Newsroom Stories

The School of Law will host a workshop titled “The Effects of Domestic Violence on Children” from 8:30 a.m.-noon July 12 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall.

A $450,000 grant from The Henry Luce Foundation will boost the experiential learning opportunities provided by the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic, through which students provide pro bono legal and technical services to environmental and community organizations.

Scientists probing the details of viral infection have discovered an intriguing surprise: in mice, herpes viruses hijack their host cells’ tools for fixing DNA damage and use those tools to enhance their own reproduction.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Stress and Alzheimer’s (week of June 6) • Dietary calcium is better (week of June 13) • Treating prostate problems (week of June 20) • Fireworks safety (week of June 27)

The list of reasons you shouldn’t smoke has gotten longer. Researchers at the School of Medicine are reporting that smoking interferes with ligament healing. Each year in the United States there are more than 20 million reported ligament injuries, and MCL injuries — which affect a ligament supporting the knee joint — are the most common. Studying mice with MCL injuries, the team discovered cigarette smoking impairs the recruitment of cells to the injury site and delays healing following ligament repair surgery.

Women who get most of their daily calcium from food have healthier bones than women whose calcium comes mainly from supplemental tablets, say researchers at the School of Medicine. Surprisingly, this is true even though the supplement takers have higher average calcium intake.

An X-ray of a case of scoliosis.Physicians have recognized scoliosis, the abnormal curvature of the spine, since the time of Hippocrates, but its causes have remained a mystery — until now. Researchers at the School of Medicine and collaborating institutions have discovered a gene that underlies the condition, which affects about three percent of all children. The finding lays the groundwork for determining how the genetic defect leads to the C- and S-shaped curves that characterize scoliosis.

The list of reasons you shouldn’t smoke has gotten longer. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are reporting that smoking interferes with ligament healing. Each year in the United States there are more than 20 million reported ligament injuries, and MCL injuries—which affect a ligament supporting the knee joint—are the most common. Studying mice with MCL injuries, the team discovered cigarette smoking impairs the recruitment of cells to the injury site and delays healing following ligament repair surgery.

An X-ray of a case of scoliosis.Physicians have recognized scoliosis, the abnormal curvature of the spine, since the time of Hippocrates, but its causes have remained a mystery — until now. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborating institutions have discovered a gene that underlies the condition, which affects about three percent of all children. The finding lays the groundwork for determining how the genetic defect leads to the C- and S-shaped curves that characterize scoliosis.

An exhibit of 29 iron sculptures by the Israeli artist Orna Ben-Ami is on display at Washington University School of Medicine through fall 2007. The sculptures can be viewed in the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center, Olin Residence Hall, Bernard Becker Medical Library, McDonnell Pediatric Research building, and other locations around campus.