Medicine & Health

Nine researchers at the School of Medicine have received funding from the Longer Life Foundation — a cooperative effort between the School of Medicine and the Reinsurance Group of America. The foundation supports research aimed at improving human health, wellness and longevity.

Four Washington University in St. Louis faculty are among 250 newly elected members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies. They are John Atkinson, MD, Pauline Kim, Adia Harvey Wingfield and Jeffrey Zacks.

Jianjun Guan, a materials scientist in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, received a four-year more than $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to design a system of nanoparticles that deliver drugs after a heart attack much more effectively than current methods allow.

In a paper published in ACS Nano, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis outline how they used a chemical probe to light up interlocking peptides. Their technique will help scientists differentiate synthetic peptides from toxic types found in Alzheimer’s disease.

Zainab Mahmoud, MD, an instructor in medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been awarded the Dr. Nanette K. Wenger Research Goes Red Award from the American Heart Association.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received a $6.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a gene therapy that would modify the immune system’s B cells to spur them to produce broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV.

Nine faculty members at Washington University in St. Louis are among the 502 new fellows selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the most distinct honors in the scientific community.

Rajendra S. Apte, MD, PhD, the Paul A. Cibis Distinguished Professor and vice chair of innovation and translation in the John F. Hardesty, MD, Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received the 2024 Roger H. Johnson Award.

Siyuan Ding, an assistant professor of molecular microbiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received a Michelson Prize: Next Generation Grant from the Michelson Medical Research Foundation and the Human Immunome Project.

Women’s health has been getting a new focus in recent years from the local to the federal level, with President Joe Biden recently launching initiatives to boost federally funded research in this long-overlooked area. That focus is also active at the McKelvey School of Engineering, where a new elective course is filled with students interested in how they can use engineering to solve problems in women’s health.