April 24, 2003

Faculty honors

LoAnn Peterson, M.D., professor of pathology, has been elected vice president of the American Society for Clinical Pathology.

ASCP is the largest organization for pathology and laboratory medicine in the world with 150,000 members.

Peterson is director of hematopathology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and program director of the hematopathology fellowship program. She also is a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University.

Peterson’s research, which focuses on chronic lymphocytic leukemia, has been supported by the National Cancer Institute and the Illinois Department of Public Aid.

Peterson has received the ASCP Distinguished Service Award and a Distinguished Alumnus Award from Bethel College. She is a fellow of the College of American Pathologists and serves as secretary-treasurer of the Society for Hematopathology.

Peterson has co-authored two editions of “Practical Diagnosis of Hematologic Disorders” and has written numerous journal articles, book chapters and conference presentations. She serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Clinical Pathology.

Linda A. Teplin, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director of the Pscho-Legal Studies Program in the Feinberg School of Medicine, has been named the Owen L. Coon Professor in Psychiatry.

Teplin has conducted public policy research on the interface between the mental health and criminal justice systems. She has studied the consequences of deinstituionalization, criminalization of the mentally ill, health needs and outcomes of adult and juvenile jail detainees and the relationship between mental disorder and violence.

Teplin’s work has been cited in reports of the Surgeon General, used in amicus briefs to the Supreme Court, presented in congressional hearings and disseminated by federal and private agencies and advocacy groups. Her findings have been used as a basis for changing public health policy nationwide.

Teplin’s research is funded by federal agencies and private foundations, including the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Alcoholism, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Robert Wood Johnson and William T. Grant foundations.

Zhou Wang, associate professor of urology at the Feinberg School of Medicine, has been named the O’Connor Family Research Professor in Urology.

Wang is an expert on male hormone action and prostate cancer research, with special interest in androgen-responsive genes. His laboratory has identified hundreds of the genes and demonstrated that some of them are growth inhibitory and are inactivated in prostate cancer.

Understanding the androgen action pathway in the prostate will provide insights into the mechanisms by which androgen impacts the pathogenesis of prostate cancer and may lead to new approaches for preventing and treating the disease.

Wang’s research is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense, and he has served on study sections for NIH, DOD and the American Cancer Society. He is a faculty associate of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.

Wang has received a SBUR/Merck Young Investigator Award, an ACS Junior Faculty Research Award, an Edwin Beer Award from the New York Academy of Medicine and an Alexander I. Newman Award.