School of Medicine

Washington University faculty and staff make news around the world. Following is a representative sampling of media coverage from clippings and electronic sources. For the most recent clips, see the Clips Index

Washington University faculty and staff make news around the world. Following is a representative sampling of media coverage from clippings and electronic sources.

Animal studies also indicate that brief exposure to small amounts of anesthetic drugs can trigger “significant nerve cell death,” researchers report. Click here for more medical articles

Passionate, dedicated and driven only begin to describe Fiona H. Levy, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics. As the medical director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Levy oversees a multidisciplinary team that cares for critically ill children and infants. “I have been given the opportunity to make a difference […]

“Cyclotron Produced Isotopes in Biology and Medicine” will continue to support research into imaging techniques and agents. Click here for more medical articles

Lenabell tells the story of a woman with sickle cell disease — including her experimental failures as well as near-miraculous successes.

With the graying of America, millions of people across the nation are facing the same tough question: when do older people become unsafe drivers? In one of the first studies to track driving performance in older adults, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that over time, driving abilities predictably worsen in individuals with early Alzheimer’s disease and, to a lesser extent, in older adults without dementia. People with mild dementia had the fastest rate of decline, but there also were declines in nondemented study participants. The researchers also found that increased age alone appeared to be a risk factor in driving performance. Because Alzheimer’s disease is progressive and driving performance inevitably does worsen, the challenge is to figure out how to predict and evaluate dangerous declines in driving performance. The researchers suggest that testing individuals with mild dementia every six months might be a useful way to keep unsafe drivers off the roads.

Faddis and colleagues use a catheter with a magnet at its tip combined with a magnetic guidance system machine to help guide the magnetic catheter as it moves inside the heart.Thanks to advances in cardiology and in magnetic technology, it’s now possible to use magnetic fields to guide tools used to treat certain heart rhythm problems. Cardiologists can treat heart rhythm abnormalities without surgery by using catheters to deliver treatment. Catheters are long, narrow tubes that are run from the groin to the heart via blood vessels using X-ray images for guidance. A team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that the Magnetic Navigation System (MNS) developed by Stereotaxis Inc. allows them to guide catheters within the heart more accurately. Instead of a standard design, MNS catheters contain a magnetic tip. In the same way the needle on a compass aligns itself with the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field, the catheter’s magnetic tip aligns itself with a magnetic field surrounding the patient and allows physicians to more easily guide the catheter in order to locate and treat problem areas in the heart.

Dr. James Lowe in the operating room.Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but plastic and reconstructive surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis are trying to learn the basics of aesthetic beauty in various ethnic groups. When plastic surgeons operate, they don’t want to make African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and other groups look the same. Rather, they hope to preserve ethnicity while at the same time restoring or enhancing beauty. The Washington University team is one of only a handful worldwide that is scientifically studying ways to preserve ethnicity in plastic surgery procedures, and as more people from different ethnic backgrounds seek plastic surgery, defining aesthetic attractiveness in various ethnic groups is becoming more important.

A protein known as Pgp has pumped an imaging agent that glows away from a tumor on the lower right of this mouse.Oncologists dread the appearance of MDR1 P-glycoprotein (Pgp), a protein found on the surface of drug-resistant cancers that pumps away chemotherapy treatments. Now researchers have discovered Pgp also rids cells of a bioluminescent agent used in imaging research. According to David Piwnica-Worms, M.D., Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and pharmacology and of radiology and director of Washington University’s Molecular Imaging Center, the finding means scientists now have a direct, real-time method for assessing treatments designed to block drug resistance in animal models of cancer because if Pgp is present, the imaging agent is expelled from cells, it’s also likely that those cells will be resistant to chemotherapy. On the other hand, the discovery also means basic researchers, who make frequent use of the luminescent imaging agent (derived from a sea pansy or soft coral), have to make sure that what they are seeing isn’t being affected by interactions with Pgp.