Medicine & Health

Diabetes researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a key mechanism that appears to contribute to the blood vessel damage that occurs in people with diabetes.

Most people don’t think highly of pond scum, but for Susan Dutcher, PhD, professor of genetics and of cell biology and physiology at the School of Medicine, the single-celled green algae Chlamydomonas are incredible creatures worthy of her life’s work.

Retired NFL players use painkillers at four times the rate of the general population, according to new research conducted by investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers say the brutal collisions and bone-jarring injuries associated with football often cause long-term pain, which contributes to continued use and abuse of pain-killing medications. 

An international team of scientists, led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has decoded the DNA of a Sumatran orangutan. With this genome as a reference, the scientists then sequenced the genomes of five additional Sumatran and five Bornean orangutans, they report in the journal Nature.

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.

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.

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.

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.