Medicine & Health

Adolescence can be a trying time for the whole family.Adolescence is characterized by dramatic physical changes as young people grow from childhood to physical maturity. During adolescence, we gain 50 percent of our adult weight and 20 percent of adult height while going through puberty and developing the ability to reproduce. With so many physical and emotional changes occurring at the same time, Washington University adolescent medicine researchers at St. Louis Children’s Hospital say it’s important for parents to be prepared for change. They also must be ready to listen to their children at any time, day or night, and do as much as possible to stay involved in their lives.

This is *C. elegans*. Its genome was thought to have been completed until a WUSTL computer scientist found otherwise.A computer scientist at Washington University in St. Louis has applied software that he has developed to the genome of a worm and has found 150 genes that were missed by previous genome analysis methods. Moreover, using the software, he and his colleagues have developed predictions for the existence of a whopping 1,119 more genes.

For technicians in the Genome Sequencing Center (GSC) at the School of Medicine, work is going to go a whole lot faster — hundreds of times faster, in fact. Fast enough to sequence the entire genome of a bacterial organism in one day instead of several weeks.

Courtesy of Cell MetabolismMay ’05 coverWhere fat comes from determines whether the body can metabolize it effectively. Researchers at the School of Medicine have found that the “old” fat stored in the body’s peripheral tissues — that is, around the belly, thighs or bottom — can’t be burned efficiently unless “new” fat is eaten in the diet or made in the liver.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Autism study (week of May 4) • Low fat, not no fat (week of May 11) • West Nile virus cure (week of May 18) • Improving Crohn’s disease (week of May 25)

Researchers may now be a step closer to understanding what causes cataracts and what may help prevent them.

The American Academy of Neurology has honored him with the Potamkin Prize for Research in Pick’s, Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases.

During last year’s Komen St. Louis Race for the Cure, the Siteman Cancer Center fielded the event’s third-largest team.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has chosen the School of Medicine as one of four national research centers dedicated to the advancement of nanotechnology. The center, funded by a five-year, $12.5 grant, will be headed by WUSM chemist Karen Wooley. Read more in the following St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.

Area adults and children can find out if symptoms such as a chronic cough, wheezing and shortness of breath might be a sign of asthma through Washington University’s participation in the ninth annual Nationwide Asthma Screening Program.