Medicine & Health

If you wanted to start today to reduce your chances of getting cancer, what would you have to do? Lose excess weight, get more exercise, eat a healthy diet and quit smoking. Those basic behavior changes would have a tremendous impact on the incidence of the most prevalent types of cancer — lung, breast, prostate and colon cancer — says Graham Colditz, associate director of Prevention and Control at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

MugliaAfrican-American women are three times more likely to deliver babies three to 17 weeks prematurely than Caucasian women, according to a review of Missouri birth statistics by a group of researchers headed by professor Louis Muglia. In addition, African-American women are more likely to deliver babies prematurely in subsequent pregnancies.

David J. Murray, M.D., has been named the Carol B. and Jerome T. Loeb Professor in the School of Medicine. Washington University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Larry J. Shapiro, M.D., executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, made the announcement.

EberleinTimothy Eberlein received the 2006 Dr. Rodman L. Sheen and Thomas G. Sheen Award, given each year for outstanding contributions to the medical profession. Eberlein is Bixby Professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and director of the Siteman Cancer Center at the School of Medicine and surgeon-in-chief at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

Researchers linked anticancer agents to a PET tracer to deliver treatment directly to tumors in mice (red and yellow shows highest amounts of tracer).Cancer cells keep growing because they don’t react to internal signals urging them to die. Now researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found an efficient way to get a messenger into cancer cells that forces them to respond to death signals. And they did it using one of the most sinister pathogens around — HIV.

Americans are bombarded with antismoking messages, yet at least 65 million of us continue to light up. Genetic factors play an important role in this continuing addiction to cigarettes, suggest scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They show that certain genetic variations can influence smoking behaviors and contribute to a person’s risk for nicotine dependence.

Newborns with respiratory distress should be evaluated for primary ciliary dyskinesia, a rare genetic disease that has features similar to cystic fibrosis, says Thomas Ferkol from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He reports finding that about 80 percent of patients with primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) have a history of newborn respiratory distress.

Eric ChouTesting the wake-sleep cycleA biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and his collaborators have identified the factor in mammalian brain cells that keeps cells in synchrony so that functions like the wake-sleep cycle, hormone secretion and loco motor behaviors are coordinated daily.

SemenkovichInterrupting nerve signals to the liver can prevent diabetes and hypertension in mice, according to scientists at the School of Medicine. The finding is reported in the February issue of the journal Cell Metabolism. A research team led by Clay Semenkovich surgically removed the vagus nerve in mice and found the procedure prevented or reversed the development of insulin resistance and high blood pressure in mice primed to develop these disorders through treatment with glucocorticoids.

GutmannGenetic fingerprints that reveal where a brain cell came from remain distinct even after the cell becomes a brain tumor, an international coalition of scientists will report in the February 1 issue of Cancer Research. The finding adds a new layer of complexity to the quest to understand the causes of childhood brain cancers, according to senior author David Gutmann.