Medicine & Health

Women who are obese, have type 2 diabetes or a family history of type 2 diabetes could one day have more successful pregnancies because of a study at the School of Medicine. This study suggests that Metformin, the most commonly prescribed anti-diabetes drug, could potentially improve pregnancy outcomes in women with insulin resistance.

A psychiatric geneticist at the School of Medicine is one of several principal investigators around the country who will participate in the Genes, Environment and Health Initiative (GEI), a unique collaboration between geneticists and environmental scientists. The $48 million initiative is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Laura Jean Bierut, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine, will head the national study of addiction, looking both at genetic and environmental factors that contribute to the problem.

Doctors prescribing blood thinners have had to go through a lengthy trial-and-error process to arrive at the optimal dose for their patients. But now the process can be faster and safer, thanks to research conducted at the School of Medicine. Researchers, along with colleagues at Saint Louis University and St. Louis College of Pharmacy, have developed an improved dosing formula for the widely prescribed anticoagulant warfarin (Coumadin®) that takes into account variations in two key genes

The Fall 2007 Assembly Series parts with some of the traditions of the 54-year-old lecture series, while maintaining its mission of presenting to the Washington University community some of the most distinctive and vibrant voices of the day.

D. Ashley Hill, assistant professor of pathology and immunology, will receive a two-year grant from The Hope Street Kids, a program that supports and promotes research into pediatric tumors. The program will provide $70,000 over the next two years to support Hill’s search for the genetic causes of pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB), a rare childhood lung tumor originally identified by Hill’s mentor at Washington University, Louis P. “Pepper” Dehner, professor of pathology and immunology and of pathology in pediatrics.

The School of Medicine has joined the Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium (MMRC), an organization of 13 leading U.S. academic centers designed to speed the development of new myeloma therapies. Washington University School of Medicine serves as a major center for multiple myeloma treatment and research in the St. Louis area.

Mice developed in the laboratory of Zhou-Feng Chen don’t experience relief from pain when given opiate drugs such as morphine.For the first time, pain researchers at the School of Medicine have shown that it’s possible to separate the good effects of opiate drugs such as morphine (pain relief) from the unwanted side effects of those drugs (tolerance, abuse and addiction). The investigators, led by Zhou-Feng Chen, Ph.D., associate professor of anesthesiology, psychiatry and molecular biology and pharmacology, report their results online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They found that opiates like morphine don’t relieve pain as well in mice genetically engineered to lack neurons that produce a neurotransmitter called serotonin in the central nervous system.

Researchers hoping to better understand the development of the infant brain have long been stymied by a formidable obstacle: babies just don’t want to sit still for brain scans. “There have been some studies that obtained brain scans of infants while they were napping or sedated, but what we’d really like to do is to scan their brains when they’re sitting on a parent’s lap, seeing new things, hearing new words and interacting with the environment,” says Joseph Culver, Ph.D., assistant professor of radiology at the School of Medicine.

Below is a link to the Washington University news release about the U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings for 2004-05: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/3627.html To view a full listing of U.S. News magazine, book and Web-only rankings for 2004-05, please visit the U.S. News & World Report site: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

Good housing in St. Louis (above) contrasted with poor housing nearby.Studying people in their homes and neighborhoods, investigators have found that poor housing conditions contribute to the risk for diabetes in urban, middle-aged African-Americans. A team of investigators from the School of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine and other institutions conducted the study. They published their findings in the Aug. 15 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.