School of Medicine

BlankCarrine Blank, Ph.D. , assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, has found that the currently accepted dates for the appearance of oxygen-producing bacteria and sulfur-producing bacteria on the early earth are not correct. She believes that these bacteria appeared on earth much later than is now believed.

Photo by Bob Boston / WUSTL PhotoWhat might it cost to get more patients off kidney dialysis?Of the 55,000 Americans waiting for kidney transplants, last year only 13,000 had the operation. Some 3,000 others died on the waiting list. Part of the problem involves obtaining donated organs. Currently only half of potential organ donors actually donate, but even if every eligible donor donated, many on the waiting list still wouldn’t be helped. Living donors are another potential source of organs, and the transplants from living donors also have the greatest chance of success. Encouraging more people to donate a kidney while they are alive could put a big dent in the number of people on the waiting list, but how can society encourage more of those people to donate? Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Minnesota set up a mathematical model to determine whether it might be cost effective to pay people for their kidneys. Potential ethical issues aside, the researchers determined that society could break even by paying as much as $90,000 to those willing to part with a kidney for money.

ICU personnel are instructed in proper placement of catheters to lower infection risk.Because patients in intensive care units (ICUs) are, by definition, in dire health, the consequences of even the slightest medical error can be devastating. Now two quality-improvement studies by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis suggest solutions to two of the most common and dangerous patient safety challenges in ICU patients: restoring normal phosphorus levels and preventing infections related to catheters. The research was a multi-disciplinary effort between physicians, nurses, dietitians and the rest of the surgical ICU team at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. The quality-improvement studies led to dramatic improvements in patient health and safety, and the team believes these initiatives could improve patient health and safety at any ICU in the country.

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.

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

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.

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.