School of Medicine

Parents, schools and communities need to be involved in combating the epidemic of childhood obesity, Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, says.

I Jerome Flance, an emeritus clinical professor of medicine at the Washington University School of Medicine who spearheaded the University’s development of the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood, died Friday (April 2, 2010) of infirmities of age at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He was 98 and lived in Creve Coeur.

Evan D. Kharasch, MD, PhD, the Russell D. and Mary B. Shelden Professor of Anesthesiology and professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, has been appointed vice chancellor for research at Washington University in St. Louis, effective April 5. He had served as interim vice chancellor since July 2009. As the chief officer responsible for the university’s research mission, he will oversee an enterprise that generates more than $500 million annually for sponsored research from a wide array of funding sources.

A drug already prescribed to shrink benign, enlarged prostates has been shown to reduce the risk of a prostate cancer diagnosis by 23 percent in men with an increased risk of the disease, a large international trial has found. Results are reported April 1 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Nearly all animals make sounds instinctively, but baby songbirds learn to sing in virtually the same way human infants learn to speak: by imitating a parent. Now, an international team of scientists, led by the School of Medicine, has decoded the genome of a songbird — the Australian zebra finch — to reveal intriguing clues about the genetic basis and evolution of vocal learning. 

There will be a year of festivities as the Department of Pediatrics celebrates its centennial April 1 to honor the milestones. Currently ranked eighth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, the Department of Pediatrics has become a world leader in pediatric patient care, teaching and research with its many groundbreaking discoveries and for its excellence in all divisions.

Clinicians may be able to better predict the effects of strokes and other brain injuries by adapting a scanning approach originally developed for the study of brain organization, neurologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found.

Plastic and reconstructive surgeon Thomas H. Tung, MD, skillfully moves tissues from other parts of the body to create form and function in cases of cancer or trauma in children and adults.

School of Medicine students will perform “Once Upon a Mattress” April 15-17 at the Whelpley Auditorium at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy.

Washington University neurologists at Barnes-Jewish Hospital will be part of a new neurological care program for retired professional football players.