Medicine & Health

The George Warren Brown School of Social Work’s spring lecture series addresses a broad spectrum of issues from elder care to the future of social policy. The series will kick off Feb. 7 with a lecture by Melvin Oliver, Ph.D., titled “Can We Preserve the Progressive Soul of Asset-Based Social Policy?” Oliver is a professor of sociology and dean of social sciences in the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. All lectures will be held at noon in Brown Hall, Room 124.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Light meter in eyes (week of Oct. 6) • Clinically depressed children (week of Oct. 13) • Ear infections linked to GERD (week of Oct. 20) • Halloween safety (week of Oct. 27)

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Siteman Cancer Center (week of Jan. 5) • Scientists grow norovirus (week of Jan. 12) • Protein linked to depression (week of Jan. 19) • Human head hair isn’t fur (week of Jan. 26)

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • DHEA reduces fat in elderly (week of Dec. 1) • Chicken genome (week of Dec. 8) • Schizophrenia risk factors (week of Dec. 15) • Homeless population has changed (week of Dec. 22) • SIDS risk (week of Dec. 29)

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Flu vaccine (week of Nov. 3) • Cutting calories doesn’t help memory (week of Nov. 10) • Great American Smokeout (week of Nov. 17) • Gut microbes control fat cells (week of Nov. 24)

Photo by Dawn Majors, St. Louis Post-DispatchRoger Beck gets a kiss from his son Denton.Roger Beck cried for the first time in 22 years thanks to Randal Paniello, associate professor of otolaryngology. Paniello performed the first saliva gland transplant in the United States to restore Beck’s ability to produce tears. Learn more about the procedure in this St. Louis Post-Dispatch feature.

Yet another disease has been linked to obesity. Samuel Klein, director of the WUSM Center for Human Nutrition, reports fatty liver disease, usually associated with excess alcohol consumption, is on the rise among those who don’t drink too much. One common factor linked to the increase is obesity. Read more in the following Post-Dispatch article.

The Washington University Center for the Study of Ethics & Human Values will sponsor a symposium on tort reform and medical malpractice from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Jan. 22 in Whitaker Hall. The symposium, titled “Medical Malpractice and Tort Reform: Finding Truth and Common Ground,” is free and open to the public.

A class of anti-seizure medications slows the rate of aging in roundworms, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. When exposed to drugs used to treat epilepsy in humans, worms lived longer and retained youthful functions longer than normal.

A little anxiety can be a good thing when it comes to cancer symptoms, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. They report that people with low overall anxiety levels were more apt to ignore symptoms of rectal cancer for long periods of time, thereby delaying treatment.