Author: Ken Duenke

Mice lacking the L-Fabp gene (left) don’t become obese on a high-fat diet like normal mice.Obesity and gallstones often go hand in hand. But not in mice developed at the School of Medicine. Even when these mice eat high-fat diets, they don’t get fat, but they do develop gallstones. Researchers say the findings offer clues about genetic factors related to gallstones, and they believe better understanding of those factors may one day allow physicians to monitor people at risk and even, perhaps, to intervene before gallstones become a serious problem.

Photo by Whitney CurtisVolunteers from the Sam Fox School and the City of Pagedale — with support from St. Louis nonprofit organization Beyond Housing — spent the day working with residents of the 6500 block of Whitney Avenue to add bushes, fruit trees, flowerbeds and other individualized landscaping.

Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D., vice chancellor for research, has been named president of State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook effective July 1.

Enola K. Proctor, Ph.D., a pioneer in the field of mental health services research and the social work profession, and Jeffrey I. Gordon, M.D., whose groundbreaking studies have revealed the contributions of gut microbes to human health and disease, will receive Washington University’s 2009 faculty achievement awards, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced.

At its spring meeting, the Board of Trustees received reports on the endowment, investments, and budgets for the 2009-10 fiscal year. Reports also were delivered by the undergraduate and graduate student representatives.

WUSTL computer engineers are bringing the minimalist approach to medical care and computing by coupling USB-based ultrasound probe technology with a smartphone, enabling a compact, mobile computational platform and a medical imaging device that fits in the palm of a hand.

HallahanDennis Hallahan has been chosen to head the Department of Radiation Oncology at the School of Medicine. Hallahan will be named the first Elizabeth H. and James S. McDonnell III Distinguished Professor in Medicine. He will also serve on the Senior Leadership Committee of the Siteman Cancer Center.

Certain characteristics of preschool-aged children at high risk for asthma could help physicians deliver more personalized and effective treatment. Researchers at the School of Medicine and five other sites nationwide found that children who showed the most improvement in days without wheezing using an inhaled corticosteroid drug were caucasian boys who had allergies and had a hospitalization or emergency department visit for asthma symptoms in the year prior to the trial.

Working with an asthma coach helps to significantly reduce hospitalizations of low-income, African-American children with asthma, results of a new, two-year study show. Researchers at the School of Medicine and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill worked with nearly 200 parents of children between 2-8 years old on Medicaid who had been hospitalized for asthma at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

A drug widely used to shrink enlarged prostates has been shown to lower the risk of prostate cancer by 23 percent in men who have an increased risk of the disease, according to results of an international clinical trial presented April 27 at the American Urological Association annual meeting in Chicago.