Medicine & Health

GrossHeart disease hits people with diabetes twice as often as people without diabetes. In those with diabetes, cardiovascular complications occur at an earlier age and often result in premature death, making heart disease the major killer of diabetic people. But why is heart disease so prevalent among diabetics?

Many people with long-standing high blood pressure develop heart failure. But some don’t. Daniel Kelly and colleagues at the School of Medicine and other institutions are trying to figure out what could explain that difference. Their latest research reveals that impaired energy production in heart muscle may underlie heart failure in some hypertensive patients.

Project ARK, the St. Louis area’s only organization that coordinates medical care, social support and prevention services for children, youth, young adults, women and families living with or at risk for HIV infection, has received a $6.7 million, five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

A $5.7 million grant will establish a new center for kidney disease research at the School of Medicine. Directed by Marc R. Hammerman, the Chromalloy Professor of Renal Diseases in Medicine, the center will investigate the underlying causes of kidney disease to speed the development of new treatments. The center’s funding comes from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Promotions were recently announced for two key members of Medical Alumni and Development Programs. Patricia Gregory has been named assistant vice chancellor and executive director of medical corporate and foundation relations, and David Shearrer has been named executive director of development for clinical programs.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Rotator cuff repair (week of Aug. 1) • Better treatment for itching (week of Aug. 8) • New risk factor for diabetes (week of Aug. 15) • Filtering out side effects (week of Aug. 22) • Treating post-partum depression (week of Aug. 29)

Two recently discovered control networks that govern voluntary brain activity in adults start life as a single network in children, report neuroscientists at the School of Medicine. Researchers previously showed the networks supervise most goal-oriented brain activity, enlisting the specialized talents of multiple brain regions for goal-oriented tasks as diverse as reading a word, listening to music or searching for a star. They were surprised to find the two networks merged together in children.

The next generation of consumers will be the true beneficiaries of the promise of genomics. But how will they make informed choices in a world resplendent with genomics products, including tools to predict disease and the engineered drugs to treat those diseases? The answer, says Sarah C.R. Elgin, Ph.D., WUSTL professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, is more genetics and genomics at every level of American education.

Photo by Jason MerrillWashington University Orthopedics and Barnes-Jewish Hospital have completed construction of a new $13 million outpatient orthopedic facility. The new Washington University Orthopedics and Barnes-Jewish Hospital Outpatient Orthopedic Center opens with its first full clinic day July 30. The first surgical procedure took place on July 25.

Twenty-one years after they first described a fatal genetic disorder in Missouri and Arkansas families, scientists at the School of Medicine have linked the condition to mutations in a gene known as TREX1. The study appears online in Nature Genetics. The identification will accelerate efforts to understand and treat retinal vasculopathy with cerebral leukodystrophy (RVCL), a rare condition that usually goes unrecognized or is misdiagnosed.