March 8, 2007

News briefs

New Medical Degree Designed for Population Studies

The Feinberg School of Medicine Department of Preventive Medicine, in conjunction with the Graduate School, now offers a master of science degree in epidemiology/biostastitics.

The full-time program, completed in five or six quarters, emphasizes a combination of coursework and guided practical experience to provide students with the skills to apply epidemiologic and biostatistical methodology to the design, conduct and analysis of population studies.

‘Rent’ Director to Lead Theatre project’s ‘Boy in the Bubble’

Award-winning Broadway director Michael Greif will direct the American Music Theatre Project’s (AMTP) fourth new musical, “The Boy in the Bubble.”

“Bubble” is scheduled for production on the Evanston campus this summer at the Ethel M. Barber Theatre.

Greif, a Northwestern alumnus, directed Jonathan Larson’s long-running Broadway hit “Rent,” and received an Obie Award and a Tony Award nomination for best director in 1996.

ITEC Pre-Seed Fund Makes Award to American BioOptics

The Illinois Technology Enterprise Center at Northwestern (ITEC–Evanston) has invested $35,000 in American BioOptics, a privately held medical diagnostic company in Chicago.

American BioOptics is commercializing a suite of optical technologies and devices developed at Northwestern and Evanston Northwestern Healthcare for cancer screening and risk assessment. This is the ninth investment ITEC has made from its pre-seed fund for technology startup companies.

Vadim Backman, a co-founder of the company and professor of biomedical engineering, saw the potential for optical technologies developed in his laboratory to improve the way cancer is detected and diagnosed and to save lives through widespread screening.

The first product under development is a colon cancer screening device that uses a novel optical backscattering technology developed by Backman and colleagues at Northwestern to detect in vivo the earliest nanoscale changes in cellular makeup of otherwise normal tissue. The methodology does not involve colonoscopy and colon preparation.