2000s
In the early 2000s, cancer researcher Wei-Jen Tang and graduate student Chester Drum discovered the structure of edema factor, one of the three toxins that make the anthrax bacterium deadly, an essential step in finding treatment for the infection.
2004
Vertebrate paleontologist Neil Shubin discovers the 375-million-year-old Tiktaalik roseae, better known as the "fishapod," the first fish that ventured out of water onto land.
2005
Medical oncologist Funmi Olopade showed that women of African ancestry are more likely to be diagnosed with a more virulent form of breast cancer than women of European ancestry. Olopade received a MacArthur Prize for this discovery
2008
Methylnaltrexone, a drug developed to relieve one of the major side effects of pain therapy for cancer patients, received marketing approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration on April 24, 2008, for use in the treatment of opioid-induced bowel disorders in patients receiving palliative care for advanced illness such as cancer. Invented in 1979 by the late University of Chicago pharmacologist Leon Goldberg, the drug was studied and developed by faculty within our department of anesthesia and critical care.
2013
Robert Grossman developed the Bionimbus Protected Data Cloud, the first cloud-based computing system approved by the National Institutes of Health to process data from the Cancer Genome Atlas, the agency’s flagship cancer genetics study. In late 2014, Grossman became director of the Genomic Data Commons, an NIH-funded project based on Bionimbus that will be the nation’s most comprehensive data facility.
2014
One hundred million years ago, the Sahara was home to the largest predatory dinosaur known to have existed: Spinosaurus. German scientist Ernst Stromer unearthed the original bones of Spinosaurus at the turn of the 20th century, but they were lost in World War II. The giant dinosaur—larger than a T. rex—then eluded scientists until 2014, when an international team, including UChicago paleontologists Nizar Ibrahim and Paul Sereno, analyzed newly acquired fossils, remains from museum collections, and historical records to render the dinosaur’s skeleton and reveal it as the first truly semi-aquatic dinosaur.
2015
UChicago neurobiologists Clifton Ragsdale and Caroline Albertin, along with a team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, sequenced the genome of the California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides), the first cephalopod ever to be fully sequenced.
2015
Biologist Zhe-Xi Luo and doctoral student David Grossnickle, along with a team of other researchers from UChicago and the Beijing Museum of Natural History, discovered fossils of the earliest-known tree-dwelling and subterranean mammals in China. Agilodocodon scansoriusis the earliest-known tree-dwelling mammaliaform (extinct relative of modern mammals), and Docofossor brachydactylus is the earliest-known subterranean mammaliaform. The fossils of these shrew-sized animals suggest that early mammals were as ecologically diverse as modern mammals.
2018
Surgeons at the University of Chicago Medicine were the first in the nation to successfully complete back-to-back triple-organ transplants to replace their failing hearts, livers and kidneys. These complex procedures were performed by Valluvan Jeevanandam, Talia Baker, and Yolanda Becker.
2020
Neuroscientists Sliman Bensmaia and Nicho Hatsopoulos, working with partners from the University of Pittsburgh, Case Western Reserve University, and elsewhere, spent years developing technology to restore touch and movement in prosthetic limbs for those who are paralyzed. In October 2020, the team worked with neurosurgeon Peter Warnke to implant specialized electrodes into the brain of a patient who was partially paralyzed. These electrodes receive neuronal signals from his motor cortex, allowing him to control and manipulate an arm in a virtual reality environment. They also send sensory feedback to his brain, allowing him to experience touch sensations on his hand — so that he can “feel” pressure and vibration.
2023
Pediatrician James LaBelle led a clinical trial that used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit specific genes in stem cells taken from patients with sickle cell disease. The edits increased the cells’ production of fetal hemoglobin (HbF), a protein that can replace unhealthy, sickled hemoglobin in the blood and protect against the complications of sickle cell disease. The patients then received their own edited cells as therapeutic infusions. The therapy was one of two new sickle cell treatments based on gene therapy, which were later approved by the FDA.
