Medicine & Health

A group of seven third-year physical therapy students went to Argentina for about 10 days in early January to work with the Missionaries of Charity, a religious order of nuns established by Mother Teresa.

It’s time to nominate School of Medicine staff for this year’s Dean’s Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor awarded to a medical school staff member.

A study by Washington University researchers has raised safety concerns about an investigational approach to treating cancer. The strategy takes aim at a key signaling pathway, called Notch, involved in the formation of new blood vessels that feed tumor growth.

In a marriage of two disciplines that don’t often overlap — politics and medicine — a study by Matthew Gabel, PhD, professor of political science in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, finds that group consensus is an effective method for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease.

A workhorse of modern biology is sick, and scientists couldn’t be happier. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and other institutions have found that the nematode C. elegans, a millimeter-long worm used extensively for decades to study many aspects of biology, gets naturally occurring viral infections.

Health 2.0 and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently named Ozioma, an online cancer information tool from the Health Communication Research Laboratory (HCRL) at Washington University in St. Louis, one of two winners of a national contest. The Ozioma News Service was chosen a winner of the Enabling Community Use of Data for Cancer Prevention and Control Challenge, a part of the 2010 Health 2.0 Developer Challenge. The Ozioma tool helps reporters and media relations professionals create localized cancer stories for specific populations in specific communities.

A form of play therapy between parents and their toddlers can relieve depression in preschoolers, according to child psychiatry researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. For the study, the researchers adapted a play-based technique known as parent-child interaction therapy, adding a focus on emotional development. 

F. Sessions Cole, MD, Mark D. Levine, MD and Megan E. Wren, MD, have been awarded the 2010 Samuel R. Goldstein Leadership Awards in Medical Education.

The Arthritis Foundation has awarded its Lee C. Howley Sr. Prize for Arthritis Research to Wayne M. Yokoyama, MD, the Sam J. and Audrey Loew Levin Chair for Research in Arthritis and director of the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Dorothy T. Rinderer, an administrative assistant for 40 years in the Dean’s Office at the School of Medicine, died Sunday, Jan. 2, 2011, at Mary Queen and Mother Center in Shrewsbury, Mo. She was 88.