School of Medicine

At the School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the handwashing or foam-use compliance rate is much higher than average at nearly 80 percent and continues to rise.

Deanna M. Barch, Ph.D., takes over leadership of the Silvio Conte Center for Neuroscience Research.

Women over age 65 have a harder time preserving muscle than men of the same age, which probably affects their ability to stay strong and fit.

BarchThe Silvio Conte Center for Neuroscience Research at Washington University has a new director. Deanna Barch, associate professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, of psychiatry and of radiology, takes over leadership of the center from John Csernansky, the former Gregory B. Couch Professor of Psychiatry, who has become the chairman of psychiatry at Northwestern University.

Heart surgeons at the School of Medicine report that by adding a simple 10-20 second step to an operative procedure they achieved a significant improvement in the outcome for the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF). The surgeons redirected wayward electrical impulses that cause AF by creating precisely placed scars, or ablations, in the heart muscle.

In the first comprehensive study of the genetic basis of psoriasis, researchers at the School of Medicine have discovered seven new sites of common DNA variation that increase the risk of the troublesome skin condition.

ReissCraig Reiss has been named the Sam and Marilyn Fox Distinguished Professor in Medicine at the School of Medicine. Reiss, a cardiologist, directs the Washington University Cardiology Consultants and the Heart Care Institute at Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital.

Current medications for seizures are comparable to over-the-counter cold and flu remedies: They block symptoms, but don’t significantly affect the underlying illnesses that cause them. Now scientists at the School of Medicine have taken the first step toward developing another option. They’ve used a drug to prevent the brain abnormalities that lead to seizures in mice with an inherited form of epilepsy.

Nanoparticles (yellow) show that a treated tumor (left) has less blood vessel growth than an untreated tumor.Anyone facing chemotherapy would welcome an advance promising to dramatically reduce their dose of these often harsh drugs. Using nanotechnology, researchers at the School of Medicine have taken a step closer to that goal. The researchers focused a powerful drug directly on tumors in rabbits using drug-coated nanoparticles.

The recently established Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences (ICTS) has awarded its first set of grants to 15 ICTS investigators.