Breakthroughs

Breakthroughs

Breakthroughs is a podcast about groundbreaking research and the scientists leading these discoveries at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. We are driven by our mission to transform the practice of medicine and profoundly impact human health beyond the individual patient. We believe better answers only come from discovery.

Episodes

August 25, 2025 22 mins

We're resharing an episode from October 2022. How are habits – both good and bad – formed in the brain, and what role do habits play in diseases of the brain? These are some of the questions 

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Uniting scientists and harnessing the power of the immune system to fight disease is at the heart of the Center for Human Immunobiology (CHI). Stephanie Eisenbarth, MD, PhD, leads the center, and she is also the chief of Allergy and Immunology

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An experimental drug called NU-9 was invented at Northwestern University by

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A Northwestern Medicine clinical trial led by Rod Passman, MD, could improve the way we care for millions of people with atrial fibrillation, but it is facing an unexpected challenge. There has been a pause in federal funding to Northwestern University that could  Read more

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Each year, more than 800,000 Americans suffer a heart attack and many of those who survive are left with irreversible scarring and the slow progression towards heart failure. In this episode, Edward Thorp, PhD, Read more

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New evidence shows that a one-time intervention can lead to lasting improvement in the lives of young people struggling with mental health problems. In this episode, Jessica Schleider, PhD, associate professor of Medical Social Sciences, explains how she is using this approach to scale single-session interventions (SSIs) to reach more people in need of mental health services.

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In this episode, Minjee Kim, MD, shares results of recent studies she has conducted to better understand the role of inadequate sleep on long-term metabolic health in pregnant women and middle-aged adults. She also discusses a new AI-based intervention that could bring a better night of sleep to those who need it. 

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In this episode, Rodrigo Braga,

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What could be the world's smallest pacemaker was recently developed at Northwestern University and details of the device were published in the journal 

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A Northwestern Medicine study published in Nature Medicine, used a new technique called spatial transcriptomics to examine the brain’s response to Alzheimer's therapies, revealing new molecular targets that could enhance the effectiveness of current therapies and not just slow the disease, but potentially improve patient outcomes.

David Gate, PhD, assistant professor of Neurology in the Ken and Ruth Davee Department of Neurology an...

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A new $11.7 million award from the National Institute of Mental Health aims to help Northwestern Medicine investigators move the dial on the youth mental health crisis by targeting early warning signs of mental health risk in toddlers, rather than waiting until diagnosable and severe conditions are present later in childhood.

In this episode, Lauren Wakschlag, PhD, who is co-leading this grant, explains how the team will implement ...

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Women are living longer, healthier lives, but ovarian aging still impacts fertility and hormone production as it always has. In this episode,  Read more

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Scientists from Northwestern Medicine, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have

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With a new $20 million grant from the National Institute on Aging, Northwestern investigator, Linda T Read more

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Understanding the systemic drivers of health disparities within marginalized populations is complex. In this episode, Michelle Birkett, PhD, Read more

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Nearly one million people in the U.S. are living with Parkinson's disease, a condition for which there is still no known cause or cure. Read more

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New research from the lab of Issam Ben-Sahra, PhD, could rewrite textbooks on our understanding of cellular metabolism and potentially identify new targets for cancer and metabolic diseases such as obesity. The discovery, published in the journal Science, has been praised for its rigorous simplicity and underscores the importance of understanding the molecular mechanisms that underlie specific biological processes.

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Jeffrey Gordon, MD, often called “the father of microbiome research,” is the 2024 recipient of the Mechthild Esser Nemmers Prize in Medical Science. 

In this episode, Gordon discusses the impacts of his long career in gut microbiome research, which has profoundly transformed our understanding of human health. Specifically, he shares the evolution of groundbreaking approaches to treating malnutrition and childhood undernutrition wit...

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The MYC oncogene is notorious in the cancer research world because it is implicated in many advanced or aggressive cancers such as treatment-resistant prostate cancer. In this episode, Sarki Abdulkadir,...

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A team of Northwestern Medicine scientists are conducting a new longitudinal cross-sectional study to investigate why some people see to age faster than others. In this episode, John Wilkins, MD, associate director of the Human Longevity Laboratory at the Potocsnak Longevity Institute, shares details of the study, which will eventually include a variety of interventions aimed at slowing down the aging process.

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