Huntington’s disease, a fatal, inherited neurodegenerative condition, is caused by a genetic error present at birth, though its symptoms often don’t begin until middle adulthood. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have been trying to understand how the aging process triggers the onset of symptoms, with the expectation that such knowledge […]
A first of its kind clinic has parents and medical professionals alike excited. The inaugural DeSanto-Shinawi Syndrome clinic took place on Sept. 29-30 at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. It was the first clinic of its kind in St. Louis for the syndrome that was described by Washington University pediatrician Cori DeSanto, MD, and Washington University […]
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in the spring of 2022, students and staff at schools that serve children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) were left stranded. These students and staff faced unique circumstances because they could not always follow the CDC guidance on masking, testing, and social distancing due to the nature of these […]
New research is showing the impact of blood sugar control on brain function. Neil White, MD, was involved in the study.
A research team, led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine, has identified abnormalities in the development of the brain’s visual system in infants that may predispose them to developing autism.
Poverty and crime can have devastating effects on a child’s health. But a new study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that some environmental factors influence the structure and function of young brains even before babies make their entrances into the world.
In 2008, a team of scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis became the first to decode the DNA of a patient’s cancer cells and trace the disease to its genetic roots. The patient, a woman in her 50s, suffered from acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive and often deadly cancer of […]
Autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Type 1 diabetes are thought to arise when people with a genetic susceptibility to autoimmunity encounter something in the environment that triggers their immune systems to attack their own bodies. Scientists have made progress in identifying genetic factors that put people at risk, but the environmental triggers have […]
The antibiotic azithromycin has anti-inflammatory properties that can be beneficial in some chronic lung diseases, such as cystic fibrosis. With that in mind, researchers investigated its potential to prevent future recurrent wheezing among infants hospitalized with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). With such babies at increased risk of developing asthma later in childhood, the scientists hoped […]
When South African scientists announced in November that they had identified a new variant of the virus that causes COVID-19, they also reported two worrying details: one, that this new variant’s genome was strikingly different from that of any previous variant, containing dozens of mutations compared with the original virus that emerged in 2019; and […]