School of Medicine

Alumni, faculty and students have been making headlines during the pandemic for their efforts to help others understand its impact and navigate possible solutions.

Joni Westerhouse, associate vice chancellor and associate dean in the Office of Medical Public Affairs at Washington University School of Medicine, has received the 2020 Distinguished Service Award from the Group on Institutional Advancement of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

New research — co-led by Washington University School of Medicine — has identified the most important features of cancer cells’ protein fragments, which can help distinguish the tumor from healthy tissue, enabling researchers to design better immunotherapies, including vaccines.

The Department of Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine has named pediatricians Vikas Dharnidharka, MD, and Margaret Lozovatsky, MD, to the newly created roles of vice chair of clinical investigation and vice chair of clinical informatics.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have received a grant to study the role of brain inflammation in Parkinson’s disease. The project focuses on whether inflammation aids the spread of Parkinson’s damage throughout the brain.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded Oct. 5 to three scientists for groundbreaking research that led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. One of those scientists — virologist Charles M. Rice — conducted his seminal work while on the faculty of Washington University School of Medicine.

Julie K. Schwarz, MD, PhD, professor of radiation oncology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been elected vice president of the Radiation Research Society. She will go on to serve as president beginning in October 2022. 

School of Medicine researchers have received renewed National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center. The center’s researchers study genetic and environmental factors that contribute to developmental disabilities.

Kirsten Gilbert Alberts and Emma Johnson at the School of Medicine and Keith Hengen in Arts & Sciences each received $70,000 Young Investigator grants from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, an organization that is committed to alleviating the suffering caused by mental illness by supporting research that will lead to advances and breakthroughs in scientific research.

Craig A. Buchman, MD, the Lindburg Professor and head of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at the School of Medicine, has been elected president of the American Neurotology Society, an organization of specialists in the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the inner ear and skull base.