• share
• favorite_border

Studying mice, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a method of stem cell transplantation that does not require radiation or chemotherapy. Instead, the strategy takes an immunotherapeutic approach, combining the targeted elimination of blood-forming stem cells in the bone marrow with immune-modulating drugs to prevent the immune system from rejecting the new donor stem cells.

• share
• favorite_border

Strange ‘eggshell planets’ are among the rich variety of exoplanets possible, according to a study from Washington University in St. Louis. These rocky worlds have an ultra-thin outer brittle layer and little to no topography. Such worlds are unlikely to have plate tectonics, raising questions as to their habitability.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers leading the Tau Nex Gen Trial — a worldwide clinical trial aimed at finding treatments for Alzheimer’s disease — are modifying an arm of the trial to target two brain proteins: amyloid and tau. A part of DIAN-TU, the trial originally was announced with a focus on drugs that target tau.

• share
• favorite_border

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received a $17 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to address disparities in cancer research, treatment and outcomes in underrepresented populations. The research, funded through the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Moonshot program, will focus on African American patients with colorectal cancer and multiple myeloma, as well as patients of any race or ethnicity with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer of the bile ducts.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified an RNA molecule that suppresses prostate tumors. The scientists found that prostate cancers develop ways to shut down this RNA molecule to allow themselves to grow.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have recently developed a successful predictive model for hospitalized cancer patients that integrates heterogeneous data available in electronic health records.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that a widely used heart failure drug named sacubitril/valsartan is no better than valsartan alone in patients with severe heart failure. The study also provides evidence that the treatment with valsartan may be slightly safer for patients with advanced heart failure.

• share
• favorite_border

A nutritional supplement popular in the U.S. and added to some types of yogurt, milk and infant formula can significantly improve cognition in severely malnourished children, according to a study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of biologists and engineers modified a microbe so that it can produce a biofuel using only three renewable and naturally abundant source ingredients: carbon dioxide, solar panel-generated electricity and light.

• share
• favorite_border

Warning labels on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and menu labeling requirements for chain restaurants could be a cost-effective policy leverage to prevent weight gain and reduce medical expenses, but their impact is expected to fade over time, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

• share
• favorite_border

Change is upon us once again. Come the first Sunday of November, we will gain an hour of morning sunlight. The one-hour adjustment to the clock on the wall may not sound dramatic. But our biological clock begs to differ.Take, for example, the members of society blissfully unaware of social time: our youngest children and pets.

• share
• favorite_border

Chuan Wang’s lab at the McKelvey School of Engineering has developed a way to print stretchy LEDs on unconventional surfaces using an inkjet printer.

• share
• favorite_border

Using a novel technology, the lab of Michael Vahey at the McKelvey School of Engineering uncovered shape-shifting properties of a common respiratory virus.

• share
• favorite_border

New research from Washington University suggests that psychotic-like experiences in children may predict risk for mental illness.

• share
• favorite_border

As a baby seedling emerges from the depths of the soil, it faces a challenge: gravity's downward push. To succeed, the plant must sense the force, then push upward with an even greater force. We cannot see how plants sense force, at least not yet. But a discovery by plant biologists at Washington University in St. Louis will help make it possible to study how mechanical forces, such as gravity, affect the way that plant cells form and grow.

• share
• favorite_border

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is joining the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) new research network focused on the study of senescent cells, a rare and important population of cells that is difficult to study but vital for understanding aging and the diseases of aging, including cancer and neurodegeneration. The goal is to help researchers develop new therapies that target cellular senescence to prevent or treat such diseases and improve human health.

• share
• favorite_border

Older adults who sleep short or long experienced greater cognitive decline than those who sleep a moderate amount, even when the effects of early Alzheimer’s disease were taken into account, according to a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

• share
• favorite_border

Research from the lab of Rajan Chakrabarty at the McKelvey School of Engineering connects environmental injustice to the spread of COVID-19 in communities with high minority populations.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that an FDA-approved drug acts on support cells in the central nervous system to encourage sensory neurons to regrow after injury.

• share
• favorite_border

Foluso O. Ademuyiwa, MD, an associate professor of medical oncology surveyed 277 cancer doctors around the United States and found that physicians believe that Black women experience more barriers than white women to genetic counseling and testing for breast cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

A review including new data analysis, published Oct. 14 in Science, exposes the harm mass incarceration has on families and advocates for family-friendly criminal justice interventions.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that the viral protein NS1 from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) alters the activity of immune genes, sabotaging the immune response to RSV infection.

• share
• favorite_border

Some pristine meteorites contain a record of the original building blocks of the solar system, including grains that formed in ancient stars that died before the sun formed. One of the biggest challenges in studying these presolar grains is to determine the type of star each grain came from.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a chemical compound that interferes with a key feature of many viruses that allows the viruses to invade human cells. The compound, called MM3122, was studied in cells and mice and holds promise as a new way to prevent infection or reduce the severity of COVID-19 if given early in the course of an infection, according to the researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

New research from Washington University in St. Louis begins to unravel one of the major mysteries of invasion biology: why animals that tend not to hybridize in their native range abandon their inhibitions when they spread into a new land.

• share
• favorite_border

Islands are hot spots of evolutionary adaptation that can also advantage species returning to the mainland, according to a study published the week of Oct. 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Islands are well known locations of adaptive radiation, where species diversify to fill empty niches.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

A lunar probe launched by the Chinese space agency recently brought back the first fresh samples of rock and debris from the moon in more than 40 years. Now an international team of scientists — including an expert from Washington University in St. Louis — has determined the age of these moon rocks at close to 1.97 billion years old.

• share
• favorite_border

By bringing to light the consequences of Facebook’s algorithms, whistleblower Frances Haugen's testimony has forced corporations to rethink their relationship with Facebook and use of consumer data, according to digital media experts at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

• share
• favorite_border

American households making less than $50,000 are more likely than higher-earning families to spend the expanded child tax credit on essential expenses and tutors for their children, found a survey from the Social Policy Institute (SPI) at Washington University in St. Louis.Families are using the money from the credit in a variety of ways, depending on household income and job circumstance, the survey found.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital) of McGill University have received a five-year grant expected to total $35.1 million for an extension of a study designed to develop biomarkers that indicate which people with the sleep disorder will go on to develop neurodegenerative diseases.

• share
• favorite_border

The daily release of hormones depends on the coordinated activity of clocks in two parts of the brain, a finding that could have implications for human diseases.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that high levels of a specific protein circulating in the blood accurately detect a severe type of peripheral artery disease that narrows the arteries in the legs and can raise the risk of heart attack and stroke.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis estimates that 78% to 92% of lung cancers in patients who have never smoked can be treated with precision drugs already approved by the Food and Drug Administration to target specific mutations in a patient’s tumor.

• share
• favorite_border

Research from Olin Business School found that employees’ initial expectations for a new leader were a strong indicator of how trust levels would change over time. The higher the initial level of follower expectations, the steeper the resulting decline in trust.

• share
• favorite_border

New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that radiation therapy can reprogram heart muscle cells to what appears to be a younger state, fixing electrical problems that cause a life-threatening arrhythmia without the need for a long-used, invasive procedure.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Pittsburgh have discovered how Rift Valley fever virus enters cells, pointing the way to new therapies to treat the deadly Rift Valley fever.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers measured the potassium isotope compositions of Martian meteorites in order to estimate the presence, distribution and abundance of volatile elements and compounds, including water, on Mars, finding that Mars has lost more potassium than Earth but retained more potassium than the Moon or the asteroid 4-Vesta; the results suggest that rocky planets with larger mass retain more volatile elements during planetary formation and that Mars and Mars-sized exoplanets fall below a size threshold necessary to retain enough water to enable habitability and plate tectonics.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed an approach to estimating when a person with no cognitive symptoms will start showing signs of Alzheimer’s dementia based on data from brain scans and the person's age.

• share
• favorite_border

In Greek mythology, Hydra was a monstrous water serpent that lived in a swamp and terrorized nearby residents. When intrepid Hercules sliced off one of Hydra’s multiple heads, two more heads grew back in its place. This counterintuitive result — when an action taken to reduce a problem actually multiplies it — is known as a hydra effect.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study into cognitive control from the lab of Todd Braver promises to be the first of many aimed at understanding its origins in the brain and its variations between people and among groups.

• share
• favorite_border

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received a $7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to help lead national efforts to investigate how variations in the human genome sequence affect how the genome functions. The university will serve as the data and administrative coordinating center for the Impact of Genomic Variation on Function (IGVF) Consortium.

• share
• favorite_border

Using computer simulations and a simple theoretical model, a new paper shows how bacteria could adapt to a fluctuating environment by learning its statistical regularities — for example, which nutrients tend to be correlated — and do so faster than evolutionary trial-and-error would normally allow.

• share
• favorite_border

The Native Americans who occupied the area known as Poverty Point in northern Louisiana more than 3,000 years ago long have been believed to be simple hunters and gatherers. But new Washington University in St. Louis archaeological findings paint a drastically different picture of America's first civilization.

• share
• favorite_border

A study led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, in collaboration with Special School District of St. Louis County, found that rapid saliva test screenings – aimed at early detection of COVID-19 – contributed to exceedingly low transmission of the virus among students, teachers and staff in the six schools overseen by the district.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis estimates the number of deaths that could have occurred had public health orders been delayed for one week, two weeks or four weeks as the pandemic was first taking hold in St. Louis city and St. Louis County. The analysis suggests that, in the first three months of the pandemic, the region avoided thousands of hospitalizations and deaths with early and coordinated public health measures.

• share
• favorite_border

A study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System shows that people who have had COVID-19, including those with mild cases, are at an increased risk of developing kidney damage as well as chronic and end-stage kidney diseases. Researchers emphasize the importance of kidney care for COVID-19 long-haulers.

• share
• favorite_border

Two studies led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis describe the potential of liquid biopsies to identify and track tumor growth in two very different cancers: bladder cancer and peripheral nerve tumors.

• share
• favorite_border

About one-fourth of people with diabetes develop painful foot ulcers, which are slow to heal due to low oxygen in the wound from impaired blood vessels and increased inflammation.