School of Medicine

Gene expression mapScientists at the School of Medicine have developed a method to predict whether melanoma of the eye will spread to the liver, where it quickly turns deadly. They also believe the molecular screening test may one day help determine the prognosis of patients with some types of skin melanoma. The researchers found that a particular molecular signature — a pattern of activation of a group of genes in the tumor cells — accurately predicts risk for metastasis.

An approach proven to cure a rat model of type 1 or juvenile-onset diabetes also works in a rat model of type 2 or adult-onset diabetes, according to a new report from researchers at the School of Medicine.

A long-term study of the elderly has revealed that their average rate of weight loss doubles in the year before symptoms of Alzheimer’s-type dementia first become detectable. The finding may be useful to researchers seeking ways to detect and treat Alzheimer’s before it causes irreversible brain damage.

Some Washington University orthopaedic surgery patients will soon be treated at a new $13 million outpatient facility in Chesterfield, Mo.

School of Medicine researchers are investigating why high-dose cortisone is the second most common cause of osteoporosis.

The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics celebrates the contributions of former department head and longtime professor Carl Frieden, Ph.D.

Photo by Robert BostonFirst-year medical students take part in long tradition of receiving white coats.

Olga Pontes is Going FISHin’.Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have made an important breakthrough in understanding a pathway plant cells take to silence unwanted or extra genes using short bits of RNA. Basically, they have made it possible to see where, and how, the events in the pathway unfold within the cell, and seeing is believing, as the old saying goes. Craig Pikaard, Ph.D., Washington University professor of biology in Arts & Sciences and his collaborators have described the roles that eight proteins in Arabidopsis plants play in a pathway that brings about DNA methylation, an epigenetic function that involves a chemical modification of cytosine, one of the four chemical subunits of DNA. More…

Neurosurgeons at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are renewing calls for a ban on use of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) by children under age 16 after a 10-year review of injuries caused by the vehicles.

Image courtesy of Jewish Hospital; Kleinert, Kutz and Associates Hand Care Center; and University of LouisvilleLimb transplantation involves several kinds of tissue.Years ago, the idea of attaching a donor limb onto a patient’s body would have been the stuff of science fiction. But to date about two-dozen people around the world have received hand transplants. Thomas Tung, M.D., conducts research within this relatively unorthodox realm of surgery, investigating the use of therapy that could potentially allow the body to accept donor tissue without the use of immunosuppressive medication.