Medicine & Health

Scientists have developed a way to evaluate new treatments for some forms of attention deficit disorder. Working in mice, researchers at the School of Medicine showed that they can use brain scans to quickly test whether drugs increase levels of dopamine. The same group found that raising dopamine levels in mice alleviates attention deficits caused by neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a condition that affects more than 100,000 people in the United States.

Washington University in St. Louis has received a five-year, $3 million grant to establish a new center to develop better ways to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes in high-risk patients, including American Indians and Alaska Natives, says Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, director of the new center. 

The Children’s Discovery Institute has approved funding for three large-scale research initiatives focusing on heart and lung diseases in children. Together, the projects will receive $1.5 million over three years.The institute is a multi-disciplinary, innovation-based research partnership between St. Louis Children’s Hospital and the School of Medicine that has awarded more than $23 million in scientific grants since its launch in 2006.

High-dose vitamin E supplements increase the risk of prostate cancer, results of a large clinical trial show. The study’s findings, published Oct. 12, 2011, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, are based on an updated review of data from the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT).

A draft recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force calling for an end to routine PSA testing for healthy men age 50 and older goes too far, says Gerald Andriole, MD, a prostate cancer expert at Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

Cancer can be deadly, but it actually kills higher percentages of African-American men and women than other racial and ethnic groups. So researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and the Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis are trying to learn why those disparities exist and what to do about them.

Washington University School of Medicine is launching a new fellowship designed to give participants an inside look at the operation and governance of an academic medical center. Applications are due Oct. 15.

p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Times;} .MsoChpDefault {font-family:Cambria;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in;margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} Orthopaedic surgeon John C. Clohisy, MD, came from a medical family. His father was a general surgeon, and his mother a nurse anesthetist. More than half of their 10 children followed them into the field. But even that family pedigree didn’t make a career in medicine a “slam dunk” for Clohisy because he also was interested in teaching and research. Luckily, academic medicine allows him to pursue all three. 

The typical American diet includes nearly twice the recommended daily allowance for protein, and now a team of nutrition researchers, including Luigi Fontana, MD, PhD, and urologic surgeons at the School of Medicine, is conducting two studies to investigate a potential link between cancer and excess protein in the diet.  

New research by Washington University School of Medicine researchers, including Terrie E. Inder, MD, shows that exposure to stressors in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is associated with alterations in the brain structure and function of very preterm infants.