Newsroom Stories

Decoding the complete DNA of cancer patients is giving School of Medicine scientists a clearer picture of the complexity of the disease and allowing them to see intriguing and unexpected genetic relationships among patients. The scientists have sequenced the genome of a second patient with acute myeloid leukemia, discovering a suite of genetic changes in the cancer cells.

SleckmanBarry P. Sleckman has been named the Conan Professor of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine at the School of Medicine. Washington University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Larry Shapiro executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, announced the appointment.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded a five-year, $4 million grant to researchers at the School of Medicine to use genetically-engineered mice to study the origins and potential treatments of pediatric brain tumors. David H. Gutmann, the Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor of Neurology, is principal investigator of the grant, which is part of the NCI’s Mouse Models of Human Cancers Consortium. He is also on staff at Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals.

A computer simulation of a nanoparticle showing its core of perfluorocarbon (green) and its lipid coating (red, orange and blue).When bees sting, they pump poison into their victims. Now the toxin in bee venom has been harnessed to kill tumor cells by researchers at the School of Medicine. The researchers attached the major component of bee venom to nano-sized spheres that they call nanobees.

Live performance has always been a multidisciplinary event, its three great streams — theater, music and dance — forever shifting and combining in new and unpredictable ways. For its 2009-10 season, the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences will present a handful of works that together highlight both the boundless possibility and transformational power of the stage.

ChenSchool of Medicine researchers have discovered that itch-specific neurons exist in mice, and their studies suggest that itch and pain signals are transmitted along different pathways in the spinal cord.

Dripping or flinging paint; flipping coins to compose musical scores; letting the progressive decay of organic materials determine a composition — since the early 20th century avant-garde artists have used these processes and many others to explore the creative possibilities of chance and its attendant release of authorial intent. This fall the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present Chance Aesthetics, a major loan exhibition investigating the use of chance as a key compositional principle in modern art.

Decoding the complete DNA of cancer patients is giving scientists at the School of Medicine a clearer picture of the complexity of the disease and allowing them to see intriguing and unexpected genetic relationships among patients.

Buy fresh fruits and vegetables from area growers right on the School of Medicine campus. A farmer’s market will be held weekly beginning Thursday, Aug. 13 from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the fountain plaza outside of the Barnes & Noble bookstore.

Adults with severe hearing loss benefit from pairing a cochlear implant in one ear with a hearing aid in the other ear, even though the sound signals from each device are very different, according to a study at the School of Medicine published in the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology.