School of Medicine

To meet design and cost changes, industry and government are considering clockless computing.Computing royalty, including Ivan Sutherland, the father of computer graphics, and Wesley A. Clark, the designer of the world’s first personal computer, will gather at a computing symposium Friday, March 26th, 2004, from 1:00-5:30 p.m. at Washington University in St. Louis’s Whitaker Hall Auditorium. As part of the University’s 150th anniversary of its founding, participants will honor time by contemplating how computing can evade time as the industry prepares to go clockless.

Strong stitches attach the rotator cuff directly to the shoulder bone.Each year in the United States, nearly 300,000 people have surgery to repair their rotator cuff. The rotator cuff is made up of several muscles that allow us to lift our arms or to rotate them during sports activities such as golf, tennis and swimming. The rotator cuff also is used during lifting, washing windows and working in the garden. In the past, surgical correction of the rotator cuff involved an incision through the deltoid muscle on the outside of the shoulder, a lot of pain for weeks after surgery and a long period of recovery. But Washington University orthopaedic surgeons have begun using a minimally invasive system that eliminates the need for the incision through the muscle and limits the amount of post-operative pain. The system allows surgeons to strengthen the repair with a suturing device that sews the muscle right into bone where it can heal more quickly, with less pain.

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.

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.