School of Medicine

New research at the School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University Medical Center has implicated a poorly understood protein called PLAC8 in the spread of colon cancer.

Could a cup of coffee bring faculty across campus together to expand and enhance research and teaching while broadening perspectives? That’s the idea behind the Office of the Provost’s Bring Your Own Idea program, which awards grants to support gatherings of faculty from across Washington University in St. Louis around meaningful topics.

Although tobacco companies are barred by law from advertising their products to children, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have found that many teens and pre-teens are getting tobacco advertisements and promotions through social media outlets or text messaging on mobile phones. More than one in 10 children under 18 reported receiving tobacco coupons or promotions on their Facebook or MySpace pages or in text messages.

Diversity and Inclusion Grants totaling nearly $112,000 were awarded to 10 projects designed to strengthen and promote diversity on campus.

Chris Carpenter, MD, associate professor of emergency medicine, co-chaired the national Geriatric Emergency Department Guidelines Task Force, which created new recommendations intended to improve the care for older adults in emergency departments.

IDEA Labs will host its second annual Demo Day April 18. Medical and engineering students from the Medical and Danforth campuses will demonstrate prototypes for inventions they created to solve a variety of health-care problems.

The Journal of Biological Chemistry has recognized School of Medicine researcher Ron Bose, MD, PhD, and his colleagues for work describing the combined structure of two proteins that, when bound together, drive growth of many breast cancers.

Fourth-year medical students learned Friday, March 21, where they will go for residency training, the next stage of their careers. The annual event also brought a marriage proposal for one student, to the delight of students gathered for Match Day. Shown is student Jacqueline Chen upon learning she will go to Barnes-Jewish Hospital to focus on internal medicine for her residency.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have learned that the problems people with autism have with memory formation, higher-level thinking and social interactions may be partially attributable to the activity of a receptor inside brain cells, highlighted with green in this image.

The 10th Annual Washington University Postdoc Scientific Symposium will be held Thursday, April 3, to recognize and showcase the important contributions of postdocs to scientific enterprise at the university. Registration is open through March 27.