Medicine & Health

Samuel A. Wickline, MD, has been chosen to receive the Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis. He will receive the honor Saturday, Dec. 6. Faculty achievement awards will be presented to David A. Balota, PhD, and Steven L. Teitelbaum, MD.

Genetic mutations may cause more cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) than scientists previously had realized, according to researchers. Shown are study authors Janet Cady, a PhD candidate, and Matthew Harms, MD, assistant professor of neurology at the School of Medicine.

Anesthesiology researchers Robert Gereau, PhD, (left) and Michael Bruchas, PhD, (right) have received one of only 11 DECODE (Deciphering Circuit Basis of Disease) grants to be awarded. The awards were announced at a ceremony featuring Thomas Insel, MD, (center) director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Heidi Prather, DO, professor and chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation, has been named president of the North American Spine Society (NASS). She is the first woman elected to the position.

You might want to stand up for this. Occupational sitting is associated with an increased likelihood of obesity, especially among black women, independent of occupational and leisure time physical activity, finds a new study from the School of Medicine and the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

A breast cancer vaccine developed at the School of Medicine is safe in patients with metastatic breast cancer, results of an early clinical trial indicate. Preliminary evidence from the small clinical trial, led by William Gillanders, MD, also suggests that the vaccine primed the patients’ immune systems to attack tumor cells and helped slow the cancer’s progression.

Science textbooks say we can’t see infrared light. Like X-rays and radio waves, infrared light waves are longer than the light waves in the visual spectrum. But an international team of researchers co-led by Frans Vinberg, PhD, (left) and Vladimir J. Kefalov, PhD, has found that under certain conditions, the retina can sense infrared light after all.

In the near future, physicians may treat some cancer patients with personalized vaccines that spur their immune systems to attack malignant tumors. New research led by scientists at the School of Medicine including senior author Robert Schreiber, PhD, has brought the approach one step closer to reality.

Neighborhood features such as bike facilities and low crime rates are associated with increased leisure and workplace-related physical activity, according to a new study from the Prevention Research Center at Washington University in St. Louis.

A protein that stimulates the brain to awaken from sleep may be a target for preventing Alzheimer’s disease, a study by School of Medicine researchers suggests. David M. Holtzman, MD, head of the Department of Neurology, is the study’s senior author.