School of Medicine

Researchers have identified an important part of the pathway through which stress affects mood and motivation for drugs. The finding may prove useful in humans by providing new potential targets for drugs to treat problems related to stress.  

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are playing a leading role in an international collaboration dedicated to understanding genes that contribute to inflammatory bowel disease.

Like explorers mapping a new planet, scientists probing the brain need every type of landmark they can get. Each mountain, river or forest helps scientists find their way through the intricacies of the human brain. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a new technique that provides rapid access to brain landmarks formerly only available at autopsy.

Rebecca Dresser, JD, the Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law and professor of ethics in medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, has been appointed to the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health. The committee serves a critical role in the oversight of federally funded research involving recombinant DNA.  

A clinical warning system undergoing a feasibility study at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis will include wireless sensors that take blood oxygenation and heart-rate readings from at-risk patients once or twice a minute. The data  and lab results in the electronic medical record will be continually scrutinized by a machine-learning algorithm looking for signs of clinical deterioration. If any such signs are found, the system will call a nurse on a cellphone, alerting the nurse to check on the patient.

Nearly 390 physicians at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have been named to The Best Doctors In America for 2011.

A traveling exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum called “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race,” highlights how physicians, geneticists, anthropologists and others in the healing professions developed and participated in the Holocaust. The exhibit opens Monday, Aug. 8, at the Bernard Becker Medical Library at Washington University School of Medicine and will be on display until Sunday, Oct. 30.

Washington University, two administrators and a School of Medicine department have received safety awards from the Campus Safety Health and Environmental Management Association (CSHEMA) and the National Safety Council. WUSTL was recognized with CSHEMA’s 2011 Complete Safety Program Award of Merit for excellence in the university’s institutional safety and compliance programs.

To ensure that all students have the best opportunity to learn and thrive, Washington University School of Medicine is again sponsoring its annual school supply drive to benefit Adams Elementary School in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have been awarded a $9.2 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study the relationship between obesity and cancer. The five-year grant will fund the new Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer Center. Led by Graham A. Colditz, MD, PhD, the Center’s researchers will study the effect of diet, weight, physical activity and the environment on cancer and cancer survivorship.