washington university school of medicine

As anyone who has ever struggled to keep his or her eyes open after a big meal knows, eating can induce sleepiness. New research in fruit flies suggests that, conversely, being hungry may provide a way to stay awake without feeling groggy or mentally challenged.

Scientists have shown that a specific virus can interact with a mutation in the host’s genes to trigger disease. The observation may help explain why many people with disease risk genes do not actually develop disease.

Nerve cells in the body and brain react in opposite ways to the loss of a protein linked to a childhood tumor syndrome, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found. The finding could be important to efforts to preserve the vision of patients with neurofibromatosis 1, a genetic condition that increases risk of benign and malignant brain tumors.

Three faculty members of the School of Medicine will be honored by the Academy of Science of St. Louis: Randall Bateman, M. Carolyn Baum and Alan L. Schwartz.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received a five-year, $3.8 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to renew a center that helps researchers collect and use data on the brain and central nervous system.

Parents, schools and communities need to be involved in combating the epidemic of childhood obesity, Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, says.

There will be a year of festivities as the Department of Pediatrics celebrates its centennial April 1 to honor the milestones. Currently ranked eighth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, the Department of Pediatrics has become a world leader in pediatric patient care, teaching and research with its many groundbreaking discoveries and for its excellence in all divisions.

Clinicians may be able to better predict the effects of strokes and other brain injuries by adapting a scanning approach originally developed for the study of brain organization, neurologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found.

For years, electronic surveillance has been used to track and capture a host of evil suspects — terrorists, mobsters and spies among them. Keith Woeltje, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine, relies on electronic surveillance, too. He is a modern-day microbe hunter, tracking bugs that are invisible to the naked eye but capable of causing mayhem in hospitals.

R. Sherburne Figenshau, M.D., has been named the Taylor Family and Ralph V. Clayman, M.D., Minimally Invasive Urology Chair at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.