Medicine & Health

Two international research teams — one led by M. Alan Permutt, M.D., professor of medicine and of cell biology and physiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis — have found variations in a gene that may predispose people to type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease. The two research teams, which collaborated extensively, will report their findings in companion articles in the April issue of Diabetes.

Heavy drinking is associated with a number of problems, but one surprisingly common problem involves not remembering large chunks of time. Called alcohol-induced blackouts, these memory losses were reported by more than 39 percent of women and more than 50 percent of men studied by researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Queensland Institute on Medical Research in Australia. The researchers also found that genetic factors play a big role in whether or not a person blacks out after heavy drinking. Studying more than 2,300 pairs of Australian twins, the research team was able to determine that more than 50 percent of the risk of blacking out seems to be controlled by genetic factors, and the role of genes is even greater in people who report blacking out multiple times.

To meet design and cost changes, industry and government are considering clockless computing.Computing royalty, including Ivan Sutherland, the father of computer graphics, and Wesley A. Clark, the designer of the world’s first personal computer, will gather at a computing symposium Friday, March 26th, 2004, from 1:00-5:30 p.m. at Washington University in St. Louis’s Whitaker Hall Auditorium. As part of the University’s 150th anniversary of its founding, participants will honor time by contemplating how computing can evade time as the industry prepares to go clockless.

Strong stitches attach the rotator cuff directly to the shoulder bone.Each year in the United States, nearly 300,000 people have surgery to repair their rotator cuff. The rotator cuff is made up of several muscles that allow us to lift our arms or to rotate them during sports activities such as golf, tennis and swimming. The rotator cuff also is used during lifting, washing windows and working in the garden. In the past, surgical correction of the rotator cuff involved an incision through the deltoid muscle on the outside of the shoulder, a lot of pain for weeks after surgery and a long period of recovery. But Washington University orthopaedic surgeons have begun using a minimally invasive system that eliminates the need for the incision through the muscle and limits the amount of post-operative pain. The system allows surgeons to strengthen the repair with a suturing device that sews the muscle right into bone where it can heal more quickly, with less pain.

A fluroescent-tagged antibody bearing silver and gold particles reveals I and L bradykinin receptors lit in a ghostly green glow on the surfact of cultured human cellsPreliminary research suggests it may someday be possible to diagnose and forecast risk for Alzheimer’s disease using skin cells, thanks to a small protein, or peptide, that few previously associated with the disease. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that skin cells from people with inherited forms of Alzheimer’s disease respond to the peptide by triggering Alzheimer’s-like changes, but skin cells from healthy individuals do not. They say the findings need to be explored further in cases of non-inherited Alzheimer’s disease, but the results could eventually lead to a way of determining an individual’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s before clinical symptoms arise.

Kidney recipient Barry Hammond (left) and his brother, kidney donor Brian.More than 50,000 people in the United States are waiting for kidney transplants. Most are waiting for someone who wants to be an organ donor to die, but each year only 9,000 people on the transplant waiting list get a kidney from someone who has died, while 16,500 on the list die. Transplants from living donors have the greatest chance of working for a long time and can happen quickly, often within a year. A living kidney donor may be a family member or friend between the ages of 18 and 65. They must be healthy and have a blood type that is compatible with the recipient’s blood type. But researchers at Washington University School of Medicine, have discovered something surprising. Many interested kidney donors are not taken up on their offers to donate because the recipients are afraid donors will be harmed. As a result, many potential donor kidneys go unused.

Medical Science & Health March Tip Sheet.

Washington University faculty and staff make news around the world. Following is a representative sampling of media coverage from clippings and electronic sources. For the most recent clips, see the Clips Index

Washington University faculty and staff make news around the world. Following is a representative sampling of media coverage from clippings and electronic sources.

With the graying of America, millions of people across the nation are facing the same tough question: when do older people become unsafe drivers? In one of the first studies to track driving performance in older adults, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that over time, driving abilities predictably worsen in individuals with early Alzheimer’s disease and, to a lesser extent, in older adults without dementia. People with mild dementia had the fastest rate of decline, but there also were declines in nondemented study participants. The researchers also found that increased age alone appeared to be a risk factor in driving performance. Because Alzheimer’s disease is progressive and driving performance inevitably does worsen, the challenge is to figure out how to predict and evaluate dangerous declines in driving performance. The researchers suggest that testing individuals with mild dementia every six months might be a useful way to keep unsafe drivers off the roads.