Medicine & Health

People with the genetic condition neurofibromatosis type 1 are prone to developing tumors on nervous system tissue. A new study from Washington University School of Medicine has found that the development and growth of such tumors are driven by nearby noncancerous neurons and immune cells.

A biomarker in newborns may signal autism spectrum disorder months or even years before troubling symptoms develop and such diagnoses typically are made. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and Stanford University found that some newborns had very low levels of a neuropeptide years before their diagnoses with autism spectrum disorder.

COVID-19 survivors are needed to donate blood plasma. Infectious diseases physicians at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed an expanded access program to give blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors to critically ill patients.

Washington University School of Medicine is launching a clinical trial for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. The study will investigate whether two different antimalarial drugs, including hydroxychloroquine, alone or in combination with a common antibiotic is effective in treating COVID-19 patients.

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis studied the gut microbiomes of wild apes in the Republic of Congo, of captive apes in zoos in the U.S., and of people from around the world and discovered that lifestyle is more important than geography or even species in determining the makeup of the gut microbiome.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and elsewhere are investigating whether transfusions of blood plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 can prevent or treat the disease. The approach was used with some success during the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Among the research programs racing to develop therapies and vaccines for the new pandemic virus COVID-19 is one of the largest crowdsourced supercomputing projects in the world. Led by computational biophysicist Greg Bowman, at Washington University School of Medicine, the project is called Folding@home.

Nautral killer (NK) cells may be more effective as immunotherapy for cancer treatment than adult NK cells that come from bone marrow, according to a new study from the School of Medicine.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., have found — in newborn mice — that a component of breast milk may help protect premature babies from developing life-threatening sepsis.

Soon after a novel coronavirus first appeared, School of Medicine researchers, doctors and staff began preparing for a possible outbreak. Infectious disease physicians started planning how to respond, and researchers got to work finding drugs or vaccines for COVID-19.