School of Medicine

Four School of Medicine nurses have received the 2015 Excellence in Nursing Award from St. Louis Magazine, honoring local nurses who have made a difference in the lives of their patients and colleagues.Pictured is Jennifer Wofford of the Department of Pediatrics, who received a perfect score from the award judges.

Margot Williams, PhD, postdoctoral research scholar in the Department of Developmental Biology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received a two-year, $106,600 National Research Service Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research titled “Regulation of Mediolateral Cell Polarity by PCP and Notochord Boundary Signaling.”

A newly discovered link between bacteria and immune cells sheds light on inflammatory bowel disease, an autoimmune condition that affects 1.6 million people in the United States, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Researchers led by John F. DiPersio, MD, PhD, at the School of Medicine have designed a way to mitigate graft-versus-host disease, a common and often life-threatening complication of bone marrow transplants that are used to treat leukemia and other blood cancers. The method also employs a molecular imaging tool to help doctors identify patients most likely to develop this dangerous condition.

The Washington University AIDS Clinical Trials Unit is the first in the nation to open a clinical trial evaluating whether statins reduce heart attacks and strokes in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Three doctoral candidates at Washington University in St. Louis were inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society at the annual Bouchet Conference on Diversity in Graduate Education April 10-11 at Yale University.

U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Harrisonville, visited the School of Medicine on Wednesday to learn about research taking place on the Medical Campus and to hear campus leaders’ thoughts on the need for research funding. The congresswoman is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Committee on the Budget.

​When it comes to rewards and punishments, which is more effective — the carrot or the stick? Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have devised a simple experiment to test the effects of rewards and punishments on behavior and have found that punishments seem to be more effective at influencing behavior.

Linda J. Sandell, PhD, the Mildred B. Simon Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, received the Alfred R. Shands Jr., MD, Award at the Orthopaedic Research Society’s recent annual meeting in Las Vegas.

Tiffany Osborn, MD, associate professor of surgery and of emergency medicine, and her colleagues published a paper April 2 in The New England Journal of Medicine about septic shock. The paper was chosen for the NEJM’s online forum and drew more than 23,000 views and several thousand podcast listeners.