Peer Health Liaison Program

The Peer Health Liaison program seeks to bridge a gap between BSD students and Student Health and Counseling Services. Liaisons undergo a training session with SHCH senior leadership to become well-versed in the services and resources available to students. They communicate with their students via a monthly email digest with up-to-date information on SHCH services. They additionally meet monthly with leadership to discuss items brought to their attention by their peers. The liaisons for the 2019-20 academic year are:

Neuroscience Cluster, Biophysical Sciences, Medical Physics and Public Health Sciences

Andrew Tremain

1941

Charles B. Huggins: introduced hormonal treatment of cancer

In 1941, cancer researcher Charles B. Huggins treated patients suffering from advanced prostate cancer by removing the hormone the cancers needed to grow. Hormonal treatment has since become a mainstay of care for several types of cancer, including breast and gynecological cancers.

Nobel laureate Charles B. Huggins, the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor in Surgery, working in his laboratory

1906

Robert R. Bensley: isolated beta cells, leading to the discovery of insulin

In a series of investigations starting in 1906, Robert R. Bensley demonstrated that the islets of Langerhans were specialized elements of the pancreas. He developed staining methods that distinguished between alpha cells and the beta cells that produce insulin. Bensley's work was fundamental to the discovery of insulin. He later developed techniques to disassemble cells and isolate cellular components by spinning them in a centrifuge, a technique he used in 1934 to isolate mitochondria.

1930s

Joseph B. Kirsner: transformed the field of gastroenterology

Gastroenterologist Joseph B. Kirsner joined UChicago in 1935, then pioneered modern understanding and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease He was one of the first to show the link between ulcerative colitis and increased risk of colon cancer, introduced guidelines for how doctors should care for patients, and helped found the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, and the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

2013

Robert Grossman: developed first NIH-approved cloud-based computing system to process cancer data

In 2013, data scientist 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 when completed.

1916

Ernest Everett Just: discovered significant aspect of cell cleavage

Ernest Everett Just, PhD 1916, worked with University of Chicago zoologist Frank Lillie at what is now the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. During dissertation research for his PhD in zoology, he made an important discovery about cell cleavage, showing that the sperm entry point determines the first cleavage plane in the egg of the marine annelid Nereis limbata.

Peer Health Liaison Program

Biomedical Sciences

Darwinian Sciences

Molecular Biosciences

Neuroscience Cluster, Biophysical Sciences, Medical Physics and Public Health Sciences