Medicine & Health

For years, the field of optical imaging in biological tissue had languished, with few advances and no significant growth. The concept was promising — using light to image organs, cells, and blood vessels, noninvasively and without any radiation — but it seemed impossible to obtain high-resolution images at any significant depth. Then came Lihong V. […]

What does it take to regenerate a limb? Biologists have long thought that organ regeneration in animals like zebrafish and salamanders involved stem cells that can generate any tissue in the body. But new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has shown that the individual cells in a regenerating limb retain their original identities and only give rise to more of their own kind.

Researchers at Washington University and King’s College London have independently identified DNA on chromosome 3 that appears to be related to depression. The new studies identify a DNA region containing up to 90 genes. Both are published May 16 in the American Journal of Psychiatry. 

David E. Kennell, PhD, professor emeritus of molecular microbiology, died April 20, 2011. He was 78 and lived in University City, Mo.

Phillip Tarr, MD, is a busy investigator juggling meetings, research, teaching and patient care. And he is a man driven to find answers to fight deadly diseases in newborns.

New data offer hints to why Parkinson’s disease so selectively harms brain cells that produce the chemical dopamine, says Karen O’Malley, PhD, a researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Washington University has awarded five Bear Cub Fund grants totaling $240,000 to support innovative research that has shown commercial potential.

Three School of Medicine nurses received the 2011 Excellence in Nursing Award from St. Louis Magazine April 20. The award winners were Jeane Kuensting, nurse practitioner in the Department of Internal Medicine’s Bone Marrow Transplant division; Jennifer Seigel, nurse practitioner in the Department of Surgery; and Lori Watkins, head nurse in the Department of Internal Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases.

Two Washington University scientists have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. John E. Heuser, MD, professor of cell biology and physiology, and Scott J. Hultgren, PhD, the Helen L. Stoever Professor of Molecular Microbiology and director of the Center for Women’s Infectious Disease Research, are among the 72 new members and 18 foreign associates elected to the academy this year.

Nutrition and longevity researchers, including Luigi Fontana, MD, PhD, have found more evidence that eating less may help people live longer. They report that individuals who significantly reduce their calorie intake have lower core body temperatures. Mice and rats consuming fewer calories also have lower core body temperatures, and they live significantly longer than littermates eating a standard diet.