medicine), where she Medical Colleges (AAMC) Women Faculty Leadership PHOTO BY TONY CHIAPPETTA remained until her retirement in 1993. Development programs, and was an avid advocate for At USC, Warner distinguished herself as a surgical gender equity in academia at all levels. She recently pathologist specializing in endocrine pathology. provided a gift to the University of Chicago to create She developed a large collection of high-quality three mechanisms to support research in gender photographic images of gross and microscopic and sexuality studies, professional development surgical pathology and autopsy specimens from all and research scholarships for women faculty in the major organs. She used these images to teach humanities. She also donated a large volume of anatomic pathology and diagnostic principles and to papers, lecture notes, photos and personal items to assist colleagues around the world with the diagnosis the University of Chicago Library. She is survived by of rare conditions, before donating them to the USC her two nephews and niece, and her great nephews. Norris Medical Library. She was preceded in death by her wife and partner of In 1972, Warner was appointed Chair of the 60 years, Christine Reynolds; her parents; two sisters; Department of Pathology and subsequently named and nephew.

uchicagomedicine.org/midway MEDICINE ON THE MIDWAY FALL 2020 43 Former faculty Joseph M. Baron, SB’58, MD’62, SM’62

oseph M. Baron, SB’58, Laboratory. He also previously MD’62, SM’62, a longtime, served as chairman of the Hospital highly respected and Transfusion Committee. He was In Memoriam J distinguished faculty member, recognized multiple times as a died on September 20, 2020 in Chicago magazine Top Doctor and Boston. He was 82 years old. He as a Best Doctor in America. He received his bachelor’s degree in spoke regularly at regional and biochemistry, master’s degree in national meetings and served as a pharmacology and medical degree hematology/oncology consultant at the University of Chicago. For and book reviewer for the over 50 years, he was a physician Journal of the American Medical in the Section of Hematology/ Association. “ Dr. Baron was a Oncology at the University of An associate professor in the Chicago, where he received Department of Medicine, Baron phenomenal clinician and numerous honors. As a clinician, he was an outstanding educator and was an expert in lymphoproliferative a remarkable role model for young inspirational teacher and disorders — cutaneous lymphomas, physicians, training hundreds of an amazing and beloved in particular — and coagulation medical students, residents, fellows medicine, as well as classic and faculty. He received the Medical human being and friend. hematologic disease, including myeloproliferative disorders, Student Basic Science Award in 1981 and Senior Medical One could not find a hemolytic anemias and thrombocytopenic states. He Resident Teaching Awards in 1995 and 1996. In 2016, he was served as the director of the first clinical trial of human named a Senior Faculty Scholar in UChicago’s Bucksbaum physician more devoted to erythropoietin in patients in 1984 in collaboration with Institute for Clinical Excellence and was the first recipient of UChicago biochemist Eugene Goldwasser, PhD’50, and the Department of Medicine’s Outstanding Clinical Service his work and his patients kidney specialist Adrian Katz, MD. He served in several Award. He retired in 2019, and that year he was honored than Joe. He will be leadership roles at the University of Chicago, including with his department‘s Distinguished Service Award and the acting chief of the Section of Hematology/Oncology, University of Chicago Medical and Biological Sciences Alumni deeply missed.” director of the UChicago Medicine Hemophilia Center, and Association’s Gold Key Award. medical director of the Clinical Coagulation/Bone Marrow Dr. Baron and his wife, Beverly Wirth Baron, MD, a Kenneth S. Polonsky, MD retired faculty member in the Department of Pathology, Richard T. Crane Distinguished were married for 56 years. The couple had an incredible Service Professor partnership and made many joint contributions. They could Dean of the Biological Sciences often be found late at night and on weekends working in the Division and the Pritzker School hospital together in service of their colleagues and patients. of Medicine Outside of work and family, Baron’s greatest loves were waterfalls, traveling, classical music, sports and sharing a good joke. In addition to his wife, he is survived by daughters Rebecca Baron, Miriam Barshak and Elinor Baron; sister Rachel Zukerman; son-in-law Jason Barshak; daughter-in-law Sara K. de Bethune; and four grandchildren.

Joseph M. Baron, MD, talks with Dean Kenneth Polonsky, MD, in 2019.

44 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

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LAST LOOK

Anita Blanchard, Career perspective MD’90, Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education, refl ects on her journey from medical student to mentor in a graphic story in The New England Journal of Medicine. In a “A Sense of Belonging,” Blanchard credits her mentor, James E. Bowman, MD, for guiding her through the pitfalls and milestones of medical school.

See the full graphic story in the October 8, 2020 issue of NEJM, nejm.org.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY NATALIE KOSCAL, MA, AND ALISON E. BURKE, MA