School of Medicine

Photo by Tim ParkerPete and Jenny Ferrill of Danville, Ill., hold Kieran, one of their quintuplets born Dec. 21 at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and talk with Michael Paul, M.D., the physician who delivered the quints.The “Ferrill Five” quintuplets born in December were the first quints to be delivered through the Washington University Center for Multiple Births.

The pink color in the image on the right highlights cells producing excess mucus, a symptom of COPD. The image on the left shows normal lung tissue. Physicians say that smoking is by far the biggest cause of emphysema, but why doesn’t every smoker get the disease? If you asked WUSM physician Michael Holtzman that question, he might answer that for most cases of emphysema you need a mix of genes, viruses and cigarettes. Emphysema and the associated condition of chronic bronchitis are both disorders that contribute to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.

The AIDS Clinical Trials Unit (ACTU) at theSchool of Medicine has received a $10 million grant to find new treatments for AIDS and HIV-related complications, such as dementia, neuropathy and cardiovascular disease. The seven-year grant is from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

An immune system gene that flunked its first tryout as an antiviral factor has triumphed in its second, proving that it can help fight the flu, herpes and the Sindbis virus. Picking the right opponents for interferon stimulated gene 15 (ISG15) to square off against proved to be key to uncovering its potential.

The growth factor G-CSF caused bone tumors to increase in size in lab mice. The mouse on the left did not receive G-CSF. The mouse on the right did.In laboratory tests on mice, researchers found that a medication often used to reduce toxic side effects of chemotherapy induced bone loss and helped tumors grow in bone. So the researchers are recommending increased awareness of bone health during cancer treatments. The medication studied is a growth factor commonly used to help cancer patients recover healthy blood counts after chemotherapy, which can destroy white blood cells.

By all expectations, it shouldn’t have worked as well as it did. A combination of bone marrow transplantation and gene therapy greatly lengthened the lives of laboratory mice doomed by a rapidly progressing, fatal neurodegenerative disorder also found in people. The School of Medicine researchers who made the discovery set out with low hopes for the combination therapy because on its own, each treatment was only modestly effective for the sick mice.

MuslinAnthony Muslin has been named the Oliver M. Langenberg Distinguished Professor of the Science and Practice of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The professorship was established by the Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation in recognition of Oliver M. Langenberg’s outstanding contributions to the foundation’s success. Langenberg serves as the foundation’s chairman of the board.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Stop smoking by phone (week of Jan. 3) • Bacteria’s role in obesity (week of Jan. 10) • Biochemical marker for sleep loss (week of Jan. 17) • Unsafe drivers with dementia (week of Jan. 24) • Genetic link to nicotine dependence (week of Jan. 31)

Class-action lawsuits can significantly slow or halt science’s ability to establish links between neurological illness and environmental factors produced by industry, a team of scientists and lawyers warns in the journal Neurology. The authors caution that litigation’s effects could seriously impair efforts to identify compounds that contribute to a wide variety of diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Comparing images of brain activity in response to the “self-remember,” left, and “self-future” event cues, researchers found a surprisingly complete overlap among regions of the brain used.Using brain imaging, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have identified several brain regions that are involved in the uniquely human ability to envision future events. The study, to be published in the journal PNAS, provides evidence that memory and future thought are highly interrelated and helps explain why future thought may be impossible without memories. Findings suggest that envisioning the future may be a critical prerequisite for many higher-level planning processes.