Knitting for a Cause

A knitting club comprising about 30 School of Medicine faculty and staff meets weekly to knit hats for premature babies at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and for cancer patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. The club meets every Tuesday at noon in Room 212 of the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center. Included in the group Feb. 16 were (from left) Mary Bradley, director of postgraduate affairs in the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences; Val Rutterer, director of admissions and administration in medical school student affairs; Anita Albright, secretary III in facilities management; Amy Meyer, director of the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center; Marnice Daniels, executive secretary in medical school student affairs; and Lisa Stringfellow with Allied Barton Security Services.

Chickens 'one-up' humans in ability to see color

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have peered deep into the eye of the chicken and found a masterpiece of biological design.

Scientists mapped five types of light receptors in the chicken's eye. They discovered the receptors were laid out in interwoven mosaics that maximized the chicken's ability to see many colors in any given part of the retina, the light-sensing structure at the back of the eye.

"Based on this analysis, birds have clearly one-upped us in several ways in terms of color vision," says Joseph C. Corbo, M.D., Ph.D., senior author and assistant professor of pathology and immunology and of genetics. "Color receptor organization in the chicken retina greatly exceeds that seen in most other retinas and certainly that in most mammalian retinas."

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Moss helps chart the conquest of land by plants

David Cove
The moss Physcomitrella patens often is used as a model organism for water stress studies

Recent work at Washington University in St. Louis sheds light on one of the most important events in earth history, the conquest of land by plants 480 million years ago.

No would-be colonizer could have survived on dry land without the ability to deal with dehydration, a major threat for organisms accustomed to soaking in water.

Clues to how the first land plants managed to avoid drying out might be provided by bryophytes, a group that includes the mosses, many of which retain remarkable drought tolerance. Some mosses can become so dry they crumble in the hand, but, if remoistened, will begin making proteins within minutes.

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Researchers move into BJC Institute of Health at Washington University

Jean Schaffer, M.D. (left), the Virginia Minnich Distinguished Professor of Medicine and director of the Diabetic Cardiovascular Disease Center (DCDC), and Daniel Ory, M.D., professor of medicine and of cell biology and physiology and co-director of the DCDC, unpack equipment Jan. 28 in the Diabetic Cardiovascular Disease Center’s new lab space in the BJC Institute of Health at Washington University. Helping them are (from left) Ben Scruggs, a fourth-year doctoral student in the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences; and Sarah Gale, senior research technician.

After two years of eager anticipation, the first occupants of the BJC Institute of Health at Washington University began moving in last week.

The 11-story BJC Institute of Health is now the hub for WUSTL's BioMed 21 initiative to speed scientific discovery and rapidly apply breakthroughs to patient care. BJC HealthCare supported construction of the building with a $30 million gift over five years.

Research teams from the Diabetic Cardiovascular Disease Center and the Center for Women’s Infectious Disease Research moved into space on the 10th floor the week of Jan. 25.

Over the first three weeks of February, six faculty members from the Department of Pathology and Immunology will move into the eighth floor. Research teams from the Hope Center Program on Protein Aggregation and Neurodegeneration will move into ninth floor space during the last week of February.

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Washington University, St. Jude team to unravel genetic basis of childhood cancers

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have announced an unprecedented effort to identify the genetic changes that give rise to some of the world’s deadliest childhood cancers. The team has joined forces to decode the genomes of more than 600 childhood cancer patients, who have contributed tumor samples for this historic effort.

The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital-Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project is the largest investment to date — estimated to cost $65 million over three years — aimed at understanding the genetic origins of childhood cancers. Scientists involved in the project will sequence the entire genomes of both normal and cancer cells from each patient, comparing differences in the DNA to identify genetic mistakes that lead to cancer. Kay Jewelers, a long-standing supporter of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, has committed to providing $20 million as lead sponsor of this project.

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Mechanism that helps humans see in bright and low light discovered

Ever wonder how your eyes adjust during a blackout?

When we go from light to near total darkness, cells in the retina must quickly adjust. School of Medicine vision scientists have identified an intricate process that allows the human eye to adapt to darkness very quickly. The same process also allows the eye to function in bright light.

The discovery could contribute to a better understanding of human diseases that affect the retina, including age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in Americans over 50. That's because the disease and the pathway the researchers have identified both involve cells called cone cells.

"Age-related macular degeneration may be modulated, perhaps, through this pathway researchers have identified in the retina," said principal investigator Vladimir J. Kefalov, Ph.D., assistant professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences and principal investigator. "Deficiencies in this pathway affect cone cells, and so does macular degeneration, so it's possible that if we could enhance activity in this pathway, we could prevent or reverse some of that damage to cone cells," Kefalov said.

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Robert Kranz: a lifetime's exploration of an important molecule may have a big payoff

David Kilper/WUSTL photo
(Left to right) Cindy Richard-Fogal, Ph.D., research scientist in biology in Arts & Sciences, Elaine Frawley, graduate research assistant, and Robert Kranz, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, examine an E. coli culture. Kranz has been funded continuously by NIH for 24 years.

Robert Kranz has devoted much of his career to understanding cytochrome c, one of the most interesting of a large group of biological molecules called the cytochromes.

Few people have heard of the cytochromes, much less of cytochrome c. But if these molecules were suddenly to stop working, we would fall over dead. The cyanide pill the trapped spy crushes between his teeth kills him because the cyanide binds to cytochrome, preventing it from doing its job.

When Kranz first turned his attention to these molecules, scientists thought there was only one system (or biological pathway) for making cytochrome c. Now, thanks largely to his work, we know there are three different pathways.

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