Research Wire

Eric J. Lenze, MD, and his team at WashU Medicine’s Healthy Mind Lab are among 40 semifinalists in the XPRIZE Healthspan competition awarded $250,000 to study approaches to improve healthy aging.

A team led by WashU Medicine radiology associate professor Shuo Wang has identified neurons that appear to play a key role in our ability to recognize people.

WashU Medicine researchers have identified biomarkers of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and frontotemporal dementia from blood plasma, suggesting new therapeutic avenues.

A new study from WashU Medicine researchers describes the structure of an important protein that unspools the DNA molecule so the DNA can be repaired. Interfering with the protein could prove useful in developing new therapeutics for tuberculosis or other diseases caused by organisms that rely on these proteins to repair their DNA.

WashU Medicine researchers led by Siyuan Ding identified an immune-system protein in human cells that has the unusual capacity to respond to both DNA and RNA from pathogens, which may have implications for developing vaccines.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded David M. Ornitz, MD, PhD, of WashU Medicine, $740,000 annually for four years to support research aimed at understanding respiratory complications associated with premature birth.

Occupational therapy faculty member Kelly Harris, at WashU Medicine, will receive a $425,000 award to develop and test a technology-enabled care coordination service model to support Black youth with asthma.

WashU Medicine neurosurgeon Dimitrios Mathios, MD, has developed a liquid biopsy that is aided by machine-learning tools to improve the detection of brain cancers.

A study in Nature led by Weikai Li at WashU Medicine reveals the molecular details of how vitamin K-dependent gamma carboxylase operates, a critical step in the blood clotting process.

WashU Medicine researcher Benjamin Garcia will receive $18.5 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study how long-lived mammals stay healthy into old age.