Focus: Hidden - Missouri

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Enzymes linked to diabetes and obesity appear to play key roles in arthritis and leukemia, potentially opening up new avenues for treating these diverse diseases, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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New work shows that bacteria (and probably other cells as well) don’t double in mass before dividing. Instead they add a constant volume (or mass) no matter what their initial size. A small cell adds the same volume as a large cell. By following this rule a cell population quickly converges on a common size.

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Many of the 40 million older adults in the United States are struggling financially. They lack the assets to see them through their later years, when they require more health care and other services than they expected. A new book, edited by Washington University in St. Louis faculty, concludes that older adults require financial knowledge and access to financial services in order to build secure lives.

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New research from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis reveals for the first time a new technique that focuses diffuse light inside a dynamic scattering medium containing living tissue.

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In a study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, researchers found that a subset of obese people do not have common metabolic abnormalities associated with obesity, such as insulin resistance, abnormal blood lipids (high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol), high blood pressure and excess liver fat. In addition, obese people who didn’t have these metabolic problems when the study began did not develop them even after they gained more weight.

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A team of biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis has discovered that for one important channel in the heart, the membrane voltage not only causes the channel to open, but also determines the properties of the electrical signals.

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Researchers hypothesize that targeting components of the mammalian clock with small molecules like REV-ERB drugs may lead to new treatments for sleep disorders and anxiety disorders. It also is possible that REV-ERB drugs may be leveraged to help in the treatment of addiction.

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Highlights of Saint Louis University's medical research during 2014 include articles on ending pain, defending against pandemics and curing and treating diseases.

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With an increase in parties, increased food and alcohol consumption and a general disruption of normal routines, the month of December can be exhausting. Here are three tips to improve sleep habits.

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Saint Louis University research findings published in the December issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy report a family of molecules known as NTS enzyme inhibitors are promising candidates for new herpes virus treatments.

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Fuzhong Zhang, PhD, will study synthetic biology with a prestigious five-year, $605,000 Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) from the National Science Foundation.

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Secondary infection with the hepatitis C virus does not contribute to the mental impairments seen in many long-term survivors of HIV infection, a new study reveals.

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Researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine have found that drinking alcohol to fall asleep interferes with sleep homeostasis, the body’s sleep-regulating mechanism.

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Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, has shown early promise as a potential treatment for severe depression in patients whose symptoms don’t respond to standard therapies. The pilot study, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is believed to be the first research in which patients with depression were given laughing gas.

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New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis challenges the view that cancer treatment in itself is a direct cause of a fatal form of leukemia that can develop several years after chemotherapy or radiation.

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Genetic mutations may cause more cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) than scientists previously had realized, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

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Two Missouri University of Science and Technology students and one recent graduate are part of a team that has been selected as a finalist to design part of a Mars landing mission in 2018.

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For the past two years, we’ve seen a dramatic spike in flu cases nationwide in late December and early January. Data from the government shows this year’s season is tracking right along the same lines, opening us up for the potential of another spike in cases. That’s why I’m recommending everyone get a flu vaccine now. They’re readily available at your pharmacy, physician’s office, or local health care center.

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A team of biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis, led by Lihong Wang, PhD, has developed the world’s fastest receive-only 2-D camera, a device that can capture events up to 100 billion frames per second.

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Researchers at the University of Missouri School of Medicine have identified epigenetic protein changes caused by binge drinking, a discovery that could lead to treatments for alcohol-related liver diseases.

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American presidents spend their time in office trying to carve out a prominent place in the nation's collective memory, but most are destined to be forgotten within 50-to-100 years of their serving as president, suggests a study on presidential name recall released today by the journal Science.

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Science textbooks say we can’t see infrared light. Like X-rays and radio waves, infrared light waves are longer than the light waves in the visual spectrum. But an international team of researchers has found that under certain conditions, the retina can sense infrared light after all.

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You might want to stand up for this. Occupational sitting is associated with an increased likelihood of obesity, especially among black women, independent of occupational and leisure time physical activity, finds a new study from the School of Medicine and the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

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A breast cancer vaccine developed at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is safe in patients with metastatic breast cancer, results of an early clinical trial indicate. Preliminary evidence also suggests that the vaccine primed the patients’ immune systems to attack tumor cells and helped slow the cancer’s progression.

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In the near future, physicians may treat some cancer patients with personalized vaccines that spur their immune systems to attack malignant tumors. New research led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has brought the approach one step closer to reality.

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A Saint Louis University researcher and colleagues have discovered a way to block a pain pathway in animal models of chronic neuropathic pain suggesting a promising new approach to pain relief.

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Dan Giammar, PhD, is going deep into the earth to find a potential solution to store carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

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A research team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Loius has discovered that a commonly prescribed muscle relaxant may be an effective treatment for a rare but devastating form of diabetes. The drug, dantrolene, prevents the destruction of insulin-producing beta cells in animal models of Wolfram syndrome.

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The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found living kidney donors were more likely to be diagnosed with gestational hypertension (high blood pressure) or preeclampsia than non-donors.

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The investigational drug Losartan, which worked better in an animal model, was equally effective to a high dose of the beta blocker, atenolol in treating Marfan syndrome, a rare genetic disease.

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An investigational treatment for Marfan syndrome is as effective as the standard therapy at slowing enlargement of the aorta, the large artery of the heart that delivers blood to the body, new research shows. The findings indicate a second treatment option for Marfan patients, who are at high risk of sudden death from tears in the aorta.

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A novel program at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that peer trainers who coach parents over the phone on managing their children’s asthma can sharply reduce the number of days the kids experience symptoms. The program also dramatically decreased ER visits and hospitalizations among low-income children with Medicaid insurance.

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Scientists have mostly ignored mRNA, the molecule that ferries information from DNA to the cellular machines that make proteins, because these DNA transcripts are ephemeral and soon destroyed. But mRNA can be just as important as DNA scientists at Washington University in St. Louis say. They found that oxidized messenger RNA jams the cellular machines that make protein. The failure to clear the jams and chew up bad messengers is associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

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Rare mutations that shut down a single gene are linked to lower cholesterol levels and a 50 percent reduction in the risk of heart attack, according to new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the Broad Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, and other institutions.

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A study in which more than 43,000 children were evaluated for head trauma offers an unprecedented picture of how children most frequently suffer head injuries, report physicians at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine. The study appears Nov. 13 in The New England Journal of Medicine. The findings also indicate how often such incidents result in significant brain injuries, computerized tomography (CT) scans to assess head injuries, and neurosurgery to treat them.

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A key brain region involved in emotion is smaller in older children diagnosed with depression as preschoolers, and predicts risk of later recurrence, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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Making friends is often extremely difficult for people with social anxiety disorder and to make matters worse, people with this disorder tend to assume that the friendships they do have are not of the highest quality. The problem with this perception, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis, is that their friends don’t necessarily see it that way.

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While political and judicial rhetoric around unions has softened in recent years, images of the past still haunt today’s labor movement, argue two Washington University in St. Louis researchers. In “Re-Assembling Labor,” published online Nov. 5 in Social Science Research Network, the authors seek to draw the lessons of assembly into contemporary labor law — to re-assemble labor law around the theory and doctrine of assembly that formed its early core.

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Cats and humans have shared the same households for at least 9,000 years, but we still know very little about how our feline friends became domesticated. An analysis of the cat genome led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis reveals some surprising clues. The research appears Nov. 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.

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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has boosted funding for the first large-scale clinical trial aimed at identifying drugs to stop or slow Alzheimer’s disease in people destined to get the debilitating illness.

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Election Day is difficult for many political candidates. But it’s no picnic for their supporters either. A new study co-authored by a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis shows just how tough election days can be. The study, co-authored by Lamar Pierce, PhD, associate professor of organization and strategy at Olin Business School, finds that winning elections barely improves the happiness of those from the winning political party.

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Lihong Wang, PhD, the Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the School of Engineering & Applied Science is applying a novel time-reversal technology that allows researchers to better focus light in tissue, such as muscles and organs.

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Overwhelmed by speculators trying to cash-in on a prized medicinal fungus known as Himalayan Viagra, two isolated Tibetan communities have managed to do at the local level what world leaders often fail to do on a global scale — implement a successful system for the sustainable harvest of a precious natural resource, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.