Girl inspires family to get on fitness track
A program designed by the Weight Management Center at the School of Medicine and the YMCA of Chesterfield has helped the Garcia family from Chesterfield lose roughly 105 pounds. The Family Lifestyle Intervention Program (FLIP) is designed to show families how to get healthy together through supervised exercise, counseling and education.
Patients wanted for studies of polycystic kidney disease treatment
Small-scale preliminary trials suggested that careful control of blood pressure could possibly delay or even prevent kidney failure in patients with polycystic kidney disease (PKD), which affects more than 600,000 people in the United States.
What do Undergraduates Gain from a Research Experience?
Washington University has a long tradition of undergraduate participation in research, one developed further by programs created by Sarah Elgin, Ph.D., professor of biology; biochemistry and molecular biophysics; and education in Arts & Sciences with financial support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
A Comparative Institutional Analysis of Intellectual Property
Biotech innovations pop up every day. From medicines developed by large companies to ingenious solutions worked out by individuals in university labs, new technologies are poised to enter the marketplace. The question is, are patents helping or hurting this process? “Patents are essential to bring biotechnology innovations from everyone — not just well-funded corporations — to the people,” says F. Scott Kieff, J.D., associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Without patents, the biotech marketplace in basic science takes on the nature of something like an old boys’ club in which personal attributes such as fame, prestige, and even gender and race, govern what exchanges take place; and the addition of patents gives many more people a way to play in that game.”
Intellectual Property Law and the Protection of Traditional Knowledge
Growing biopiracy concerns have fueled urgent calls for a new system of legal protection for traditional knowledge. Detractors of the current patent systems say that the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities does not readily fit into the existing rules of the industrialized world and that these rules basically promote the interests of the industrialized world. However, Charles McManis, J.D., IP and technology law expert and the Thomas and Karole Green Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, argues that “at least in the short run, existing intellectual property regimes offer the most realistic avenue for securing effective legal protection for traditional knowledge holders.”
Oncologists could gain therapeutic advantage by targeting telomere protein
Chromosomal damage results in fusion (bottom).Inactivating a protein called mammalian Rad9 could make cancer cells easier to kill with ionizing radiation, according to research at the School of Medicine. The researchers found that Rad9, previously considered a “watchman” that checks for DNA damage, is actually a “repairman” that fixes dangerous breaks in the DNA double helix.
Some 30 WUSTL faculty to present at AAAS Annual Meeting in St. Louis
More than 30 Washington University faculty, administrators and staff will participate in science and technology presentations when the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific organization, holds its annual meeting Feb. 16-20 at both the America’s Center and Renaissance Grand Hotel in downtown St. Louis.
Children’s study to determine if asthma medications can reduce need for steroids
Children between the ages of 6 and 17 years old with moderate-to-severe asthma may be eligible for a study at the School of Medicine to evaluate whether two medications can reduce the amount of inhaled steroids needed to control asthma.
Diabetic hearts make unhealthy switch to high-fat diet
The high-fat “diet” that diabetic heart muscle consumes helps make cardiovascular disease the most common killer of diabetic patients, according to a study done at the School of Medicine. The study will appear in the February 7 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and is now available online.
February 2006 Radio Service
Listed below are this month’s featured news stories.
• Warfarin increases risk of fractures (week of Feb. 1)
• Older adults can control health (week of Feb. 8)
• New cancer strategy (week of Feb. 15)
• Enzyme affects aging process (week of Feb. 22)
Older Stories