Medicine & Health

With a PhD in business, you might not expect Chris Boerner, AB ’93,  to be fighting cancer. Yet as head of international markets at Bristol-Myers Squibb, he works to bring life-saving immuno-oncology cancer drugs to international markets. In his free time, Boerner participates in two bike rides that raise more than $1 million annually for cancer research.

In Chicago, Steven Collens, AB ’93, was instrumental in starting 1871 and MATTER, co-working spaces for tech and health-care startups, respectively.

Researchers nationwide have reached a major milestone in describing the genetic landscape of cancer. Scientists at the School of Medicine and other institutions have completed the genetic sequencing and analyses of more than 11,000 tumors from patients, spanning 33 types of cancer — all part of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project, funded by the National Cancer Institute and National Human Genome Research Institute, both of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

New research at the School of Medicine suggests that aging immune cells increase the risk for age-related macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness in the United States.

Belly fat affects the odds of women surviving kidney cancer but not men, according to a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Very slow brain waves may be more important than anyone had realized. Researchers at the School of Medicine have found that very slow waves are directly linked to state of consciousness and may be involved in coordinating activity across distant brain regions.

School of Medicine scientists have combined the gene-editing tool CRISPR with a deactivated virus to deliver a healthy gene to a precise location in the bodies of living mice. And more importantly, the researchers demonstrated that the inserted gene remained properly activated in mice for at least six months.

Doctors recommend against taking antibiotics for viral infections because they don’t kill viruses — and they promote antibiotic resistance. A new study from the School of Medicine suggests another reason to avoid the pills: Taking antibiotics increases susceptibility to subsequent viral infection, at least in mice.

Scientists have designed a new drug compound that dials down inflammation, suggesting possible future uses against autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis. The new inhibitor is more selective than other compounds, according to new School of Medicine research.

Sticky amyloid plaques play a role in Alzheimer’s disease. School of Medicine researchers have shown that an antibody targeting a minor part of the plaques – a protein known as APOE – can sweep away the damaging plaques, opening potential treatment options.