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 2017-18 academic year are:

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

Andrew Tremain

2015

Clifton Ragsdale and Carrie Albertin: first to sequence octopus genome

Clifton Ragsdale, Associate Professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and Organismal Biology and Anatomy, along with Organismal Biology graduate student Caroline Albertin and a team of researchers from University of California, Berkeley and Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology sequenced the genome of the California Two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides).

The California Two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides)

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

1949

Leon O. Jacobson: performed the first bone marrow transplant

In 1949, medical researcher Leon O. Jacobson, MD’39, performed the first bone marrow transplant. He discovered he could save a mouse whose bone marrow and spleen had been destroyed by transplanting donated spleen tissue into the mouse. The procedure now helps thousands of patients with cancer and other diseases each year.

Leon O. Jacobson, the Joseph Regenstein Professor in Medicine, in his laboratory

2006

Neil Shubin: discovered evolutionary link between fish and land animals

In 2006, paleontologist Neil Shubin discovered fossils of Tiktaalik roseae, the missing evolutionary link between fish and the first animals that waddled out of water onto land 375 million years ago. Shubin’s key discovery advanced evolutionary biology, and his best-selling book and television series sparked popular interest in the subject.

2016

Zhe-Xi Luo: discovered earliest-known arboreal and subterranean mammals

Zhe-Xi Luo, professor of organismal biology and anatomy at UChicago, was part of a team of researchers from UChicago and Beijing who discovered fossils of the earliest-known arboreal and subterranean mammals. The fossils suggest that early mammals were as ecologically diverse as modern mammals. Luo’s student David Grossnickle (Evolutionary Biology) also contributed to the research and was an author of one of the Science paper published on this discovery.

Peer Health Liaison Program

Biomedical Sciences

Darwinian Sciences

Molecular Biosciences

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