Medicine & Health

It’s common for School of Medicine employees to work here for 20 or more years. But it’s less common to meet an employee who has been here since she was 15 years old. That employee is Rhonda Matt, director of research and business operations for the Department of Pediatrics.

New research suggests that a key immune cell may play a role in lung cancer susceptibility. Working in mice, Alexander Krupnick, MD, and colleagues found evidence that the genetic diversity in natural killer cells, which typically seek out and destroy tumor cells, contributes to whether or not the animals develop lung cancer.

For some women facing fertility issues, a faster way of freezing and storing eggs is expanding their reproductive options. This new technology has improved viability of frozen eggs.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have taken one of the first detailed looks into how Alzheimer’s disease disrupts coordination among several of the brain’s networks.

The rare disorder Wolfram syndrome is caused by mutations in a single gene, but its effects on the body are far reaching. Now, researchers report that they have identified a mechanism that affects both insulin-secreting cells and neurons. The finding will aid in the understanding of Wolfram syndrome and also may be important in the treatment of milder forms of diabetes and other disorders.

Lung cancer patients with a history of smoking have ten times more genetic mutations in their tumors than those with the disease who have never smoked, according to Richard K. Wilson, PhD, and his colleagues at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

A nationwide consortium of scientists has reported the first comprehensive genetic analysis of squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, a common type of lung cancer responsible for about 400,000 deaths each year. According to Ramaswamy Govindan, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, about 75 percent of the tumors studied have mutations that can be targeted with existing drugs.

A new study suggests an estimated 46.3 percent of adolescents with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were the victims of bullying. The study originated at the Brown School and is part of a pioneering program of research on adolescents and adults with autism led by Paul T. Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor. Lead author Paul Sterzing, PhD, assistant professor at the School of Social Welfare of the University of California, Berkeley, completed this study when he was a student at the Brown School.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a protein essential to repairing the intestine’s inner lining.

Sleep disruptions may be among the earliest indicators of the start of Alzheimer’s disease, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report this week in Science Translational Medicine. David M. Holtzman, MD, the Andrew B. and Gretchen P. Jones Professor and head of the Department of Neurology, is the study’s author.