Medicine & Health

Neurosurgeons at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are renewing calls for a ban on use of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) by children under age 16 after a 10-year review of injuries caused by the vehicles.

Image courtesy of Jewish Hospital; Kleinert, Kutz and Associates Hand Care Center; and University of LouisvilleLimb transplantation involves several kinds of tissue.Years ago, the idea of attaching a donor limb onto a patient’s body would have been the stuff of science fiction. But to date about two-dozen people around the world have received hand transplants. Thomas Tung, M.D., conducts research within this relatively unorthodox realm of surgery, investigating the use of therapy that could potentially allow the body to accept donor tissue without the use of immunosuppressive medication.

Red areas of the circled leg in the right image show increased blood flow due to angiogenic cells.To speed healing at sites of injury – such as heart muscle after a heart attack or brain tissue after a stroke – doctors would like to be able to hasten the formation of new blood vessels. One promising approach is to “mobilize” patients’ blood vessel-forming cells, called angiogenic cells, so these cells can reach the injured area. Recently, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis demonstrated that a drug called AMD3100 can mobilize angiogenic cells from bone marrow of human patients in a matter of hours.

An experimental anti-cancer regimen combined a diuretic, a Parkinson’s disease medication and a drug ordinarily used to reverse the effect of sedatives. In research conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the unusual mixture inhibited the growth of aggressive prostate tumors in laboratory mice.

A new drug has increased survival rates among children with a deadly form of muscular dystrophy called Pompe disease. Now WUSM researchers are testing the drug, Myozyme, in adults with Pompe.

Albert Pujols took part in laboratory tests similar to those conducted on Ruth in 1921.

A progressive neurodegenerative disorder that is often fatal within the first two decades of life may be treatable via a molecule already targeted by approved drugs, scientists at the School of Medicine and other institutions report.

The Washington University Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Barnes-Jewish Hospital have begun construction of a new, $13 million outpatient orthopaedic facility on property in a prime west St. Louis County location.

Peter Westervelt, M.D., Ph.D., has been named director of the bone marrow transplantation and leukemia section of the Division of Oncology at the School of Medicine. Westervelt, associate professor of medicine, succeeds John F. DiPersio, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine, in the position.

Daniel Stier / GQ, September 2006El Hombre vs. The BabeBaseball purists, especially those of Yankee allegiance, might argue that St. Louis Cardinals homerun-hitting superstar Albert Pujols is simply not in the same league as legendary New York Yankees slugger Babe Ruth. Science may never settle that argument, but researchers at Washington University in St. Louis can offer some sense of how Pujols stacks up to the Babe in terms of skills necessary to hit the long ball. Pujols visited WUSTL to take part in a series of lab tests similar to those conducted on Ruth in 1921.