School of Medicine

Beatriz Carreno, PhD, was featured Friday, April 3, on the syndicated radio show “Science Friday,” where she talked about School of Medicine research involving personalized melanoma vaccines. Carreno is the fourth faculty member in recent months to appear on the show.

Robert M. Feibel, MD, has been named director of the Center for History Of Medicine of Washington University. The center is housed in the Bernard Becker Medical Library at the School of Medicine.

Over the next several months, construction projects at and near Washington University Medical Center will continue to affect traffic flow and shuttles as improvements to parking and intersections continue.

​While the federal health-care law has reduced the number of uninsured people by about 10 million, challenges remain, including how to educate new enrollees about their coverage options. New research at Washington University shows that communicating information about the Affordable Care Act can be made simple.

Christopher A. Maher, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received a three-year, $450,000 Susan G. Komen Career Catalyst Award for research focused on understanding the role of long noncoding RNAs in estrogen-positive breast cancer treatment resistance. Maher’s lead mentor is Elaine R. Mardis, PhD, the Robert E. and Louise F. Dunn Distinguished Professor of Medicine.

Louis W. Sullivan, MD, president emeritus of Morehouse School of Medicine, and former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), will speak about healthy equity and diversity in the health professions in two talks April 9 at Washington University.

Personalized melanoma vaccines can be used to marshal a powerful immune response against unique mutations in patients’ tumors, according to early data in a first-in-people clinical trial at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The research is a boost to cancer immunotherapy, a treatment strategy that unleashes the immune system to seek out and destroy cancer.

M. Gilbert Grand, MD, clinical professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences, has been elected president of The Macula Society.

Older mice genetically prone to bear offspring with heart defects can reduce this risk to that of younger mouse mothers with the same genetic defect through exercise alone, according to new research at the School of Medicine. The study, led by Patrick Y. Jay, MD, PhD, also suggests that the increased risk of congenital heart defects is tied to the age of the mother and not the age of her eggs.

Treva K. Rice, PhD, professor of biostatistics and of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received a four-year, $1.79 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research titled “PRIDE Coordination Center.”