cancer

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a gene linked to the spread of melanoma of the eye. Although more research is needed, the researchers say the discovery is an important step in understanding why some tumors spread and others don’t, and they believe the findings could lead to more effective future treatments. 

When Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH, went to medical school, he was struck by the kinds of patients he saw in the hospital. Too many were suffering from heart attacks or lung cancer — conditions linked to smoking. “It made me wonder: Couldn’t we do a better job at prevention?” he says.

Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital plan to build a new Siteman Cancer Center in south St. Louis County, serving the Interstate 55 corridor and southern Illinois.

Resveratrol — found in red wine, grapes, blueberries, peanuts and other plants — stops out-of-control blood vessel growth in the eye, according to vision researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The discovery has implications for preserving vision in blinding eye diseases such as diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration.

Timothy J. Eberlein, MD, head of the Department of Surgery and director of the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, has been elected to the top leadership post in the American Surgical Association. He is president-elect for the 2010-11 year and will serve as president in 2011-12. 

An ophthalmologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is implanting radioactive discs in the eyes of children with a rare cancer in an attempt to save their vision and eyes. The treatment for the rare childhood eye cancer, called retinoblastoma, involves implanting a small disc, or plaque, which stays in the eye for three days before a second surgery to remove it.  

Nanocages that efficiently convert light to heat are the basis for a targeted form of phototherapy that would destroy tumors without making cancer patients sick.

The School of Medicine has received a $14.3 million grant through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand its high-powered data center for genomics. The facility’s sophisticated computer networks store massive amounts of genomic data used to identify the genetic origins of cancer and other diseases.

Teresa J. Vietti, M.D., a pediatric oncologist who earned the nickname, “the mother of pediatric cancer therapy,” died Jan. 25, 2010. She was 82.

Washington University School of Medicine and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital announced in a Jan. 25 news conference in Washington, D.C., an unprecedented effort to identify the genetic changes that give rise to some of the world’s deadliest childhood cancers.