Author: Jim Dryden

The Longer Life Foundation is seeking applications for research funding in 2012. The group plans to fund four or five grants in 2012. Letters of Intent are due by Feb. 20.

David J. Murray, MD, chose pediatric anesthesia as a way to gain the confidence that  he could manage the very worst that might happen, no matter how bad it got. Now, he uses clinical simulation to help students and residents learn to confront emergencies.

The same gene mutations linked to inherited, early-onset Alzheimer’s disease have been found in people with the more common late-onset form of the illness. The discovery by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis may lead doctors and researchers to change the way Alzheimer’s disease is classified.

School-age children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus, a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress. The new research, by child psychiatrists and neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is the first to show that changes in this key region of children’s brain anatomy are linked to a mother’s nurturing.

People with HIV often develop blood sugar and lipid problems and other metabolic complications that increase heart disease risk. New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that the HIV virus and the drugs used to treat it don’t worsen heart metabolism and function in these patients. p, , {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Cambria;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;}

Why do we like fatty foods so much? We can blame our taste buds. In the first study to identify a human receptor that can taste fat, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report that our tongues recognize and have an affinity for fat and that variations in a gene can make people more or less sensitive to the taste of fat in foods.

Patients who die from sepsis are likely to have had suppressed immune systems that left them unable to fight infections, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown. The findings suggest that therapies to rev up the immune response may help save the lives of some patients with the disorder.

For the first time, Anesthesiology, the premier journal in the field of anesthesiology, focuses entirely on the physicians, scientists and research conducted in a single, U.S. institution. The December issue of the journal features the work of the Department of Anesthesiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

A drug commonly used to treat seizures appears to make eye tumors less likely to grow if they spread to other parts of the body, according to new research at the School of Medicine. Their findings are available online in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

Studying family members suspected of having Alzheimer’s disease, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a gene that causes a rare disorder highlighted by memory loss and motor impairments. The condition is known as Kufs disease, but scientists say the discovery paves the way to development of a genetic test for Kufs and to therapies to treat dementia, which is a hallmark of Kufs and of other neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease.