Author: Brittney Wheeler

Sidharth Puram, MD, PhD, a distinguished physician-scientist specializing in head and neck cancer surgery, has been named the head of the Department of Otolaryngology — Head & Neck Surgery at WashU Medicine.

The St. Louis Children’s Hospital and WashU Medicine Heart Center has become one of only eight programs in the nation to perform a rare, lifesaving procedure in which one donor’s organ is transplanted into a patient, who then becomes a donor for another patient.

Prognosia, a biotech startup that harnesses AI-driven software to analyze mammograms to improve breast cancer risk prediction, was created by Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH, and Shu (Joy) Jiang, PhD, both at WashU Medicine.

Quitting smoking significantly increases survival time in cancer patients, particularly those with advanced-stage cancer, according to a study of an innovative smoking cessation program at WashU Medicine and Siteman Cancer Center.

Three WashU investigators have been recognized with prestigious awards through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, which supports unconventional approaches to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research.

New research from WashU Medicine identified a key enzyme that enables rotavirus to infect cells. Disabling this enzyme prevented infection, suggesting new treatments against rotavirus and other pathogens that rely on similar mechanisms.

The Confluence Collaborative for Community Engagement at WashU is now accepting nominations and applications for the William H. Danforth St. Louis Confluence Award. 

WashU Medicine researchers led by Erik Musiek, MD, PhD, discovered in mice that inhibition of a protein that controls the daily cycling of metabolism and inflammation decreases neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease.

Kim and Tim Eberlein, MD, were recently honored with the 2025 Jane and Whitney Harris St. Louis Community Service Award. The honor recognizes couples who contribute to the betterment of the greater St. Louis community.

Jeannie Kelly, MD, a renowned expert in the care of women with opiate use disorders during pregnancy, has been named the new director of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine & Ultrasound in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at WashU Medicine.