Medicine & Health

Alex Evers (left) examines proteins with colleague Joe Henry Steinbach.Alex S. Evers of the School of Medicine has been elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors medical scientists in the United States can receive. Evers was honored for his professional achievement in the health sciences, specifically in the area of anesthesiology.

A molecule that has long been an obstacle to cancer chemotherapy and drug treatments for brain disorders may soon become an ally in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease, according to researchers at the School of Medicine and the University of Rochester.

TeitelbaumSteven Teitelbaum, professor of pathology and immunology, was one of several experts invited to testify before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, chaired by Senator Arlen Specter, regarding the benefits of stem cell research. Read Teitelbaum’s testimony here.

A drug potentially able to prevent breast cancer in high-risk women is the subject of a new clinical study at the School of Medicine. The drug, called exemestane, belongs to a new class of breast-cancer drugs called aromatase inhibitors.

An international team of researchers has partially untangled the genetic details of a mysterious disorder that formerly caused seizures and death in infant boys within a month of birth.

A study of patients who have difficulty paying attention to the left side of their environment has provided some of the first direct evidence that brain injury can cause detrimental functional changes in brain regions far from the site of the actual injury.

Nobel Laureate Kenneth J. Arrow will discuss “The Economics of New Antimalarial Drugs” at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 21 in the Bryan Cave Courtroom, Anheuser-Busch Hall. Arrow, a longtime professor of economics at Stanford University, recently chaired a National Institute of Medicine committee that issued a report titled “Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malaria Drugs in an Age of Resistance.” Malaria, along with tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, is one of the big three global killers of the world’s poorest people.

Designed to bring together great scientific minds in a comfortable, productive atmosphere, the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center became the new focal point at the School of Medicine in August. Read more about the $35 million state-of-the-art facility in the following St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.

The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the School of Medicine is starting its first federally-funded training program to provide support for postdoctoral fellows in reproductive sciences.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Sunlight is good for teeth (week of Oct. 5) • Countdown to drug dependency (week of Oct. 12) • Cell phones don’t stress human cells (week of Oct. 19) • Beta-blocker use depends on genes (week of Oct. 26)