School of Medicine

Kidney recipient Barry Hammond (left) and his brother, kidney donor Brian.More than 50,000 people in the United States are waiting for kidney transplants. Most are waiting for someone who wants to be an organ donor to die, but each year only 9,000 people on the transplant waiting list get a kidney from someone who has died, while 16,500 on the list die. Transplants from living donors have the greatest chance of working for a long time and can happen quickly, often within a year. A living kidney donor may be a family member or friend between the ages of 18 and 65. They must be healthy and have a blood type that is compatible with the recipient’s blood type. But researchers at Washington University School of Medicine, have discovered something surprising. Many interested kidney donors are not taken up on their offers to donate because the recipients are afraid donors will be harmed. As a result, many potential donor kidneys go unused.

Heavy drinking is associated with a number of problems, but one surprisingly common problem involves not remembering large chunks of time. Called alcohol-induced blackouts, these memory losses were reported by more than 39 percent of women and more than 50 percent of men studied by researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Queensland Institute on Medical Research in Australia. The researchers also found that genetic factors play a big role in whether or not a person blacks out after heavy drinking. Studying more than 2,300 pairs of Australian twins, the research team was able to determine that more than 50 percent of the risk of blacking out seems to be controlled by genetic factors, and the role of genes is even greater in people who report blacking out multiple times.

James W. Ellis, the National Law Journal‘s 2002 Lawyer of the Year, will deliver the keynote address during the School of Law’s fourth annual Access to Equal Justice conference, “Mental Health and the Law,” March 19 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall.

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.

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.