School of Medicine

The School of Medicine has received a $14.3 million grant through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand its high-powered data center for genomics. The facility’s sophisticated computer networks store massive amounts of genomic data used to identify the genetic origins of cancer and other diseases.

The Longer Life Foundation has awarded grants to six research projects on issues related to aging at Washington University School of Medicine. Over the last 10 years, the foundation has awarded more than $2 million to the university to fund independent research into improving methods for predicting long-term mortality.

Most people at risk for developing glaucoma due to high eye pressure do not need treatment, according to a large, multi-center study.

The National Cancer Institute has awarded Siteman Cancer Center and Washington University School of Medicine a prestigious Specialized Program of Research Excellence grant in endometrial cancer. 

Children with asthma who continue to have symptoms while using low-dose inhaled corticosteroids could benefit from increasing the dosage or adding one of two asthma drugs, according to a new study at the School of Medicine and other institutions. The research is published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A genome-wide study into the genetic roots of alcoholism has identified several areas of DNA that appear to contribute to the disease. But researchers say those genes make relatively modest contributions to overall risk of alcoholism.

A newly identified cancer biomarker could define a new subtype of breast cancer as well as offer a potential way to treat it, say researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The biomarker is found frequently in breast cancers that have poorer outcomes and can be inhibited by a protein discovered in the same laboratory, which could become an effective drug against the breast cancer type.

Joseph C. “Bo” Koster, Ph.D., research assistant professor of cell biology and physiology, died Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010, of an apparent heart attack at his home in the Central West End. He was 45.

R. Sherburne Figenshau, M.D., has been named the Taylor Family and Ralph V. Clayman, M.D., Minimally Invasive Urology Chair at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Members of the Student National Medical Association at the School of Medicine have been working with area high school students to expose them to medicine and science.