Medicine & Health

The Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center and Washington University have received from Alvin J. Siteman a commitment for an endowment that will provide at least $1 million annually to advance pioneering investigations into cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment. The new endowment establishes the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Research Fund, which will provide support for transformational scientific contributions that address the challenges associated with overcoming cancer. 

Cognitive fluctuations, or episodes when train of thought temporarily is lost, are more likely to occur in older persons who are developing Alzheimer’s disease than in their healthy peers, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Older patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) might benefit from a drug that reactivates genes that cancer cells turn off, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborating institutions. The researchers say the findings support further investigation of the drug, decitabine, as a first-line treatment for these patients, who have limited treatment options.

David Windus has been named associate dean for medical student education at the School of Medicine. He also is a professor of medicine and assistant medical director of the school’s Chromalloy American Kidney Center.

Obesity researchers at the School of Medicine are recruiting families with overweight children for a study to help those kids, and their parents, lose weight. The two-year study, called COMPASS (Comprehensive Maintenance Program to Achieve Sustained Success), will involve families with one or more children between the ages of 7 and 11 who are at least 20 percent above their ideal weight.

It may seem a small consolation from either point of view, but a new study has affirmed that patients with cancer are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease, and patients with Alzheimer’s disease are less likely to get cancer.

Many of the same genes influence both alcohol and marijuana use as well as dependence on those substances, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. Together, these genes make some people more likely to drink alcohol or use marijuana. As consumption of alcohol or use of marijuana increases, risk of dependency rises.

Four Washington University faculty members have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society. The rank of fellow is the highest honor awarded by the association and is bestowed upon members by their peers.

Neill Wright, associate professor of neurosurgery and of orthopedic surgery, has been named the Herbert Lourie Professor in Neurosurgery at the School of Medicine. Washington University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Larry J. Shapiro, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, announced the appointment.

For the first time, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have shown that brain plaques in apparently healthy individuals are associated with increased risk of diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease years later. In two studies published this month in Archives of Neurology, scientists report that volunteers with brain plaques were more likely to have declining scores on annual cognitive tests, to show signs of shrinkage in a key brain area affected by Alzheimer’s and to eventually be diagnosed with the disease.