Medicine & Health

Women doctors are the focus of a traveling exhibition opening Aug. 10 at the Bernard Becker Medical Library at the School of Medicine. The exhibit, which features prominent physicians from WUSM and elsewhere, highlights women’s struggles to gain access to medical education and to work in the specialty of their choice.

More than 350 physicians at the School of Medicine have been named to The Best Doctors In America for 2009. The number is twice that of any other physicians’ group in St. Louis and more than any other physicians’ group in the Midwest.

A recently identified gene allows immune cells to start the self-destructive processes thought to underlie autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and rheumatoid arthritis, researchers at the School of Medicine have found.

Illustration of two proteins involved in DNA repair by artist Amy VanDonselResearchers at the School of Medicine have shed new light on a process that fixes breaks in the genetic material of cells. The scientists studied protein molecules that have an important role in homologous recombination, which is one way that cells repair breaks in the DNA double helix. Their findings could lead to ways of enhancing chemotherapy drugs that destroy cancer cells by damaging their DNA.

The School of Medicine is participating in a national trial to determine whether back braces for adolescents with scoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine, are effective in preventing the condition from progressing and, if so, which patients most benefit.

DornGerald W. Dorn II has been named the Philip and Sima K. Needleman Professor of Medicine at the School of Medicine. The professorship was established to support a faculty member holding a key leadership position within the BioMed 21 initiative, a multidisciplinary imperative to rapidly convert research findings into effective, individualized treatments.

MichalskiJeff M. Michalski, professor of radiation oncology, has been named vice chair and director of clinical programs of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the School of Medicine. He will oversee clinical operations at all treatment facilities, clinical and translational research, and all training and education.

Cancerous tumors sometimes form at the site of chronic wounds or injury, but the reason why is not entirely clear. Now researchers at theSchool of Medicine have engineered mice with a persistent wound-like skin condition, and the mice are helping them understand the tumor-promoting effects of long-standing wounds and injuries.

RiewThe National Football League has announced a new spine treatment program for retired players, and orthopedics specialists at the School of Medicine have been chosen to participate. K. Daniel Riew, the Mildred B. Simon Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and chief of the cervical spine service for Washington University Orthopedics, is one of five U.S. spine specialists selected to participate in the new NFL program.

Pig heart valves used to replace defective aortic valves in human patients failed much earlier and more often than expected, says a report from cardiac surgeons at the School of Medicine. This is the first report to demonstrate this potential problem, the researchers say.