School of Medicine

Losing excess weight, getting more exercise, eating a healthy diet and quitting smoking are four steps to take to reduce the risk of cancer.

If you’re particularly good with puzzles or chess, the reason may be in your genes. A team of scientists, led by psychiatric geneticists at the School of Medicine, has gathered the most extensive evidence to date that a gene that activates signaling pathways in the brain influences one kind of intelligence. They have confirmed a link between the gene, CHRM2, and performance IQ, which involves a person’s ability to organize things logically.

HoltzmanDavid Holtzman, the Andrew B. and Gretchen P. Jones Professor and head of Neurology, is co-recipient of the MetLife Foundation Award for Medical Research in Alzheimer’s Disease. Holtzman is also associate director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) and a member of the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders at the School of Medicine.

Washington University received an initial $500,000 from Allied Minds to launch a new brain imaging technology firm.

A School of Medicine review of Missouri birth data found that African-American women are three times more likely to deliver babies prematurely than Caucasian women.

Photo by Robert BostonSecond-year medical students play Jeopardy to review for an exam in Diseases of the Nervous System.

Timothy J. Eberlein, M.D., received the 2006 Dr. Rodman L. Sheen and Thomas G. Sheen Award for his outstanding contributions to the medical profession.

School of Medicine heart surgeons have developed and tested a device that radically shortens and simplifies a complex surgical procedure for persistent atrial fibrillation.

A total of $2 million in research grants to investigators on both the Danforth and Medical School campuses opens the door for science to begin at the Institute.

Colin G. Nichols, Ph.D., recently became the first Carl F. Cori Professor at the School of Medicine. Nichols, who is professor of cell biology and physiology, studies molecules on the surfaces of cells known as ion channels. These channels let charged particles pass into and out of cells and play critical roles in physiological processes from thoughts to movement.