Medicine & Health

A compound derived from immune cells treats psoriasis in mice and holds promise for other autoimmune diseases, according to a new study from the School of Medicine.

A new School of Medicine study shows that a kind of brain scan called functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI) – which shows how brain regions interact – can reliably detect fundamental differences in how individual brains are wired.

Studying mice, School of Medicine researchers found that a drug can deliver itch relief by targeting particular opioid receptors on neurons in the spinal cord. The drug is being tested for its anti-itch effects in the U.S., but until now scientists haven’t understood how it works.

A new automated text messaging service may curb opioid abuse and reduce the likelihood of relapse while also decreasing treatment costs, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and Epharmix, a St. Louis-based digital health company.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have identified how the highly contagious norovirus infection begins, in mice. Norovirus is a major cause of gastrointestinal illness worldwide.

An international team of researchers led by School of Medicine scientists has identified genetic links between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia, two conditions previously thought to be unrelated.

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.