Medicine & Health

A $15 million commitment from Washington University benefactors Philip and Sima Needleman will enable the university to leverage its expertise in biomedical discovery to boost drug development via the Needleman Program for Innovation and Commercialization.

Thinking beyond COVID-19, a team led by Srikanth Singamaneni at the McKelvey School of Engineering developed a new point-of-care diagnostic test that is 1,000 times more sensitive than conventional rapid tests and can quantify concentrations of proteins.

Scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine were awarded $569 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in federal fiscal year 2022, elevating WashU to No. 3 among U.S. medical schools in total NIH research funding support.

S. Joshua Swamidass, MD, PhD, an associate professor of pathology and immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is recognized for applying machine learning to chemical biology and medicine, and for extraordinary public outreach promoting an understanding of science among communities of faith.

Research from the lab of Hong Chen, at the McKelvey School of Engineering and the School of Medicine, and collaborators found that using focused-ultrasound-mediated liquid biopsy in a mouse model released more tau proteins and another biomarker into the blood than without the intervention. This noninvasive method could facilitate diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders.

Jeffrey I. Gordon, MD, at the School of Medicine, has been named this year’s recipient of the Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research.

Christine O’Brien, at the McKelvey School of Engineering, and her team have received a $20,000 prize from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Technology for Maternal Health Challenge.

What changes and trends could we see this year? WashU experts in areas from artificial intelligence to climate to fashion share their insights.

A School of Medicine study may help explain how excess weight can contribute to diabetes and may provide researchers with a target to help prevent or delay diabetes in some of those at risk. The findings suggest that many people with elevated levels of insulin also have defects in an enzyme important to the processing of a key fatty acid.

A study, in mice, from the School of Medicine, suggests that the bacterium Acinetobacter can hide undetected in bladder cells and then reactivate when stimulated by medical intervention. The findings suggest that patients may bring the bacterium into hospitals.