Peer Review | The Division of Biological Sciences, University of Chicago

SUMMER 2007 | VOLUME 5 | No. 2
BENCH & BEDSIDE

Paddle Fish New genetic data overturn long-held theory of limb development
Long before animals with limbs (tetrapods) came onto the scene about 365 million years ago, fish already possessed the genes associated with helping to grow hands and feet (autopods) report University of Chicago researchers in the May 24, 2007, issue of Nature.

Gene study shows three groups of chimps
The largest study to date of genetic variation among chimpanzees has found that the traditional, geography-based sorting of chimps into three populations—western, central and eastern—is underpinned by significant genetic differences, two to three times greater than the variation between the most different human populations.

New surgery fights endometrial cancer
The University of Chicago Medical Center now offers robotic surgery for endometrial cancer. Sarah Temkin, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, is the first gynecologic oncologist in Illinois to operate with Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci robotic system.

Immune system, high cholesterol linked
Researchers at the University of Chicago have found an unsuspected link between the immune system and high plasma lipid levels (cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood) in mice.

Chiropractic treatment lowers blood pressure
A Chicago-area study of 50 individuals with a misaligned Atlas vertebra (located high in the neck) and high blood pressure showed that after a one-time specialized chiropractic adjustment, blood pressure decreased significantly.

Physicians support pay rewards, not public reporting
Although three out of four primary care doctors support the use of financial rewards as an incentive for better medical care, most of these physicians oppose public reporting of such quality assessments at the individual or group level.

Complexity of human brain slows new evolution
Despite the explosive growth in size and complexity of the human brain, the pace of evolutionary change among the thousands of genes expressed in brain tissue has actually slowed since the split, millions of years ago, between human and chimpanzee.

Genetic evolution passes through two-step process
Although the human and chimpanzee genomes are distinguished by 35 million differences in individual DNA “letters,” only about 50,000 of those differences alter the sequences of proteins. Of those 50,000 differences, an estimated 5,000 may have adaptive consequences in the evolutionary divergence between these two species.

Cancer during youth leads to higher adult risk
Childhood cancer survivors are nine times as likely as the general population to develop a sarcoma—a cancer of connective or supportive tissue such as bone, fat, or muscle—but indicators can help physicians in knowing who’s most at risk.

Conscience, religion alter doctors' decisions
Many physicians feel no obligation to tell patients about legal but morally controversial medical treatments or to refer patients to doctors who do not object to those treatments.

DOE to help compute research project
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science has granted 4 million hours of computing time to a project overseen by the University of Chicago’s Institute for Molecular Pediatric Sciences.

Neck arteries give clues to heart attack risk
Physicians at the University of Chicago Medical Center are now offering a screening test using ultrasound images of arteries in the neck to assess the future risk of heart attack or stroke. The test also allows an estimation of the typical age of someone with similar blood vessels.

Arsenic compound improves leukemia survival
A phase III cancer clinical trial showed that adult patients with an uncommon form of leukemia had better survival chances if they received the chemotherapy drug arsenic trioxide.

U.S. beats Europe for hypertension treatment
By starting treatment for high blood pressure earlier and being more aggressive, physicians in the United States control hypertension significantly better than their counterparts in western Europe.