School of Medicine

Scientists have linked mutations in a single gene to autism in people who have a rare tumor syndrome typically diagnosed in childhood. The findings, in patients with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), may lead to a better understanding of the genetic roots of autism in the wider population.

Clay F. Semenkovich, the Irene E. and Michael M. Karl Professor and director of the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism & Lipid Research at the School of Medicine, has received the Edwin Bierman Award from the American Diabetes Association.

As part of the White House BRAIN Initiative, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received two grants to develop tools to map and activate pathways in the brain using light.

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received a two-year, $8 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to evaluate an investigational treatment regimen for lymphatic filariasis, a neglected tropical disease.

To Emily Jungheim, MD, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the School of Medicine, family is everything. She helps couples who struggle with infertility.

Dieters sometimes consume extra protein to stave off hunger and prevent loss of muscle tissue that often comes with weight loss. But a School of Medicine study found that eating too much protein eliminates an important health benefit of weight loss: improvement in insulin sensitivity, which is critical to lowering diabetes risk.

Research from the School of Medicine shows that surgery to correct nerve-compression shoulder injury can help Major League Baseball pitchers return to the game and perform at, or better than, pre-injury play.

Many children with sickle cell disease experience frequent and severe pain episodes, requiring emergency room visits or hospitalization. In search of more effective ways to treat such pain, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that adding a low dose of the drug methadone to standard treatment can limit pain experienced by children with the condition.

Small enough to fit in your hand, with enormous eyes and an appetite for meat, tarsiers are an anomaly of nature. They are also our distant cousins, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who recently sequenced and analyzed the tarsier genome.

Four research teams at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have been collectively awarded nearly $2 million for research aimed at combating the growing threat of antibiotic resistance.