School of Medicine

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), car crashes are the leading cause of death for children. Almost 2,000 children age 14 and under are killed in automobile crashes each year and another 280,000 are injured. Proper use of car seats reduces the risk of death significantly — by as much as 71 percent for infants and by about 55 percent for toddlers. The CDC also estimates that 50,000 serious injuries could be prevented and 455 lives saved each year if all children under 5 used safety seats. In spite of the dangers, 40 percent of American children 4 and under routinely ride unrestrained. But Emergency Department physicians at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis are trying to change that. They are targeting low income families, training them in proper use of child safety seats and then giving those families gift certificates that can be redeemed for the seats. The Safe and Secure program hopes to cut down on deaths and injuries from car crashes by providing more than 2,000 free car and booster seats to Missouri families who live below the poverty level as determined by Medicaid.

Scientists have known for years that abnormal activity involving a brain chemical called dopamine is somehow connected to the movements and vocalizations, or tics, associated with Tourette syndrome. Now neuroscience researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found brain activity in these patients is abnormal during memory tasks as well.

Photo by Bob BostonResearch lab supervisor Jon Walker and Gerhard Bauer work in the new state-of-the-art Good Manufacturing Practice center.The Good Manufacturing Practice center is a haven of high-tech environmental control, comparable in some respects to the International Space Station.

The new center aims to support the study, research and teaching of ethics in areas ranging from medicine to business to architecture.

An unpleasant postoperative procedure for patients who have had their thyroid glands surgically removed may be unnecessary for some.

Elliot C. Nelson led a study examining genetic influences on blackouts in general and on the incidence of having three or more of them in a year. More medical articles

The title of her talk is “Bad Luck and Sadness Genes in Depression”; it begins at 9 a.m. April 6 in Clopton Auditorium.

He was a medical technician in the pathology department and a teacher in the School of Medicine from 1934-1941.

David Piwnica-Worms, professor of molecular biology and pharmacology and of radiology, calls a study’s findings a “two-edged sword.”

The Washington University School of Medicine and the George Warren Brown School of Social Work are both ranked second in the nation, according to new graduate and professional rankings released April 2 by U.S. News & World Report magazine. The School of Medicine was tied for second in 2003 and has placed in the top 10 every year since the annual rankings began in 1987. It has ranked first in student selectivity — a measurement of student quality based on Medical College Admission Test scores, undergraduate grade-point average and the proportion of applicants selected — every year since 1998.