Medicine & Health

GoateInvestigators at the School of Medicine have identified a genetic variation associated with an earlier age of onset in Alzheimer’s disease. Unlike genetic mutations previously linked to rare, inherited forms of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease — which can strike people as young as their 30s or 40s — these variants influence an earlier presentation of symptoms in people affected by the more common, late-onset form of the disease.

Jeffrey Bradley, associate professor of radiation oncology, has been named the first director of the Kling Center for Proton Therapy, a facility for treating cancer patients with a new, highly precise form of radiation therapy. The center is scheduled to open in summer 2009 at the Siteman Cancer Center at the School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

Women born after 1944 began drinking alcohol at younger ages than their elders, and that appears to have put them at greater risk for alcoholism, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. On average, women born before 1944 began drinking at age 20. Those born after that started drinking alcohol at age 17, and they had a 50 to 80 percent greater risk for alcohol dependence, the researchers found.

StantonRichard Stanton has been named associate vice chancellor and associate dean for administration and finance at the School of Medicine. Stanton’s appointment, effective July 1, 2008, was announced by Larry J. Shapiro, M.D., executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine.

When patches of red, flaky and itchy skin on newborn mice led rapidly to their deaths, researchers at the School of Medicine looked for the reason why. What they found was a molecular alarm system that serves as a sentinel to monitor the integrity of skin — the body’s essential protective barrier. The fatal effects of raising this alarm in the lab mice suggests generally that certain kinds of impairments to the skin’s structure can potentially trigger harmful effects in other areas of the body, according to the researchers.

StamilioDavid M. Stamilio, M.D., has been named director of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the School of Medicine, effective July 1. Stamilio is replacing Yoel Sadovsky, M.D., who became director of the Magee-Womens Research Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. Stamilio’s appointment was announced by George Macones, M.D., chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

A unique genetic signature can alert physicians to high-risk breast tumors that are masquerading as low-risk tumors, according to research at the School of Medicine and collaborating institutions. Although these tumors are apparently estrogen-receptor positive — meaning they should depend on estrogen to grow — they don’t respond well to anti-estrogen therapy.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have defined a new type of immune response that is activated in patients with severe asthma and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Their discovery could dramatically improve diagnosis and treatment of patients with chronic inflammatory lung disease.

Changing the sugars attached to a hormone produced in the pituitary gland increased fertility levels in mice nearly 50 percent, a research group at the School of Medicine has found. The change appears to alter a reproductive “thermostat,” unveiling part of an intricate regulatory system that may one day be used to enhance human fertility.

Maintaining bone density could be a key to decreasing the spread of cancer in women with locally advanced breast cancer, according to research at the School of Medicine. Bones are common sites for the spread, or metastasis, of breast cancer. Scientists here found that women treated for stage II/III breast cancer who also received a bone strengthening drug were less likely to have breast tumor cells growing in their bones after three months.