Medicine & Health

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)

Enlisted to help fight viral infections, immune cells called macrophages consume virus-infected cells to stop the spread of the disease in the body. Now researchers at the School of Medicine have uncovered how macrophages keep from succumbing to the infection themselves.

Physicians from 33 sites in the United States and Canada participated in the Digital Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial.

Preventing Type 2 diabetes among African-American womenWhile culturally traditional foods are a big part of the African-American heritage, they also are a significant factor in the type 2 diabetes epidemic among African-American women. And while the prevalance of type 2 diabetes is associated with higher rates of obesity, diabetes nutrition education programs have been relatively unsuccessful in attracting and retaining African-American women. However a new study shows that there is a way to reach members of this population and make a positive impact on their dietary behavior.