Cleveland Clinic News and Notes

SPOTLIGHT

A Bold Leap Forward for Women’s Health 

The CLEVELAND CLINIC GLOBAL WOMEN’S HEALTH + WAM FORUM brought together leaders, advocates, researchers and supporters from across the country for an inspiring day focused on advancing the future of women’s health and research. And not a moment too soon.

The event in May at the Huntington Convention Center in Cleveland was hosted by Maria Shriver and Beri Ridgeway, MD, co-founders of the Cleveland Clinic Women’s Comprehensive Health and Research Center.

“Women’s health is in crisis, with persistent and consequential gaps in how women understand and manage their health across the lifespan,” said Shriver, founder of the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM) at Cleveland Clinic. “Too many women lack clear information about their health risks, and too many are unsure whether they can afford the care they need. By addressing these gaps in knowledge, access and affordability, we have a meaningful opportunity to improve health outcomes for women and their families.”

According to a new report from the Women’s Comprehensive Health and Research Center released in conjunction with the forum, many women are taking steps to support their health, although several challenges continue to affect how and when they seek care (see sidebar).

“Bringing this understanding into a room with so many people who care deeply about women’s health creates an opportunity to think more clearly about what women need and how to better support them,” said Dr. Ridgeway. “It’s an important step in continuing to improve how we approach women’s health.”

During the proceedings, two generous gifts were announced to support the Women’s Comprehensive Health and Research Center, including a gift to establish a new endowed chair in bone health.

KUDOS

Epilepsy Pioneer Honored

IMAD NAJM, MD, Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Epilepsy Center, is the winner 
of the 2026 Sones Innovation Award.

“Epilepsy is a disorder, an expression of storms that go unchecked in the brain,” he says. “We continue to work on understanding why.”

Dr. Najm, who holds the Joseph H. and Ellen B. Thomas Endowed Chair in Epilepsy, has spent nearly 30 years studying focal cortical dysplasia, a leading cause of drug-resistant epilepsy. He convened international experts who built a new classification for these epilepsies — now the standard used worldwide — and his research into the molecular changes behind seizures is pointing toward more targeted treatments. Under his leadership, the Epilepsy Center has grown into an integrated enterprise program that moves new treatments to patients faster.

The Sones Innovation Award is presented annually to a Cleveland Clinic caregiver for outstanding advances in care. The award is named after the late F. Mason Sones, MD, trailblazing Cleveland Clinic cardiologist.

“Dr. Najm is to epilepsy what Dr. Sones was to cardiology,” says Neurological Institute Chair André Machado, MD, PhD, “because he has allowed us to see the disease we couldn’t see before so that surgeons can treat it.”

ADVANCED COMPUTING

Quantum Leaps

The third annual CLEVELAND DISCOVERY AND INNOVATION FORUM, hosted by Cleveland Clinic and IBM, highlighted progress in applying quantum computing and AI to healthcare and life sciences research. The one-day event, held in June on Cleveland Clinic’s Main Campus, featured more than 30 speakers from academia, industry, foundations, venture capital and government. Discussions focused on the growing impact of AI and quantum computing in tackling some of the most complex challenges in healthcare and life sciences research. “Cleveland Clinic is at the forefront of applying quantum computing to life sciences research,” says Lara Jehi, MD, Cleveland Clinic’s chief research information officer (pictured here with Curtis Priem of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and holder of the Sondra J. and Stephen R. Hardis Endowed Chair for Research and Technology. “Through this forum and our broader research efforts, we are helping define how advanced computing can unlock new scientific insights and ultimately improve care for patients around the world.” The forum also highlighted five years of progress by Cleveland Clinic’s and IBM’s Discovery Accelerator, a partnership focused on advancing the pace of biomedical research through high-performance computing, AI and quantum computing. Since its launch, the Discovery Accelerator has supported more than 50 projects, contributed to multiple peer-reviewed publications and developed an innovative education curriculum. 

MILESTONE

Putting Serotonin on the Map

Cleveland Clinic has been honored by the American Chemical Society with the National Historic Chemical Landmark designation for its pivotal role in the DISCOVERY OF SEROTONIN, the foundation for mental health and mood disorder treatments. In 1948, Cleveland Clinic researchers led by Irvine Page, MD, were the first to isolate serotonin from the blood. Dr. Page and a team of visionary scientists, including Arda Green, MD, and Maurice Rapport, PhD, initially believed serotonin played a role in the blood. Isolating serotonin allowed additional members of the team, including Betty Twarog, PhD, to study it more closely and discover that the molecule acts primarily as a neurotransmitter in the brain. Now known to play important roles throughout the body, serotonin is best recognized for its effects on mood, cognition, memory, appetite and sleep.

RESEARCH

Decoding How the Brain Senses Movement

A research team led by Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy, in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic has uncovered NEW INSIGHT INTO HOW THE BRAIN SENSES MOVEMENT. Their findings, published in Science Advances, could potentially help improve sensation and movement for prosthetic limbs. By combining data from the world’s only two neural-machine interfaces designed to restore kinesthetic sensation — or the sense of movement — in upper limb prosthetics, researchers found that the brain appears to process this information not as isolated signals, but as coordinated hand grasp movement patterns, or “synergies.” “The ability to compare independently generated data from two very different interfaces makes these findings especially compelling,” says Paul Marasco, PhD, coordinator of the study at Cleveland Clinic. “It gives us a stronger foundation for designing therapies and devices that work with the nervous system in a more natural way, with the ultimate goal of improving outcomes for patients.” 

SICKLE CELL DISEASE

A Functional Cure

New results from a clinical trial show promising outcomes for A GENE-EDITED TREATMENT FOR SEVERE SICKLE CELL DISEASE, a genetic blood disorder with few curative options. As part of the multicenter RUBY Trial, researchers published their latest findings in The New England Journal of Medicine. Remarkably, 27 out of 28 patients did not have any painful sickle cell crises after treatment, achieving what physicians call a “functional cure.” Patients were treated with an experimental one-time gene editing cell therapy that modifies a patient’s own blood-forming stem cells to correct the mutation responsible for sickle cell disease. “Our aim has been to achieve a functional cure to help prevent any future damage caused by sickle cell disease,” says Rabi Hanna (pictured), MD, lead author and chair of the Pediatric Hematology — Oncology & Blood and Bone Marrow Transplant Division at Cleveland Clinic Children’s. “These latest results are compelling.” 

THE FINAL FRONTIER

Cardio Care for Space Travelers 

Cleveland Clinic has established the SPACE HEALTH CENTER in the Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute, which will incorporate research, education and clinical care for cardiovascular health conditions related to space travel. The new center is led by a multidisciplinary team of medical experts who will research the effects of space travel on cardiovascular function and health, provide cardiovascular medical care for those traveling to space and educate healthcare professionals, medical students and the public on the cardiovascular effects of space travel. “As space travel continues to grow rapidly, there are new health challenges and risks associated with exposure to this extreme environment,” says cardiac electrophysiologist Kenneth A. Mayuga, MD, director of the Space Health Center. “Our hope is to better understand these challenges, find ways of addressing them and guide and support those who travel to space. We can then use the knowledge we gain from space-based research to better serve our patients here on Earth.”