Medicine & Health

Low levels of vitamin D are known to nearly double the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes, and now researchers at the School of Medicine think they know why. They have found that diabetics deficient in vitamin D can’t process cholesterol normally, so it builds up in their blood vessels, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke.

When estrogen-lowering drugs no longer control metastatic breast cancer, the opposite strategy might work. Raising estrogen levels benefited 30 percent of women whose metastatic breast cancer no longer responded to standard anti-estrogen treatment, according to research conducted at the School of Medicine and collaborating institutions.

Tumor growth can start from stem cells in the gut, say researchers studying fruit flies at the School of Medicine. They found that tumors can grow from adult stem cells that have lost a specific tumor-suppressor gene. The gene, Apc, has previously been implicated in human gastrointestinal cancers, including colon cancer.

SleckmanBarry P. Sleckman has been named the Conan Professor of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine at the School of Medicine. Washington University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Larry Shapiro executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, announced the appointment.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded a five-year, $4 million grant to researchers at the School of Medicine to use genetically-engineered mice to study the origins and potential treatments of pediatric brain tumors. David H. Gutmann, the Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor of Neurology, is principal investigator of the grant, which is part of the NCI’s Mouse Models of Human Cancers Consortium. He is also on staff at Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals.

A computer simulation of a nanoparticle showing its core of perfluorocarbon (green) and its lipid coating (red, orange and blue).When bees sting, they pump poison into their victims. Now the toxin in bee venom has been harnessed to kill tumor cells by researchers at the School of Medicine. The researchers attached the major component of bee venom to nano-sized spheres that they call nanobees.

ChenSchool of Medicine researchers have discovered that itch-specific neurons exist in mice, and their studies suggest that itch and pain signals are transmitted along different pathways in the spinal cord.

Decoding the complete DNA of cancer patients is giving scientists at the School of Medicine a clearer picture of the complexity of the disease and allowing them to see intriguing and unexpected genetic relationships among patients.

Adults with severe hearing loss benefit from pairing a cochlear implant in one ear with a hearing aid in the other ear, even though the sound signals from each device are very different, according to a study at the School of Medicine published in the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology.

Parkinson’s disease is well-known for impairing movement and causing tremors, but many patients also develop other serious problems, including sleep disturbances and significant losses in cognitive function known as dementia. Now researchers at the School of Medicine have modeled Parkinson’s-associated dementia for the first time.