School of Medicine

More than 80,000 people in the United States are on waiting lists for organ transplants. Some will have to wait for the death of a matching donor, but more and more people are receiving organs from living donors. In an effort to close the gap between organ supply and demand, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine, the University of Michigan and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons are studying ways to reimburse living donors for some of their out-of-pocket expenses when they choose to donate an organ.

Nearly 70 percent of kidney transplant patients get short-term drug therapy initially administered during surgery to help prevent rejection. In the first head-to-head comparison of the two drugs most commonly given to ward off acute kidney rejection, an international study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that one – anti-thymocyte globulin – is superior.

Studies of a rare genetic condition that increases cancer risk have unveiled a potential treatment for metabolic syndrome, a common disorder that afflicts as many as one in every four American adults and puts them at sharply increased risk of type 2 diabetes and clogged arteries.

Daniel Kelly, M.D., has been named director of the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases in the Department of Medicine.

Dean Shapiro plans to give updates on the School of Medicine’s key initiatives, including the tobacco-free initiative, addressing pandemic flu, and the New Interstate 64 project.

Deans and top administrators from Missouri’s seven medical higher education institutions have joined to urge the passage of the Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative.

A finding by School of Medicine researchers could allow them to seek new therapies and understand what goes wrong in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

Photo by Beth MillerTheodore Armstrong, a pre-doctoral fellow, and Jourdan Stuart, a first-year medical student, discuss a patient they examined with Will R. Ross, M.D., faculty supervisor, assistant professor of medicine and associate dean for diversity, at the Saturday Neighborhood Health Clinic in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood.School of Medicine students are learning about social medicine on Saturday mornings in Forest Park Southeast.

Using radiofrequency devices, School of Medicine heart surgeons have shortened atrial fibrillation surgery and made it easier to perform.

At the School of Medicine “smokeout” Nov. 16, employees who smoke will receive a special gift in exchange for their cigarettes.