Medicine & Health

Nearly all animals make sounds instinctively, but baby songbirds learn to sing in virtually the same way human infants learn to speak: by imitating a parent. Now, an international team of scientists, led by the School of Medicine, has decoded the genome of a songbird — the Australian zebra finch — to reveal intriguing clues about the genetic basis and evolution of vocal learning. 

A team of psychologists at Washington University that include graduate student Jonathan Jackson have found an intriguing possibility that personality and brain aging during the golden years may be linked.

There will be a year of festivities as the Department of Pediatrics celebrates its centennial April 1 to honor the milestones. Currently ranked eighth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, the Department of Pediatrics has become a world leader in pediatric patient care, teaching and research with its many groundbreaking discoveries and for its excellence in all divisions.

Clinicians may be able to better predict the effects of strokes and other brain injuries by adapting a scanning approach originally developed for the study of brain organization, neurologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found.

Plastic and reconstructive surgeon Thomas H. Tung, MD, skillfully moves tissues from other parts of the body to create form and function in cases of cancer or trauma in children and adults.

Washington University neurologists at Barnes-Jewish Hospital will be part of a new neurological care program for retired professional football players.

H. Marvin Camel, MD, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology for five decades, died Monday, March 22, 2010, of respiratory failure at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He was 85.

Dolphins, whales and porpoises have extraordinarily small balance organs, and scientists have long wondered why. In a head to head comparison of two dolphins and a rodeo bull, Washington University School of Medicine researchers have contradicted the leading explanation for these undersized organs and left the door open for new theories.

One-hundred and fourteen School of Medicine students learned March 18 where they will be doing their residencies. Thirty will be training at Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University School of Medicine, and four will be training at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

Ming You, MD, PhD, director of the Chemoprevention Program at the Siteman Cancer Center and professor of surgery, has been named the Mary Culver Distinguished Professor in Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.