Medicine & Health

Studying children shortly after they began experiencing tics, researchers at the School of Medicine discovered that although tics don’t go away, most children are able to suppress and control them. Understanding how they do that may provide insight to help others at risk for significant tic disorders.

School of Medicine researchers have figured out how to grow the intestinal parasite Cryptosporidium in the lab, an achievement that will speed efforts to treat or prevent diarrhea caused by the parasite.

Researchers at the School of Medicine and the Africa Health Research Institute have identified a master cell that coordinates the body’s immune defenses in the crucial early days after a tuberculosis infection. Boosting the activity of such cells could help reduce the millions of new infections that occur worldwide every year.

A study from researchers at the School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System has linked long-term use of drugs known as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) to fatal cases of cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease and upper gastrointestinal cancer. The researchers found that such risks increase with the duration of PPI use, even when taken at low doses.

Researchers at the School of Medicine studying brain tumors in mice discovered that tumors grow most rapidly if they can enlist the aid of immune cells. The findings suggest that therapies targeting immune cells could potentially treat some kinds of brain tumors.

A new study led by the School of Medicine has found that proton therapy is associated with fewer severe side effects than conventional X-ray radiation therapy for many cancer patients.

School of Medicine researchers have snapped high-resolution pictures of the chikungunya virus latched onto a protein found on the surface of cells in the joints. The findings could accelerate efforts to find new ways to prevent or treat viral arthritis.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis cause the most lethal infectious disease in the world. Researchers at the School of Medicine and Umea University in Sweden have found a compound that can prevent and even reverse antibiotic resistance in tuberculosis bacteria.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have found that treating mice with an antibiotic reduces the size of lesions caused by endometriosis. The researchers are planning a clinical trial to test the strategy in women who have the painful condition.

School of Medicine researchers have identified a previously unknown, rare muscle disease that can be treated with immunosuppressing drugs.