School of Medicine

Washington University in St. Louis has announced the launch of the Center for Health Economics and Policy, to be housed in the Institute for Public Health. The goal of the new center is to improve population health in America by encouraging health policy and economics research and dissemination.

Readiness for and recovery from public health threats will be highlighted at the eighth annual conference of the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. Infectious disease outbreaks, natural disasters and civil unrest are among the topics that will be addressed.

Scientists have identified two chemical scents in the urine of female mice that arouse sexual behavior in males, a discovery that shines a spotlight on how mouse pheromones control behavior.

This year marked the 10th annual research training symposium and poster session on the Medical Campus, in which students, residents and junior faculty present basic, clinical and translational research projects. It’s also the fifth year that students from Meharry Medical College in Nashville participated in the program and the School of Medicine’s Summer Research Program.

Building on wireless technology that has the potential to interfere with pain, scientists have developed flexible, implantable devices that can activate — and, in theory, block — pain signals in the body and spinal cord before those signals reach the brain.

Angela L. Brown, MD, associate professor of medicine, leads the Hypertension Clinic at Washington University School of Medicine. Brown has devoted her career to helping patients control their hypertension and to training medical professionals in how to care for such patients.

The documentary film, “A Spark of Nerve,” which debuts at 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, at the 24th annual St. Louis International Film Festival, details Susan E. Mackinnon’s decades-long tenacity in pioneering the nerve-transfer procedure and the lives transformed by it.

Jay F. Piccirillo, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been named editor-in-chief of JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, one of 10 specialty journals in The Journal of the American Medical Association’s (JAMA) network of publications.

Stuart Weiss, MD, a beloved, longtime professor of clinical neurology at Washington University School of Medicine, died Oct. 27, 2015, in St. Louis. He was 85.

Salmon and other freshwater fish and amphibians supercharge their ability to see red and infrared light. Scientists at the School of Medicine have shown that this evolutionary adaptation hinges on the activity of an enzyme that converts vitamin A1 to vitamin A2, enabling the aquatic creatures to more easily navigate murky waters.