School of Medicine

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.

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.”

David C. Beebe, PhD, the Janet and Bernard Becker Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, died at his home in St. Louis on Friday, March 27, 2015, from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He was 70.

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.

D.C. Rao, PhD, and Victor G. Davila-Roman, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, have received a four-year, $1.28 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a program titled “PRIDE Summer Institute in Cardiovascular Genetic Epidemiology.”

Zeynep Yurtsever, a biochemistry graduate student, and Daniel Kober, a microbiology graduate student, both in the laboratory of Thomas Brett, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, have received two-year, $52,000 fellowships from the American Heart Association.

Six researchers at Washington University are being honored as outstanding scientists by the Academy of Science-St. Louis. University recipients are faculty members Ralph Quatrano, Jennifer K. Lodge, Samuel Achilefu, Charles M. Hohenberg, Gautam Dantas and Steven Teitelbaum (right), who received a lifetime achievement award.

Many kidney disorders are difficult to diagnose. To address this problem, scientists and clinicians have developed a diagnostic test that identifies genetic changes linked to inherited kidney disorders. This testing is now available nationwide through Genomic Pathology Services (GPS) at the School of Medicine.

Antibiotic resistance is poised to spread rapidly around the globe among bacteria frequently implicated in respiratory and urinary infections in hospital settings, according to new research at the School of Medicine.

Yun Ju Sung, PhD, assistant professor of biostatistics and of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received a five-year, $718,950 grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research titled “Statistical Methods For Genomic Dissection of Cardiovascular Diseases.”