Medicine & Health

Overweight people who lose a moderate amount of weight get an immediate benefit in the form of better heart health, according to a study conducted at the School of Medicine. And the heart improvements happen whether that weight is shed by eating less or exercising more.

*T. gondii* imaged just after reproduction inside a host cell. (Photo by Wandy Beatty.)One of the most common human parasites, Toxoplasma gondii, uses a hormone lifted from the plant world to decide when to increase its numbers and when to remain dormant, researchers at the School of Medicine have found. The scientists report this week in Nature that they successfully blocked production of the molecule, known as abscisic acid (ABA), with a plant herbicide. Low doses of the herbicide prevented fatal T. gondii infection in mice.

Scientists at the School of Medicine have used yeast cells to better understand a collection of proteins associated with the formation of actin networks, which are essential to cell movement. The cell’s ability to move is important to a broad range of biomedical concerns, including understanding how immune system cells pursue disease-causing invaders and how metastasizing cancer cells migrate from a tumor.

Scanning electron microscopy image of a filamentous bacterium from a patient with a UTIScientists at the School of Medicine have found definitive proof that some of the bacteria that plague women with urinary tract infections (UTIs) are entrenched inside human bladder cells. The finding confirms a controversial revision of scientists’ model of how bacteria cause UTIs. Previously, most researchers assumed that the bacteria responsible for infections get into the bladder but do not invade the individual cells that line the interior of the bladder.

Twenty-eight-day-old *Physcomitrella* gametophyte showing the leafy gametophores in the center and the protonemal filaments radiating outward.The complete collection of genes — the genome — of a moss has been sequenced, providing scientists an important evolutionary link between single-celled algae and flowering plants. Just as the sequencing of animal genomes has helped scientists understand human genomic history, the sequencing of plant genomes will shed light on the evolution of the plant kingdom, according to Ralph S. Quatrano, Ph.D., the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and the corresponding author of the paper.

WolffSt. Louis businesswoman and philanthropist Edith L. Wolff has made a commitment of $20 million to support biomedical research at the School of Medicine. The funds will establish the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Institute, which will support biomedical research projects that lead to the prevention, treatment and cure of disease.

Certain types of tantrums in preschoolers may be a sign of serious emotional or behavioral problems, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. Although temper tantrums are common and normal in young children, the researchers found that long, frequent, violent and/or self-destructive tantrums may indicate the presence of psychiatric illness.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have shown that a controversial phenomenon known as antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of infection is suppressed by C1q, a blood-borne, immune system compound. Better understanding of ADE should help public health experts and clinicians working to control some viral disease outbreaks and aid efforts to design safe and effective vaccines.

When the alert goes out that a virus has invaded the body, cells that have yet to be attacked prepare by “armoring” themselves for combat, attaching specific antiviral molecules to many of their own proteins to help resist the invader. Scientists believe adding these molecules to cellular proteins, like putting on armor, changes the proteins in ways that make the cells resistant to the coming viral attack.

James Kemp will co-lead a campaign to prevent infant death due to unsafe sleep practices with funding from an $11 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Kemp is a professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and a pediatrician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The grant, awarded to Baltimore-based First Candle, a nonprofit organization promoting infant health, will support a national campaign called “Bedtime Basics for Babies.”