Medicine & Health

Scientists have linked a protein to regulation of the body’s use of the sugar glucose. In the process, they illustrated the protein’s potential as a target for new drugs to treat diabetes and obesity.

Yoel Sadovsky, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been named president-elect of the Perinatal Research Society. The international society fosters scientific interchange and collaboration among established investigators whose research interests are in the area of perinatal-neonatal medicine and developmental biology.

Discussions of memory lapses often focus on a failure to recall past events, but equally important to our daily lives is a form of memory that helps us remember to do something in the future — drop a child at daycare, go to the dentist or pick up bread on the way home. “Memory is fallible, even for tasks that are very important,” suggests WUSTL psychologist Mark A. McDaniel, Ph.D., co-author of a new book exploring how the brain processes memories critical to planning and other forward-looking activities. “As soon as intention leaves awareness, there’s no guarantee that it’s going to be retrieved again.” More…

A study of how the brain of a premature infant responds to injury has found vulnerabilities similar to those in the mature brain but also identified at least one significant difference, according to neuroscientists and neonatologists at the School of Medicine.

Developing brain tumors can coax assistance from nearby cells known as microglia, according to a new study from scientists at the School of Medicine. The researchers have identified one protein made by microglia that helps accelerate tumor growth and are looking for others.

An international consortium of researchers, including scientists at the Genome Sequencing Center, has decoded the genome of the rhesus macaque monkey and compared it with the genomes of humans and their closest living relatives – the chimps – revealing that the three primate species share about 93 percent of the same DNA. Washington University scientists also recently completed the raw sequences for the orangutan and marmoset genomes.

Scientists have untangled two similar disabilities that often afflict stroke patients, in the process revealing that one may be treatable with drugs for Parkinson’s disease. Researchers at the School of Medicine showed that stroke damage in a brain region known as the putamen is strongly linked to motor neglect, a condition that makes patients slow to move toward the left side.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • ADHD risk factors (week of Apr. 4) • Fixing flat feet (week of Apr. 11) • Nanoparticle tracking system (week of Apr. 18) • DHA and Alzheimer’s (week of Apr. 25)

Nearly 40 percent of babies with a condition known as Simpson Golabi Behmel syndrome will die soon after birth, likely because of heart problems related to the disorder, which causes them to grow too quickly. Researchers funded by the Children’s Discovery Institute are pursuing a unique new approach to treating this disorder: they’re hoping to use long chains of sugar molecules to coax troublemaking cells back to good behavior.

English physician David Barker noticed an interesting phenomenon during the Dutch famine in the mid-1940s. He found that babies from that era — although small for their gestational age — had a much higher incidence of diabetes, heart disease and obesity when they grew up. Barker hypothesized that the health of a pregnant woman could affect whether her child develops chronic diseases. That hypothesis has been confirmed in a number of studies since, and now, WUSM researchers are investigating in mice the link between diabetic mothers and their offspring.