School of Medicine

Researchers from around the world will gather April 10 to discuss the risk of emerging infectious diseases, and how best to translate research to clinical care, at the third annual conference of the Washington University Center for Global Health and Infectious Disease.

​Avik Som, a second-year student in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the School of Medicine, has been invited to attend the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting this summer in Lindau, Germany.

James M. DuBois, DSc, PhD, has been named the Steven J. Bander Professor of Medical Ethics and Professionalism at the School of Medicine. In his research, DuBois develops measures to assess outcomes of training programs in ethics and professionalism in medicine and conducts social science studies of patient and research participant attitudes.

Stuart C. Sweet, MD, PhD, an international leader in pediatric lung transplantation, has been elected vice president/president-elect of the United Network for Organ Sharing/Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

Scientists are eager to make use of stem cells’ extraordinary power to transform into nearly any kind of cell, but that ability also is cause for concern in cancer treatment. New research at the School of Medicine has revealed that these stem cells are present even in slow-growing, less aggressive tumors.

The School of Medicine’s KL2 Career Development Awards Program has selected its newest scholars. The training program promotes the career development of future clinical investigators.

Carl Frieden, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received a five-year, $1.56 million grant from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research titled “Alzheimer’s Disease: Defining the apoE-amyloid-beta interaction.”

A reformulation of OxyContin (left) that makes it less likely to be abused than the older formulation (right) has curtailed the drug’s illicit use. But researchers at the School of Medicine have found that a significant percentage still abuse the drug despite package labeling that emphasizes its abuse-deterrent properties. 

Washington University School of Medicine and BJC HealthCare are planning to build a 12-to-14-story office building on the site of the Storz Building on the Medical Campus.

Researchers led by Samuel Achilefu, PhD, at the School of Medicine have devised a way to apply light-based therapy to deep tissues never before accessible. Instead of shining an outside light, they delivered light directly to tumor cells, along with a photosensitive source of free radicals that can be activated by the light to destroy cancer.