About this Blog

Science Life is a guide to the changing world of biomedicine, as seen from our home at the University of Chicago Medical Center. We’re interested in clinical and theoretical advances – from new kinds of cancer treatments to new ideas about how life evolved. Patients can visit this blog to ask questions or offer their own insights into diseases and therapies. Doctors and scholars can trade ideas about the latest studies or controversies. And anyone curious about the life sciences can join us in figuring out what this fascinating field means for our everyday lives.

The University of Chicago is an ideal place to seek this kind of information. Contributors to the blog include some of the world’s leading authorities on complex surgery, cancer, evolution, genetics, heart disease, organ transplants, and many other fields.  Any opinions expressed in this blog are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Thanks for visiting, and please feel free to join in the conversation.

About the Editors

Jeremy Manier is news director at the University of Chicago. For 12 years he covered science and medicine for the Chicago Tribune, where he wrote stories about stem cell research, cancer, bioethics, the human genome project, evolutionary biology, the Columbia space shuttle disaster, Dick Cheney’s health problems and the human toll of his hunting, the physics of baseball, the search for the Higgs boson and the origins of the universe. He also plays funk bass and cello. He left the Tribune in November 2008 to start new projects in digital media at the medical center, before moving to lead the University news office in June 2009. He lives in Chicago with his wife, the writer Carolyn Alessio, and their two kids.

Rob Mitchum is senior science and research reporter/new media at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Rob received a Ph.D. in neurobiology from the U. of C. in 2007 before moving to the Chicago Tribune for two years, covering crime, politics, courts, neighborhood issues, cycling culture and, occasionally, science. He also writes about music for Pitchfork, and his music and science writing has appeared in Paste, Oxford American,  Seed and Litmus, the science webzine he co-founded in 2007. He and his wife, Dr. Laura Zimmermann, live in Chicago with their pet turtle. E-mail Rob at robert.mitchum at uchospitals.edu