Medicine & Health

Jonathan Gitlin will serve as director of the new Division of Genetics and Genomic Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics.The separate worlds of patient care and genomic science will be brought together in the new Division of Genetics and Genomic Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine. Plans for the division map out a model of individualized medical care in which physicians look to a patients’ genetic makeup to determine the most effective treatment.

Newborn mice and dogs with hemophilia A were restored to normal health through gene therapy developed by researchers at the School of Medicine. The technique introduced into the animals’ cells a gene that makes clotting factor VIII, a protein missing because of a genetic defect.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Raw foods lead to low bone mass (week of April 6) • Genomic analysis for critically ill (week of April 13) • Oxygen causes cataracts (week of April 20) • Botox for foot ulcers (week of April 27)

Fatty molecules may modulate the electrical characteristics of nerve and heart cells by regulating the properties of key cell pores, according to research conducted at the School of Medicine.

A new facility for obesity research and treatment will be established at the School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital thanks to a $5 million donation from the Dr. Robert C. Atkins Foundation. Read more from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Magnified nanoparticlesSpecially designed nanoparticles can reveal tiny cancerous tumors that are invisible to ordinary means of detection, according to a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Researchers demonstrated that very small human melanoma tumors growing in mice — indiscernible from the surrounding tissue by direct MRI scan — could be “lit up” and easily located. Because the nanoparticles can be engineered to carry a variety of substances, they also may be able to deliver cancer-fighting drugs to malignant tumors.

Drosophila melanoFor years, two schools of thought have dominated neurobiologists’ theories about how early nerve cells develop specialties that allow the assembly of a mature brain. One theory suggests master regulators trigger the development, while the other attributes the development to interactions between local factors. In a new study of developing fruit fly brain cells, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine and Harvard University showed that both models are valid.

Yellowing of the eye’s lens due to age-related nuclear sclerotic cataractResearchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis may be a step closer to understanding what causes cataracts, with the hope of one day being able to prevent them. In a new study published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology, the researchers report oxygen may be the culprit.

Combinatorial chemistry provides researchers a vast library from which to choose.A researcher studying drug design for nerve damage therapies has gotten her answer to questions by following some old advice: she used the library. It’s not the kind of library her mother or teacher suggested, but a combinatorial chemistry library of many different protein sequences that some day might help her and her colleagues develop a successful timed drug delivery system.

The brighter signal over the transgenic heart indicates fat uptake and metabolism are greatly increased.Heart disease is the leading cause of death among the more than 13 million diabetics in the United States. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that in mice whose heart muscles take up high amounts of fat, the heart fills abnormally after each contraction, a condition that is consistent with the first stage of heart dysfunction in human diabetics.