Medicine & Health

Mike Venso/Laumeier Sculpture ParkAschheim’s “Earworm (Node),” contains LEDs, plastic, speakers, music and copper.Artist Deborah Aschheim, known for her focus on interactive multi-sensory responses to neuroscience, memory and cognition, joins Washington University faculty from art, medicine, psychology and neuroscience for a free public panel discussion examining the relationship between Aschheim’s art and brain science at 6 p.m. March 20 in Room 110, January Hall. The “Deborah Aschheim: Reconsider,” exhibition, on display at Laumeier Sculpture Park, explores why we remember what we see and hear and why we forget, while offering a solution to curb the “forgetting curve.”

Researchers trying to improve cancer immune therapy have made an unexpected find: They’ve produced the most accurate mouse model to date of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a cluster of conditions that afflict approximately 1.4 million Americans with abdominal pain, constipation and diarrhea.

Depressed heart attack patients have a higher risk for sudden death in the months following a heart attack. Now a team led by researchers from the School of Medicine has found that the risk continues for many years. “There’s a two- to four-fold increase in a person’s risk of dying following a heart attack if they also happen to be depressed,” says Robert. M. Carney, lead author of the new study.

Frustrated by the slow pace of new drug development for a condition that causes pediatric brain tumors, a neurologist at the School of Medicine decided to try to fine-tune the animal models used to test new drugs. Instead of studying one mouse model of the disease causing the brain tumors, the laboratory of David Gutmann, M.D., Ph.D., the Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor of Neurology, evaluated three and found that one of most closely mimicked what is seen in children who develop brain tumors.

Physicians and glaucoma researchers in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the School of Medicine will join eye-care professionals around the world on March 6, 2008, to observe the first World Glaucoma Day. The global initiative is aimed at raising awareness of glaucoma, a disease of the optic nerve that affects 65 million people worldwide.

Jean Schaffer has been named the Virginia Minnich Distinguished Professor in Medicine at the School of Medicine. Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton made the announcement with Larry Shapiro, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine.

Whether it’s needed to track the activity of a drug, the growth of a tumor or the progress of a medical disorder, high-tech imaging equipment often is an essential component of advanced clinical research. Unfortunately, patient care typically keeps these machines and the doctors who run them jammed with activity, often making it necessary to fit in research activities late at night or on the weekends.

Richard K. Wilson, Ph.D., is leading efforts to sequence the corn genome.University scientists have begun to unlock the genetic secrets of corn, a crop vital to U.S. agriculture. The researchers have completed a working draft of the corn genome, an accomplishment that should accelerate efforts to develop better crop varieties to meet society’s growing demands for food, livestock feed and fuel.

A better drug for osteoporosis wouldn’t just preserve patients’ old bone structure; it would help fortify their weakened bones with new bone material. Such a drug could be on the horizon because of research at the School of Medicine that has uncovered new information about how to amplify the bone formation process.

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.