School of Medicine

Neuroscientists at the School of Medicine have received a five-year, $11.6 million grant to fund a Silvio O. Conte Center for the Neuroscience of Mental Disorders. Since 2001, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has funded a feasibility center at Washington University, but the new grant upgrades the center’s status, funding and number of research projects.

Daniel P. Kelly, M.D., director of the Center for Cardiovascular Research and co-director of the Cardiovascular Division at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been named the Alumni Endowed Professor of Cardiovascular Diseases.

An improved stem cell transplant regimen that is well-tolerated and has a high success rate has been developed by researchers at the School of Medicine. The procedure holds promise for treatment of blood and bone marrow disorders, immune dysfunction and certain metabolic disorders.

Scientists who developed the new technique reported it may already have led them to a good target for vaccine development.

Photo by Robert BostonAn art show Nov. 18 at the Bernard Becker Medical Library’s King Center benefitted the Center of Creative Arts’ Urban Arts Program in St. Louis.

Alcohol and drug abuse remain the biggest problems among homeless individuals.The homeless population is changing. In the days of the Great Depression, many homeless people were victims of bad luck and a worse economy. But after studying St. Louis’ homeless population since the 1980’s, experts at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis say the problem has become more complex in recent times.

Salmonella entericaEvery year in developing nations, typhoid fever infects more than 16 million people and kills more than half a million. Researchers hoping to reduce this heavy toll have an important new tool: completed genomes for the two bacteria that are the leading causes of typhoid fever.

Red jungle fowlThe first detailed analysis of the chicken genome has identified a chicken counterpart to an important human immune system protein, revised scientists’ assessment of the chicken’s sense of smell, and suggested that the chicken, long used to study gene activity in the earliest stages of life, may provide a good model for studying changes in DNA linked to aging and death.

On their backs is the safest way for babies to sleep. Babies who never sleep on their stomachs don’t learn behaviors that may lessen their risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), researchers at the School of Medicine have found. Even so, the researchers caution that infants should always be placed on their backs to sleep.

The University’s cardiothoracic surgeons are dedicated to providing a second opinion within 48 hours of receiving medical records. More medical articles