Medicine & Health

Todd H. Wasserman, MD, professor emeritus of radiation oncology at the School of Medicine, died Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013, after a long illness. Wasserman, 66, made important contributions to the field of radiation oncology.

Several of the School of Medicine’s musically talented students, faculty and staff recently performed their second annual winter concert in the lobby of the Center for Advanced Medicine. Shown are laboratory technician Rowan Karvas on clarinet and graduate student Mo Lee on piano in a performance of Paul Jeanjean’s “Arabesques.”

Steven Cheng, MD, and Will Ross, MD, have received the 2012 Samuel R. Goldstein Leadership Awards in Medical Student Education.

Doctors may one day treat some forms of blindness by altering the genetic program of the light-sensing cells of the eye, according to School of Medicine scientists. Working in mice with a disease that causes gradual blindness, the researchers reprogrammed the cells in the eye that enable night vision.

The Longer Life Foundation, a joint enterprise of the School of Medicine and the Reinsurance Group of America, is seeking applications for funding in 2013.

Michael Lane, MD, has been named patient safety officer for the Department of Medicine. The position is new for the department, and in the role, Lane will oversee and coordinate safety efforts to help improve health-care outcomes.

Mario Castro, MD, and Angela Brown, MD, will lead a new office in the Department of Medicine that supports faculty members’ career development. The new program will feature workshops and seminars to promote faculty career development in the areas of research, clinical care, education and leadership.

Healthy men and women show little difference in their hearts, except for small electrocardiographic disparities. But new genetic differences found by Washington University in St. Louis researchers in hearts with disease could ultimately lead to personalized treatment of various heart ailments.

The School of Medicine’s 9th Annual Art Show opens Jan. 22 and runs through Feb. 17 at the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center atrium.

Bradley L. Schlaggar, MD, PhD, the A. Ernest and Jane G. Stein Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine, has been awarded the E. Mead Johnson Award for Pediatric Research. The award is among the most prestigious in pediatric research.​