School of Medicine

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found new clues to why some urinary tract infections recur persistently after multiple rounds of treatment. Their research, conducted in mice, suggests that the bacteria that cause urinary tract infections take advantage of a cellular waste disposal system that normally helps fight invaders.

Bradley P. Stoner, MD, PhD, has been elected president of the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association, the national society that represents researchers and clinicians specializing in sexually transmitted infections.

State laws that limit driving privileges for teens have reduced the incidence of drinking and driving among the nation’s youngest licensees, according to a new study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Teens comprise less than 5 percent of licensed drivers in the country, but they account for roughly 20 percent of motor vehicle crashes.

Workers prepare to place a new MRI scanner into the East Building at the School of Medicine June 11. The 18,000-pound scanner will be used for the Human Connectome Project, a research study that will trace the anatomical and functional connections between different regions of the brain’s gray matter.

Researchers have identified the primary player of the biochemical bugle call that musters the body’s defenders against viral infection. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that a key molecule, MDA5, is essential for producing enough interferon (the bugle call) to rally virus-fighting cells during certain viral infections.

The American Academy of Microbiology has named two Washington University in St. Louis faculty members as fellows: Robert Blankenship, PhD, and John Heuser, MD.

Some 200 U.S. scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and elsewhere detail findings from the most comprehensive census of the microbial make-up of healthy humans.

Robert J. Glaser, Emeritus Trustee and former Washington University School of Medicine faculty member, died Thursday, June 7, 2012, at his home in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 93.

Studying mice and humans, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and their collaborators in Paris have identified two proteins that are required to maintain a supply of stem cells in the developing kidney. The work is a small step toward the future goal of growing kidney stem cells in the lab.

M. Alan Permutt, MD, professor of medicine and of cell biology and physiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, died of cancer Sunday, June 10, 2012, in St. Louis. He was 72.