Medicine & Health

A team led by Washington University School of Medicine scientists has found a way to measure tau levels in the blood. Damaging tangles of the protein tau dot the brains of people with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

To help people with hearing loss navigate their daily lives, Nancy Tye-Murray and colleagues at the School of Medicine have developed software tools to improve speech recognition. She launched a startup to provide the software to patients and professionals.

David H. Gutmann, MD, PhD, an international leader in neurofibromatosis research, received a $3.5 million grant to study why people with a genetic mutation that causes the genetic disorder known as NF1 develop markedly different signs and symptoms.

Washington University health researcher Ross Brownson has received a five-year, $2.6 million grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a study examining poor implementation of cancer-control programs.

A $3.6 million grant will fund a collaboration between School of Medicine researchers and the maker of a neurosurgery navigational system. They will create a software program to build personalized 3-D maps of the location of brain function.

New research led by the School of Medicine shows that an influential 2003 study about the interaction of genes, environment and depression may have missed the mark.

About half of all women will experience urinary tract infections in their lifetimes, and despite treatment, about a quarter will develop recurrent infections within six months of initial infection. A new study at the School of Medicine has uncovered a trigger of recurrent UTI infections: a type of vaginal bacteria that moves into the urinary tract.

As more states have legalized marijuana, advertising for the drug has become more common. In a new study, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report that more than half of young pot users they surveyed have seen marijuana ads — either online or in more traditional forms of advertising such as billboards and print media.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a Washington University in St. Louis faculty member in the School of Engineering & Applied Science a total of $1.3 million to study new imaging techniques designed to better fight breast and ovarian cancers.

Natural genetic changes can put some people at high risk of certain conditions, such as breast cancer, Alzheimer’s disease or high blood pressure. But in rare cases, genetic errors also can have the opposite effect, protecting individuals with these helpful genetic mistakes from developing common diseases. A new study of such “beneficial” genetic mutations, led by the School of Medicine, may provide guidance on the design of new therapies intended to reduce the risk of heart attacks.