Medicine & Health

When bright light shines in the eye, the pupil constricts. In dim light, it dilates. Now investigators at the School of Medicine have demonstrated in chickens that a protein called cryptochrome plays a key role in that reflex.

Singer songwriter Chris Hobler has teamed up with the School of Medicine to help create a new center dedicated to neurological research. Hobler suffers from ALS, commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Read more in the following article written by Tina Hesman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

To stick to cells in the respiratory tract and start an infection, the bacterium Haemophilus influenza has to secrete a glue-like protein. Researchers at the School of Medicine recently reported that a study of the valve that lets out the glue has produced some surprising information.

A well-known enzyme present in the skin and other tissues turns out to be a molecule-sized motor that extracts its fuel from the road it runs on, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. Their discovery appears in the Oct. 1 issue of Science.

What are the major political issues facing health care? How do we reduce the existing significant disparities in timely access to health-care delivery? And can we prevent biomedical advances from “breaking the bank?” Prominent national experts will address those and other important issues affecting the future of medicine at the “Health Care Challenges Facing the Nation” conference Oct. 7 at Washington University Medical Center.

BucknerCertain brain changes that are common in normal aging are not the beginnings of Alzheimer’s disease, according to an article published by Washington University psychology professor Randy L. Buckner in the Sept. 30 issue of Neuron. “When you start to look across the literature, lots of data points converge suggesting there are certain changes that take place in aging that are not what cause Alzheimer’s disease,” says Buckner.

Eric C. Leuthardt, M.D., a Washington University neurosurgeon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, has been named one of this year’s Top Young Innovators by Technology Review, MIT’s Magazine of Innovation. The distinction is awarded each year to 100 individuals under age 35 whose innovative work in technology has a profound impact on the world.

More than 80 percent of hip fracture patients don’t fully recover with traditional rehabilitation methods. That’s why WUSM researchers are testing a new approach: combining extended exercise therapy with daily use of a topical testosterone gel. Elderly men and women with recent hip fractures may be eligible to participate.

Many Americans are faced with the fear of going hungry.Most Americans don’t think they’ll ever be faced with the question of how they will get their next meal, but a recent study co-authored by a social welfare expert at Washington University in St. Louis shows that at least 42 percent of the U.S. population will deal with food insecurity during their lifetime. “Food insecurity goes beyond the fear of going hungry,” explains Mark R. Rank, Ph.D., the Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare at the university’s George Warren Brown School of Social Work. “Food insecurity means that people are unable to provide themselves and their families nutritionally adequate food on a regular basis.

B cellsScientists at the School of Medicine have identified a protein that can reduce the chances immune B cells will erroneously attack the body’s own tissues, causing autoimmune disorders like lupus, allergies, arthritis and diabetes. The protein is the first of its kind to be identified in B cells and could provide scientists with a new target for treating such conditions.