Medicine & Health

Medical and graduate students who volunteer for science outreach programs don’t just help underrepresented public school students consider careers in science, according to a survey published last week in Science. They also help themselves.

A $7.7 million grant will establish a new center for asthma research at the School of Medicine. Directed by Michael J. Holtzman, M.D., the Selma and Herman Seldin Professor of Medicine, the center will investigate the cause of asthma to develop new treatments for the disease. The center’s funding comes from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health.

The Genome Sequencing Center has been awarded a $156 million, four-year grant to use the powerful tools of DNA sequencing to unlock the secrets of cancer and other human diseases. The grant is among the largest awarded to Washington University and one of only three given by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) to U.S. sequencing centers.

WenLeana S. Wen, 23, a current student at Washington University School of Medicine, and Aaron F. Mertz, 22, a recent alumnus from Washington University, have been named Rhodes Scholars, according to an announcement Nov. 18 by The Rhodes Trust. They are among 32 U.S. students chosen from 896 nominees for graduate study at the University of Oxford in England.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Breaking down Alzheimer’s (week of Nov. 1) • Preventing transplant rejection (week of Nov. 8) • Predicting glaucoma (week of Nov. 15) • No-incision stomach stapling (week of Nov. 22) • Organ donor health (week of Nov. 29)

Investigators at the School of Medicine have developed a model to identify patients at high risk of developing glaucoma. Their research was presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in Las Vegas.

Three Alzheimer’s disease researchers at the School of Medicine in have been named to the 2006 Scientific American 50, an honorary list of the year’s “prime movers” in a variety of scientific disciplines.

ColeF. Sessions Cole, M.D., has been appointed assistant vice chancellor for children’s health at the School of Medicine and chief medical officer at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

The fact that corporate leaders recognize their industries’ role in social responsibility is not new, but there are relatively few examples that clearly connect this failure to respond with negative changes. One of the best examples is the pharmaceutical giant Merck, which was led by P. Roy Vagelos during a pivotal era in the industry’s history. Vagelos will explore these examples in detail for his talk on “The Social Responsibility of Business” to be held at 4 p.m. Nov. 13 in Graham Chapel.

The large globules in the liver cells on the left are characteristic of alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency. The image on the right shows normal liver cells.Research performed at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis sheds light on the mechanisms that contribute to liver disease in alpha-1-AT deficiency patients. People with alpha-1-deficiency have a genetic mutation that can lead to emphysema at an early age and to liver damage. Using an experimental mouse model of the disorder, the researchers investigated the effects of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) on liver injury.