Newsroom Stories

Pig heart valves used to replace defective aortic valves in human patients failed much earlier and more often than expected, says a report from cardiac surgeons at the School of Medicine. This is the first report to demonstrate this potential problem, the researchers say.

Alzheimer’s disease researchers at the School of Medicine have won renewal of a grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to study the differences between people who remain mentally spry in the golden years of life and those who develop dementia.

ZhangYi Zhang has been named assistant dean for clinical trials at the School of Medicine effective July 1. As assistant dean for clinical trials, Zhang will plan, direct and oversee clinical trials activities at the School of Medicine.

Julie SingerThe shooting death last Saturday of Neda Agha-Soltan has emerged, thanks to video widely circulated on the Internet, as a potent symbol of Iran’s antigovernment movement. In the news media and in private postings across the Web, Agha-Soltan has been memorialized as a victim, a martyr and — perhaps most hauntingly to Western ears — as “Iran’s Joan of Arc.” Yet while fitting in some ways, that comparison says less about either Agha-Soltan or the 15th-century French saint than it does about our own need to make sense of the present through comparison with the past, says Julie Singer, Ph.D., assistant professor of French in the Department of Romance Languages & Literatures at Washington University in St. Louis.

WarnerBrad W. Warner, a pediatric surgeon whose research and surgical career have focused on improving the lives of children with congenital bowel problems, has been named the Jessie L. Ternberg, M.D., Ph.D., Distinguished Professor in Pediatric Surgery at the School of Medicine.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has extended funding for the Midwest Regional Center for Excellence in Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases (MRCE), anchored at the School of Medicine. The center received a five-year, $37 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to continue to support basic and translational research in biodefense and emerging infectious diseases throughout the Midwest.

Kelle H. Moley, a world-renowned reproductive biologist, has been named the first James P. Crane Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the School of Medicine. Moley, vice chair for basic science research and director of the Division of Basic Science Research in obstetrics and gynecology, was installed in the new professorship at a ceremony June 10.

Robert Canfield As the Iranian government continues to crack down on citizens protesting against the recent disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an expert on Iran at Washington University in St. Louis says the Iranian administration wants the legitimacy of having won an election without actually having allowed a true election to take place.

The United States has attempted to pass major health reform legislation eight times in the last century, starting in the mid 1910s up through 1993-94 with the failed Clinton health reform effort. “Only once in that period was any legislation passed — in 1964-65 when Medicare and Medicaid were passed,” says Timothy McBride, Ph.D., associate dean of public health at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. “Yet, for many reasons, I feel that it is much more likely that legislation will pass this year.” At this point, McBride believes that President Obama has the political support necessary to make health reform happen, and he has made it his top domestic priority. McBride has been active in testifying before Congress and consulting with important policy constituencies on Medicare, insurance and health policy issues. He is a member of the Rural Policy Research Institute Health Panel that provides expert advice on rural health issues to the U.S. Congress and other policymakers.

Image courtesy of United States Department of AgricultureHuman gut bacterium *Enterococcus faecalis*The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis four grants totaling $19 million to explore the trillions of microbes that inhabit the human body and determine how they contribute to good health and disease. The grants are part of the Human Microbiome Project, an ongoing, ambitious effort to catalog the bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microorganisms that naturally coexist in or on the body.