School of Medicine

School of Medicine researchers have received a $3.9 million grant supporting new technologies and therapeutics to advance a drug to treat debilitating lung diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The research is led by Michael J. Holtzman, MD.

Lila Solnica-Krezel, the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor and head of the Department of Developmental Biology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been elected president of the International Zebrafish Society.

In a mouse study, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that an antibody that targets the protein TREM2 empowers tumor-destroying immune cells and improves the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy.

School of Medicine researchers are investigating whether a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat rare diseases of an overactive immune system could help critically ill patients hospitalized with COVID-19.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have created a COVID-19 vaccine candidate from a replicating virus. This experimental vaccine has proven effective at preventing pneumonia in mice.

Up to 5,000 St. Louis County residents will be invited to participate in a survey and testing regarding COVID-19 to help gauge the impact the coronavirus has had on the county’s residents. Washington University in St. Louis and the St. Louis County Department of Public Health are leading the project.

After a national search, noted radiologist Debbie Lee Bennett, MD, has been named chief of breast imaging for Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

New research from Washington University School of Medicine suggests that the immune systems of seriously ill COVID-19 patients can’t do enough to protect them from the virus. The researchers propose that boosting the activity of immune cells may be a good treatment strategy for COVID-19.

Two doctoral students from the lab of Abhinav Jha, at the McKelvey School of Engineering and the School of Medicine, presented four talks on computational nuclear medicine imaging at the recent annual meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have shown that levels of a specific protein in the blood rise as amyloid plaques form in the brain. The discovery could pave the way toward a blood-based test to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease before symptoms appear.