Medicine & Health

Theodore J. Cicero, PhD, has been honored by the College of Problems of Drug Dependence with the 2010 Nathan B. Eddy Award for his pioneering research efforts in the field of drug addiction, research and treatment.The Eddy Award is presented annually to a scientist who has made outstanding contributions in drug abuse research.

Linda B. Cottler, PhD, will receive the Marian W. Fischman Memorial Lectureship Award at the 72nd annual meeting of the College of Problems of Drug Dependence. The award was established to recognize the contributions of outstanding women scientists in drug abuse research. 

Twenty-four research groups have received funding through a joint Clinical and Translational Research Funding Program offered by the Washington University Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences (ICTS) and the Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation (BJHF).

Robert J. Rothbaum, MD, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been appointed the inaugural Centennial Professor of Pediatrics.

Saulo Klahr, MD, a kidney disease expert and former director of the Washington University Department of Medicine’s Renal Division, died June 3, 2010, at Parc Provence in Creve Coeur, Mo.

A protein that helps build the brain in infants and children may aid efforts to restore damage from multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurodegenerative diseases, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found.

When she was a child “in the land Down Under,” Camilla Whittington’s dad decided it would be fun for them to go look for platypuses. These animals, found only in Australia, are technically mammals, yet they are like no other mammals around – sure, like all mammals, they produce milk for their babies, but they also lay eggs and have a bill like birds do, and, most oddly, the males shoot venom from spurs in their hind legs that causes pain even the strongest painkillers can’t alleviate.  

The bone-strengthening drug zoledronic acid (Zometa) can help fight metastatic breast cancer when given before surgery, suggests research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. When the drug was given along with chemotherapy for three months before breast cancer surgery, it reduced the number of women who had tumor cells in their bone marrow at the time of surgery.

Only about one in three young women has received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to help prevent cervical cancer, according to a new report from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The HPV vaccine prevents four strains of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, two of which are found in about 70 percent of all women with cervical cancer. But the new data shows only 34 percent of girls ages 13 to 17 were being vaccinated in six states that were surveyed. 

Benjamin S. Carson Sr., MD, director of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery, professor of neurosurgery, of oncology, of plastic surgery and of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, spoke to School of Medicine graduates about “The World’s Most Valuable Possession” May 21 at the Ferrara Theatre at America’s Center.