Author: Chris Amelung

Cognitive fluctuations, or episodes when train of thought temporarily is lost, are more likely to occur in older persons who are developing Alzheimer’s disease than in their healthy peers, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The sixth annual School of Medicine Art Show will be held Jan. 14-Feb. 11, 2010 in the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center Atrium.

Patients with different genetic variations respond well to combination asthma treatment, School of Medicine research shows.

School of Medicine researchers found that highly targeted radiation therapy improves survival and lessens treatment-related complications in cervical cancer patients.

Washington University has been awarded nearly $80 million in funding from the 2009 American Recovery and Re-investment Act (ARRA) to support research across a broad range of projects, including cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, renewable energy, diabetes and climate change.

A 10 million-square-foot cellular network will be built on the Washington University Medical Center campus this year as part of a new paging system. Sprint and TFC, the joint School of Medicine- and BJC HealthCare-operated company that supports telecommunications services, will build the network, estimated to be complete in early 2010.

The 11-story, 700,000 square-foot BJC Institute of Health at Washington UniversityThe exterior of the BJC Institute of Health at Washington University is almost a wrap. The building is enclosed in 24,000 square-feet of insulated metal panels, 20,800 square-feet of brick, 99,000 square-feet of limestone panels and 75,000 square-feet of glass. The focus now continues inward as crews prepare the building for a December 2009 opening.

A photo exhibit at the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center this summer just goes to show that some things run in a family. The father-son photography duo of Edward and Josh Geltman will be on display beginning at 5:30 p.m. July 24 in the hearth area of the FLTC. The show runs until September 20.

*St. Louis Post-Dispatch* imageIt sounds like something from a science fiction movie: Sensors are surgically inserted in the brain to understand what you’re thinking. Machines that can speak, move or process information — based on the fleeting thoughts in a person’s imagination. But it’s not completely fictional. Researchers at Washington University have developed ways of tying humans and computers together.

Image courtesy of United States Department of AgricultureHuman gut bacterium *Enterococcus faecalis*The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis four grants totaling $19 million to explore the trillions of microbes that inhabit the human body and determine how they contribute to good health and disease. The grants are part of the Human Microbiome Project, an ongoing, ambitious effort to catalog the bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microorganisms that naturally coexist in or on the body.