News

No evidence so far indicates that food or drinks can transmit the virus that causes COVID-19, but new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that people with problems in the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract may be vulnerable to infection after swallowing the virus.

An international research network of physicians and scientists is launching a clinical trial to evaluate whether the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) can protect front-line health-care workers against infection from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The trial aims to enroll up to 30,000 health-care workers globally.

The newly formed Division of Physician-Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has selected five physicians for its inaugural Dean’s Scholar Program, which provides up to two years of financial support and mentorship to aspiring, early-career physician-scientists, along with dedicated time for conducting laboratory research.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis appear to have discovered a way to make radiation therapy for colorectal cancer more effective by inhibiting a protein found in cancer cells in the gut. The approach also helps protect healthy tissue from the negative effects of radiation.

Pancreatic cancer kills more than 45,000 people in the U.S. each year, mostly due to the fact that it is detected too late for surgery to remove and halt the spread of the cancer. Cysts in the pancreas sometimes develop into the invasive cancer, depending on the type of cyst, but such growths often are […]

Recent research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis demonstrated that mature cells in the stomach sometimes revert back to behaving like rapidly dividing stem cells. Now, the researchers have found that this process may be universal; no matter the organ, when tissue responds to certain types of injury, mature cells seem to […]

Rapidly dividing, yet aberrant stem cells are a major source of cancer. But a new study suggests that mature cells also play a key role in initiating cancer — a finding that could upend the way scientists think about the origins of the disease. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have […]

Matthew A. Ciorba, MD, an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been named chief of the division’s Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Program.