School of Medicine

An extra degree of precision will be added to radiation treatments for prostate cancer at the School of Medicine following the installation of two new technologies in the Department of Radiation Oncology. The move to adopt these technologies was led by Jeff Michalski, professor of radiation oncology.

Peter Humphrey, M.D., Ph.D., has been named the Ladenson Professor of Pathology in the Department of Pathology and Immunology at the School of Medicine. The announcement was made by Larry Shapiro, M.D., executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine.

A little health information is not enough to help obese children get into better shape, according to a recent analysis. “Providing information is a necessary component, but it’s not sufficient,” said Denise Wilfley, Ph.D., lead author of the study and professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine and of psychology in Arts & Sciences.

Photo by David KilperLarry A.Taber, Ph.D., (left) the Dennis and Barbara Kessler Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Philip Bayly, Ph.D., the Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering, employ a microindentation device to measure the mechanical properties of embryonic hearts and brains. The researchers are examining mechanical and developmental processes that occur in the folding of the brain’s surface, or cortex, which gives the higher mammalian brain more surface area (and more intellectual capacity) than a brain of comparable volume with a smooth surface.

The School of Medicine is participating in the largest study of child and human health ever conducted in the United States. The National Institutes of Health has selected the city of St. Louis and Macoupin County, Ill., as sites for the National Children’s Study, an extensive population-based study looking at the health and development of children by following them from before birth to adulthood.

Although the causes of Alzheimer’s disease are not completely understood, amyloid-beta (A-beta) is widely considered a likely culprit — the “sticky” protein clumps into plaques thought to harm brain cells. But now researchers at the School of Medicine have uncovered evidence strengthening the case for another potential cause of Alzheimer’s. The finding also represents the first time scientists have found a connection between early- and late-onset Alzheimer’s.

The Program in Physical Therapy has been awarded a five-year, $4.6 million grant to establish a training program for physical and occupational therapists.

The list of reasons to not smoke has gotten longer: School of Medicine researchers report that smoking interferes with ligament healing.

Twenty-one years after they first described a fatal genetic disorder in Missouri and Arkansas families, School of Medicine scientists found mutations in a gene that will help to understand and treat retinal vasculopathy with cerebral leukodystrophy.

Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis are finding common ground between the shaping of the brain and the heart during embryonic development. Larry A.Taber, Ph.D., the Dennis and Barbara Kessler Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Philip Bayly, Ph.D., the Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering, are examining mechanical and developmental processes that occur in the folding of the brain’s surface, or cortex, which gives the higher mammalian brain more surface area (and hence more intellectual capacity) than a brain of comparable volume with a smooth surface.