Medicine & Health

“Universal health care is getting the attention it deserves, but unfortunately, the proposals receiving the most attention ignore the ‘Big Leak,'” the enormous non-benefit costs incurred by health care providers who must match their billions of billings with thousands of differing private health care plans,” says Merton C. Bernstein, a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Coles Professor of Law Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. “Putting everyone under the Medicare umbrella would eliminate that leak,” he says. Bernstein is available to discuss current universal health care proposals as well as the Medicare-for-all option.

PolonskyAs part of a national effort to translate basic science discoveries into treatments and cures for patients more quickly, the School of Medicine will lead a regional group of institutions under a new $50 million, five-year grant program that will greatly enhance clinical and translational research. The grant creates a comprehensive approach to ultimately improving patient care, says program principal investigator Kenneth S. Polonsky.

It doesn’t matter how small or large it is, if a cervical tumor glows brightly in a PET scan, it’s apt to be more dangerous than dimmer tumors. That’s the conclusion of a new study of cervical cancer patients at the School of Medicine. Lead author Elizabeth Kidd her colleagues, including researchers with the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, report their findings in an upcoming issue of the journal Cancer.

Mark Manary, professor of pediatrics, assesses patients for malnutrition at a clinic in Malawi, Africa.An enriched peanut-butter mixture given at home is successfully promoting recovery in large numbers of starving children in Malawi, according to a group of researchers at the School of Medicine. Malnutrition affects 70 percent of all Malawian children with an estimated 13 percent of children dying from it before the age of five.

EberleinTimothy Eberlein, M.D., the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and director of the Siteman Cancer Center at the School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, has been elected to a three-year term on the board of directors of the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI). Eberlein also serves as the Bixby Professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery.

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.