Medicine & Health

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.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death among children ages 1-14 and will affect over 12,000 families in the United States this year alone. To increase awareness, September is designated Childhood Cancer Awareness Month with Wednesday, Sept. 12, pegged as Childhood Cancer Awareness Day. WUSTL researchers Kimberly J. Johnson, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School and Todd Druley , MD, PhD, pediatric oncologist and assistant professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine, are working to alleviate childhood cancer.

Lihong Wang, PhD, the Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering has received an National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award to explore novel imaging techniques using light that promise significant improvements in biomedical imaging and light therapy.

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.

Children who use inhaled steroid drugs for asthma end up slightly shorter at their full adult height than children who don’t use the drugs, new results from a comprehensive asthma study show. The study’s senior author is Robert C. Strunk, MD, the Donald Strominger Professor of Pediatrics.

Barak A. Cohen, PhD, and Robi D. Mitra, PhD, have been named Alvin Goldfarb Distinguished Professors of Computational Biology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Soil bacteria and bacteria that cause human diseases have recently swapped at least seven antibiotic-resistance genes, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine report on Aug. 31 in Science.

William Chapman has been named as the Eugene Bricker Chair of Surgery at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Victoria J. Fraser, MD, has been named head of the Department of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.