Medicine & Health

Welders exposed to airborne manganese at estimated levels below federal occupational safety standards exhibit neurological problems similar to Parkinson’s disease, according to School of Medicine research. The more they are exposed to manganese-containing welding fumes, the faster the workers’ signs and symptoms worsen. The findings, published Dec. 28, suggest current safety standards may not adequately protect welders.

A new study by the School of Medicine, published Dec. 22 in Nature Communications, helps explain why development of a better vaccine for tuberculosis has been stymied.

Scientists at the School of Medicine have detailed the structure of a molecule that has been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. Knowing the shape of the molecule — and how that shape may be disrupted by certain genetic mutations — can help in understanding how Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases develop and how to prevent and treat them.

An international team led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has selected a third investigational drug to be tested in a worldwide clinical trial — already underway — aimed at finding treatments to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

Measuring brain waves, Washington University researchers have found that clinically depressed children don’t respond to rewards the way other children do. The findings may show how the brain processes emotions in young children with depression.

School of Medicine scientists have designed small molecules that prevent bacteria from sticking to the wall of the bladder, halting the development of urinary tract infections in mice. The technology is the basis of a startup company: Fimbrion Therapeutics.

Girls with a rare genetic disorder caused by mutations in a gene known as Nf1 are much more likely to lose their vision than boys with mutations in the same gene. And now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis believe they know why: Female sex hormones activate immune cells that damage the nerves necessary for vision.

The son of Washington University Nobel laureates Carl and Gerty Cori has given the Nobel Prizes his parents were awarded in 1947 to the university. They can be seen at the Becker Medical Library.

Surgery can restore vision in patients who have suffered hemorrhaging in the eye after a traumatic brain injury, even if the operation doesn’t occur until several months after the injury, according to a small study from vision researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

While a particular metabolic pathway shows potential to slow down the aging process, new research indicates a downside: That same pathway may drive brain cancer. The pathway, known as the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) pathway, is overactive in a deadly form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma, according to a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.