Medicine & Health

Africans have made great strides fighting the legacy of colonialism while contending with the ongoing plunder of their natural resources and geopolitical battles for influence on the continent. Despite this progress, difficulties remain, including poverty, environmental challenges and public health issues.

On Feb. 25, the Medical Humanities Program in Arts & Sciences will present the “Forum on Medicine, Race and Ethnicity in St. Louis, Past to Future.” The all-day gathering will feature dozens of speakers and panelists exploring how specific local histories impact the region’s diverse communities.

Software developed at Washington University School of Medicine can predict what happens to complex gene networks when individual genes are disrupted in specific ways.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have discovered that the fluid around the brain flows to areas critical for normal brain development and function, suggesting that disruptions to its circulation may play an underrecognized role in neurodevelopmental disorders.

A $15 million commitment from Washington University benefactors Philip and Sima Needleman will enable the university to leverage its expertise in biomedical discovery to boost drug development via the Needleman Program for Innovation and Commercialization.

Thinking beyond COVID-19, a team led by Srikanth Singamaneni at the McKelvey School of Engineering developed a new point-of-care diagnostic test that is 1,000 times more sensitive than conventional rapid tests and can quantify concentrations of proteins.

Brian Lananna, a postdoctoral research scholar in developmental biology at the School of Medicine, has received a three-year $215,478 postdoctoral fellowship award from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine were awarded $569 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in federal fiscal year 2022, elevating WashU to No. 3 among U.S. medical schools in total NIH research funding support.

Tess Thompson, research assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study unmet social needs of cancer patients and their caregivers, with the ultimate aim of improving outcomes for both.

S. Joshua Swamidass, MD, PhD, an associate professor of pathology and immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is recognized for applying machine learning to chemical biology and medicine, and for extraordinary public outreach promoting an understanding of science among communities of faith.