Medicine & Health

They are the tiny motors present in many of the human body’s most complex systems: cilia and flagella move liquids such as cerebrospinal fluid and mucus past the cell surface, and throughout the body. Both are of vital importance to human health, but how they actually move remains a mystery. A team from Washington University in St. Louis has been awarded a 5-year, $1.25 million grant to study the mechanics of these tiny organelles.

Researchers have found that Zika virus can live in eyes and have identified genetic material from the virus in tears, according to a study from the School of Medicine. The research, in mice, helps explain why some Zika patients develop eye disease, including a condition that can lead to permanent vision loss.

Quitting smoking improves health and lowers odds of developing lung cancer. But a new study led by the School of Medicine shows that even among smokers with a genetic predisposition to smoking heavily and developing lung cancer at a young age, the benefits of quitting are significant.

A new center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis aims to bring together a cadre of faculty members to conduct basic, translational and clinical research focused on reproductive health.

People with blood type O often get more severely ill from cholera than people of other blood types. New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis may explain why.

The Center for Diabetes Translation Research, led by Debra Haire-Joshu, the Joyce Wood Professor at the Brown School, has been awarded $3.7 million to continue five years of funding by the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, a National Institutes of Health institute.

An international team of researchers, including Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has identified eight additional types of cancer linked to excess weight and obesity: stomach, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, ovary, meningioma (a type of brain tumor), thyroid cancer and the blood cancer multiple myeloma. Limiting weight gain over the decades could help to reduce the risk of these cancers, the data suggest.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified the protein that norovirus uses to invade cells. The discovery, in mice, provides new ways to study a virus notoriously hard to work with and may lead to treatments or a vaccine.

But a new study in young children with asthma — co-authored by the School of Medicine’s Leonard B. Bacharier, MD — compared acetaminophen to ibuprofen. It showed no difference in the severity of asthma symptoms between the two medications.

A kind of neuron found only in male mice and that detects a pheromone in female urine has been identified by researchers at the School of Medicine. But the sex difference is not hard-wired. By manipulating the mice’s living conditions and exposing male mice to female scents for long periods of time, the scientists showed that males lost these neurons and their interest in courting females.