Eva Feldman facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Eva Feldman
Feldman in 2022
Occupation	Physician-scientist

Eva Lucille Feldman is a scientist and doctor who studies diseases of the brain and nerves. She works at the University of Michigan. There, she is a special professor of Neurology and also leads important research centers. These centers focus on finding new treatments for serious conditions like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Dr. Feldman has done a lot of important work in understanding and treating diseases that affect the brain and nerves. She mainly focuses on ALS, Alzheimer's disease, memory problems, and how diabetes and obesity can harm the nervous system. She also studies how things in our environment can affect our nerves. A big part of her research involves using stem cells to develop new ways to treat these diseases.

She is a member of important groups like the National Research Council and the National Academy of Medicine. These groups help guide science and health in the United States. She is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which means she is recognized for her important scientific contributions.

Early Life and Education

Eva Feldman grew up in Indiana. She studied biology and chemistry at Earlham College. After that, she earned a master's degree in zoology from the University of Notre Dame.

She then went to the University of Michigan where she earned both her medical degree (M.D.) and her Ph.D. (a high-level research degree). She completed her training in Neurology at Johns Hopkins. There, she was a Chief Resident and received an award for excellent medical teaching. She was the first neurologist to get this award at Johns Hopkins. Later, she returned to the University of Michigan to specialize further in neuromuscular disorders.

Career

In 1988, Dr. Feldman became an assistant professor at Michigan Medicine. She started her own laboratory to study the nervous system. She also joined the Neuroscience Program and the Michigan Diabetes Research and Training Center. In 1994, she became an associate professor. By 1998, she was also part of the Cellular and Molecular Biology Program.

In 2000, Dr. Feldman became the director of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Center for the Study of Complications in Diabetes. She also became the director of the ALS Center of Excellence at Michigan Medicine. She was named the Russell N. DeJong Professor of Neurology. In 2005, she became the Director of Michigan Medicine's Neuropathy Center. In 2007, she was chosen to be the first Director of the A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute. This institute was created after the University of Michigan received a large gift from A. Alfred Taubman.

In 2023, she received a very special honor from the University of Michigan. She was named a Distinguished University Professor, an award named after her mentor, Dr. James Albers. In 2024, she also joined the Department of Neurosurgery at Michigan Medicine.

Dr. Feldman leads many research projects that receive funding from organizations like the NIH (National Institutes of Health) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She also leads studies that test new treatments for nerve disorders, especially for ALS and neuropathy.

She was the President of the Peripheral Nerve Society from 2007 to 2009. She also served as President of the American Neurological Association (ANA) from 2011 to 2013. She was only the third woman to be elected ANA President in 130 years. She later became the chair of the ANA from 2013 to 2015. She received the Robert S. Schwab Award from the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society. She is also the only University of Michigan graduate to receive both early and distinguished career awards from the U-M Medical Alumni Society.

Among her many awards, Dr. Feldman is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and the Association of American Physicians. She is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2023, she joined the NAM Council and received the Fulton Award from the World Federation of Neurology. In 2024, she received the Sheila Essey Award for her work in ALS. This award came from the American Academy of Neurology, American Brain Foundation, and ALS Association. That same year, she was part of a special committee that published "Living With ALS." This report gave ideas and recommendations to make ALS a more manageable disease.

Other awards she has received include the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Mary Jane Kugel Award twice (2003 and 2005). She also received the American Diabetes Association Lifetime Achievement Award (2006). In 2017, she got the Endocrine Society Gerald D. Aurbach Award for Outstanding Translational Research. In 2019, she received the Peripheral Nerve Society Alan J. Gebhart Prize for Excellence in Peripheral Nerve Research.

Dr. Feldman is the editor of the Contemporary Neurology Series. She also helps review articles for many top scientific journals. These include The Lancet Neurology, Nature Reviews Neurology, JAMA Neurology, and Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry. She has also been featured in many news outlets like CNN, TIME, National Geographic, PBS, and The New York Times.

A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute

The A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute was started in 2008. Its goal is to support doctors who also do scientific research. The institute helps these scientists make new discoveries, develop new medical treatments, and reduce suffering from diseases.

Under Dr. Feldman's leadership, the Taubman Institute funded research on many diseases. It paid special attention to adult and childhood cancer, heart and metabolic diseases, and nerve conditions like ALS and Alzheimer's disease. The institute focused on "translational" research. This means turning discoveries made in the lab into actual treatments for patients.

Dr. Feldman also created a program to support promising young scientists at the Taubman Institute. This program gave money to over 20 new researchers. It also focused on making sure more different kinds of people became clinician-scientists.

Dr. Feldman was the Director of the Taubman Institute for 10 years.

Stem Cell Initiative

Dr. Feldman has always supported medical science. She often appeared in public and in the media to talk about important issues. She and the Taubman Institute played a big role in the 2008 election in Michigan. Voters passed a new rule that made it easier to do research using embryonic stem cells. Dr. Feldman appeared on many TV and radio shows, in newspapers, and gave public speeches. She explained how valuable this research is for understanding and treating diseases.

The next year, Dr. Feldman announced that the Taubman Institute was forming the Consortium of Stem Cell Therapies. This was the first place in Michigan to create embryonic stem cell lines. It was also one of only a few such facilities in the entire country.

Center for RNA Biomedicine at the University of Michigan

In the fall of 2015, Dr. Feldman helped the Taubman Institute work with the University of Michigan to create the Center for RNA Biomedicine. This center helps and develops research on RNA across different scientific fields at the university.

NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies

Dr. Feldman's science laboratory started in 1988. It was first called the Program for Neurology Research and Discovery. Over 20 years, her lab grew to include over 30 scientists. In 2020, it was renamed The NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies (mneuronet.org). The main goal of Dr. Feldman's research is still the same: to make new scientific discoveries and find treatments for diseases of the nervous system.

ALS Center of Excellence at Michigan Medicine

In 2023, Dr. Feldman was the director of the ALS Clinic at Michigan Medicine. This clinic is now called the Pranger ALS Clinic. There, Dr. Feldman combined care for ALS patients with scientific research and clinical trials for ALS. The new ALS Center of Excellence at Michigan Medicine was approved by the ALS Association. Patient care and clinical trials happen at the Pranger ALS Clinic. Basic science research is done at the NeuroNetwork. All activities related to ALS from these different groups are now combined under the ALS Center of Excellence. This helps connect lab discoveries directly to patient care. Dr. Feldman now directs this center, with Dr. Stephen Goutman as the associate director.

Research

Understanding Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)

Dr. Feldman's research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, has led to important discoveries. These include how the disease works, what increases the risk of getting it, and possible treatments. She was key in developing the first human study approved by the FDA for a stem cell treatment for ALS. These early studies showed that it was safe to put stem cells into the spinal cord of people with ALS. This work set the stage for future cell-based treatments.

Dr. Feldman has also gained national attention for her work linking ALS risk to the exposome. The exposome includes all the environmental things a person is exposed to throughout their life. This includes pesticides, metals, air pollution, and exposures at home or work. Her research, supported by a special NIH award in 2021, uses advanced methods to understand how environmental factors contribute to ALS. Her team is also creating ways to predict a person's chance of getting ALS and how it might progress. These predictions aim to help diagnose the disease earlier and start treatment sooner. The ultimate goal is to make ALS a preventable disease.

Her lab has also made great progress in studying the connection between the immune system and ALS. In 2018, she and her team got a patent for using certain medicines called Jakinibs to treat ALS. This was based on her discovery of a new way the immune system helps the disease get worse. This offers a promising path for new treatments. Her lab is also studying immune cells in ALS patients. This helps them create "immune profiles" that can predict how the disease will progress. This research aims to find an immune "signature" that could help guide personalized treatments for patients.

To speed up discoveries, Dr. Feldman started the University of Michigan ALS Consortium in 2010. This group collects samples, patient information, lifestyle details, and even brain and spinal cord tissues from over 1,300 ALS patients. This resource has helped identify specific changes in genes, cells, and the immune system linked to ALS. This has led to finding possible markers for the disease and new targets for treatment.

Neuropathy and Diabetes Complications

Dr. Feldman is also known around the world for her important work on diabetes complications. She especially focuses on peripheral neuropathy, which is nerve damage. Her early work led to the creation of the Michigan Neuropathy Screening Instrument (MNSI). This is a simple, reliable tool used to find early signs of diabetic neuropathy. The MNSI helps doctors find patients at risk before serious nerve damage happens. Because it works well and is easy to use, the MNSI is used in many major studies and helps shape how diabetes is managed globally.

Her discoveries also include finding that obesity is a risk factor for nerve damage. She also showed that metabolic syndrome (a group of risk factors like high blood pressure and high blood sugar) is a combined risk factor for neuropathy. Dr. Feldman combined patient data and lab studies to show that diabetic peripheral neuropathy is not just caused by high blood sugar. Instead, it happens because nerves don't process fat correctly, which affects their energy. This explains why nerve damage often starts in the hands and feet. These findings changed the focus of research and care from just controlling blood sugar to a broader approach that looks at many metabolic factors.

This led to studies funded by the NIH that looked at how diet, exercise, and bariatric surgery (weight-loss surgery) affect neuropathy. These studies showed that these strategies can stop or even improve nerve damage. Because of this, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) now recommends diet and exercise as the first treatment for diabetic peripheral neuropathy.

Dr. Feldman's current research focuses on understanding what causes neuropathy and how it gets worse over time. She is especially looking at the role of tiny sacs called extracellular vesicles and special nerve cells called Schwann cells. She is also identifying key risk factors that play a big role in neuropathy in patients with diabetes and COVID-19. She is also studying the nerve problems that can happen with long COVID.

Brain Health and Alzheimer's Disease

Dr. Feldman's research has also shown important links between metabolic problems and cognitive impairment (problems with thinking and memory). Her lab was among the first to show that brain cells can stop responding to insulin. Insulin is important for sugar use and for forming memories. Using models of diabetes, her team showed that these models developed signs of Alzheimer's disease, including changes in a protein called tau protein. Dr. Feldman has reported that people with severe obesity have worse thinking skills compared to people who are not obese. She also found that waist size is a key metabolic risk factor for thinking problems. This shows how metabolic health affects brain function.

Dr. Feldman's current research aims to find the causes of brain diseases like dementia to develop specific treatments. A key part of her work looks at how aging, metabolic problems, and neuroinflammation (brain inflammation) are connected. She studies how these factors contribute to thinking problems and Alzheimer's disease. Using advanced techniques, her team is investigating how obesity changes brain microglia. These are immune cells in the brain that clean up waste and control inflammation.

Similar to her work on nerve health, she has also shown the possible benefits of diet and exercise for brain health. Based on what she learned from her ALS studies, Dr. Feldman is developing stem cell treatments for Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Her recent studies have shown that putting stem cells into the brains of models with Alzheimer's disease improves thinking and reduces disease signs. Currently, her team is studying the role of interneurons. These are special brain cells that connect other nerve cells. They are looking at how interneurons affect Alzheimer's disease and if they can be a target for stem cell treatments.

See also

• University of Michigan Medicine biography