Wanting to ensure that former classmates (including their photographer, Marie Foss, BFA ’21) could attend both celebrations, the couple intentionally planned their ceremony to coincide with reunion weekend. 

The wedding was a high point for Wilder and Bitner-Glindzicz in a year full of professional and personal milestones. Word is spreading in public health communities about their company, nCase Technologies, and its flagship product, NALOX-1. An updated version, nCase Light, launches this month — just weeks after Wilder’s graduation from WashU Medicine.

A St. Louis-based startup, nCase Technologies creates cases that securely and discreetly hold naloxone nasal spray, the life-saving drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. The idea arose from the sobering realization that even among those who already know the importance of naloxone, most frequently sold as Narcan, the vast majority don’t carry it regularly.

Wilder sees this pattern regularly in her work in emergency medicine. Tragically, as a teenager it affected her innermost circle.

“Back in 2018, I lost a close friend to an opioid overdose,” Wilder says. “He owned Narcan, and those he was with also owned Narcan, but none of them had it on them when his life depended on it.

And fast forward, when I got training in medical school, people received Narcan and then didn’t have it when they needed it most. That’s when we started realizing there was a problem. I wondered, ‘how do I get myself to carry Narcan? How do I get people to build it into their everyday lives?’”

“Back in 2018, I lost a close friend to an opioid overdose,” Wilder says. “He owned Narcan, and those he was with also owned Narcan, but none of them had it on them when his life depended on it.

Through research, the couple discovered a set of simple but persistent barriers to carrying naloxone: bulkiness, inconvenience, stigma. Bitner-Glindzicz, who as a WashU McKelvey Engineering student studied space technology, saw an engineering problem. Wilder, who had already conceived of and pitched a different medical device as an undergraduate in Arts & Sciences’ Biotech Explorers Pathway, saw an entrepreneurial opportunity.

Or as Wilder puts it: “We saw a very easy solution to a big problem and decided it was time to act on it.”

The tech behind 40+ lives saved

Another type of match

Just weeks before her wedding, at the WashU Medicine Match Day Ceremony, Wilder learned she will pursue her residency in emergency medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She and Bitner-Glindzicz plan to keep nCase Technologies based in St. Louis.

The unassuming, keychain-sized NALOX-1 case required a substantial amount of engineering knowledge to envision and manufacture. Bitner-Glindzicz designed the case to be waterproof, UV- and temperature-resistant, comfortable to hold and almost comically durable. In prototype testing, it survived being run over by a car and dropped off a building without damaging the nasal spray inside. (A kitchen blender bested it, the team admits.)

Most crucially, it’s built to be completely fail-safe when needed most.

“From an engineering perspective, having a soft case instead of a hard one allowed me to make this into a single-body design, which is really important,” Bitner-Glindzicz says. “If you come across somebody experiencing an overdose, literally every second counts. All you have to do is just pop it open, and you can immediately take the medication out and administer as quickly as possible.”

Appearance-wise, the case intentionally looks more like “a cute accessory” than a medical device, he says. “We wanted this to be something that was soft to the touch, something people actually want to carry with them.”

Customers are “obsessed,” Bitner-Glindzicz says. In August 2025, thanks to a large order from St. Louis County Public Health, nCase sold all their existing inventory within two weeks. The fledgling company then won an Arch Grant for $75,000, followed by an additional infusion of $100,000 in investments.

The influx of capital meant Bitner-Glindzicz could give up his bartending job, which had supported the couple as they launched the company while Wilder worked through her third year of medical school. Sales have quadrupled since then, growing nearly 100% each quarter, with new clients coming on board throughout the country.

“We’ve had a lot of rural and Native American reservation customers,” Wilder says. “Specifically targeting areas where there aren’t a lot of resources, that seems to be point of impact for us right now.”

Among the many significant figures and milestones from the past year, for Wilder and Bitner-Glindzicz, the most gratifying is 40 — the number of confirmed lives saved from the technology they created. Since so many overdose incidents go unreported, they suspect that number is even higher. And they’re determined to save even more.

The WashU start

StL love

In addition to WashU resources and mentors, the nCase founders credit the city of St. Louis for their early success.

Wilder: “For us, growing our company in St. Louis was our way to give back to the community, because it’s given us so much.”

Bitner-Glindzicz: “The people that choose to be here love this city and are proud to be here. That creates a really interesting incubator as a culture for startups and ventures.”

The couple credits much of their company’s success to WashU, especially the university’s Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

“I just have to say, flat out: we definitely would not have gotten this off the ground without the support of WashU and the innovation resources that it has,” Bitner-Glindzicz says.

The couple won the top prize at the Skandalaris Spring Venture Competition in 2024. That early $10,000 award made it possible to move from ideation to creation in less than a year. And Skandalaris mentors, including Cyril Loum, venture development manager, have been by their side ever since.

“Cyril has been such a massive and consistent supporter for us from the very beginning, and continues to be even now,” Bitner-Glindzicz says.

“I think he was just as excited as we were when Matt proposed,” Wilder adds. “The ecosystem is so friendly and personal. It makes it so much easier to approach these problems with people who really seem to care about you.”

The nCase founders credit the Skandalaris Center with helping them build crucial connections in the public health, innovation and medical industries, and they’re expanding that circle of connection by bringing on current WashU students as interns.

“If it wasn’t for those resources, there’s no way we end up even saving a single life,” Bitner-Glindzicz says.

Growing (and shrinking) with purpose

Origin stories

Legacy love: The couple met during their first week of WashU classes — as did Dani’s parents, Susan Shern Wilder, AB ’84, and Robert Wilder, BSBA ’83.

That first business pitch: As an undergraduate, Wilder created a patch to test for skin sensitivities.

An open door: WashU “was not originally on my radar,” Bitner-Glindicz says, but he enthusiastically enrolled after earning a full-tuition engineering scholarship as a Langsdorf Scholar.

While bringing their first case to market, the nCase co-founders had already set their sights on ways to improve the case and make it useful for even more people.

“The early beta testing we did showed the number one thing that keeps people from carrying Narcan is just inconvenience and size and bulkiness,” Bitner-Glindzicz says. “We knew long term that we needed to develop something that was even smaller and lighter.”

Their upcoming product launch, nCase Light, checks both boxes. It’s 37% lighter and 30% smaller than NALOX-1, while still being fully protective. The new version may not survive being run over by a car, Bitner-Glindzicz says, “but you can still drop it off a fifth-story balcony.”

The launch also marks a move beyond opioid harm reduction. In recent years, pharmaceutical companies have begun to turn other emergency medications, including the widely used epinephrine for allergic reactions, into nasal sprays.

“That opens up an entire global market of people that have a serious need for carrying their meds, and we can provide them a better way of doing so — and continue to save even more lives that way,” Bitner-Glindzicz says.  

While keeping an eye toward growth, the couple continues to prioritize public health over profits. An individual case costs less than $9, with bulk orders decreasing the price per unit to as low as $5.

“Ultimately, our goal is to sell this at the cheapest price possible,” Bitner-Glindicz says. “I would never be willing to take on an investor who isn’t OK with us selling these at a lower price, even maybe an unprofitable one, to a group that can truly make a difference and help save lives, because that’s what matters most.

“Ultimately, our goal is to sell this at the cheapest price possible,” Bitner-Glindicz says.

It’s high and lofty, and I don’t regret it for a single moment,” he adds. “Admittedly, it made getting this off the ground a lot harder, but our goal will always be public health first. We want to keep saving lives one day at a time — while exploring married life at the same time.”

The post A life-saving union appeared first on The Source.

Ream Al-Hasani, an associate professor in anesthesiology at WashU Medicine, has received a $3.5 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study how exposure to opioids before birth affects long-term brain development and behavior. 

Babies exposed to opioids in the womb can have trouble with memory, behavior and social skills throughout their lives. Using mouse models, the researchers will study how exposure to the opioid oxycodone during pregnancy impacts long-term neurodevelopment in offspring. They also will compare how two standard treatment approaches, one for opioid use disorder in the mother and the other for withdrawal symptoms in the offspring, influence long-term outcomes. 

In opioid maintenance therapy, pregnant animals receive a controlled treatment using an opioid medication such as methadone or buprenorphine to reduce cravings for oxycodone. In opioid withdrawal mitigation, newborn mice receive safe doses of an opioid medication such as methadone, morphine or buprenorphine soon after birth to ease withdrawal. 

Al-Hasani will work with WashU Medicine researchers Joel R. Garbow, a professor of radiology at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, and Susan Maloney, an associate professor of psychiatry, to track the learning, emotions, social behavior and pain sensitivity of the young mice as they develop. The team will use MRI scans of the mice to see how their brains change in size and structure. They also will study specific brain circuits involved in reward and addiction to figure out which treatment approach is more beneficial to neurodevelopmental outcomes. 

“Understanding the long-term effects of oxycodone exposure, along with opioid maintenance therapy and withdrawal mitigation strategies, will help identify treatments and targets that may reduce lasting negative consequences on long-term neurodevelopment,” said Al-Hasani, whose lab is part of the Center for Clinical Pharmacology in the Department of Anesthesiology.  

The post NIH grant supports research on brain development after opioid exposure in the womb appeared first on The Source.

Our brains make us who we are. But what makes our brains? Which of the myriad experiences and characteristics that define a child’s life and identity — from screen time to sleep to illness — leave imprints in the folds of that child’s brain?

After analyzing hundreds of biological, psychological, social and environmental factors related to children’s development, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that a family’s financial situation and the resources and opportunities in a child’s neighborhood had the strongest connection to brain development.

Socioeconomic factors accounted for about 16% of the variability in measures of children’s brain function — far more than IQ, parenting style and health history.

The findings appear June 11 in Science.

“We set out to compare hundreds of influences on the developing brain on a level playing field, and for the first time at this scale, we showed that socioeconomic conditions leave the deepest imprint of any factor we looked at,” said senior author Nico U. Dosenbach, MD, PhD, the David M. and Tracy S. Holtzman Professor of Neurology at WashU Medicine. And the socioeconomic signal seems to travel through everyday burdens like poor sleep and chronic stress.

As part of the study, the researchers analyzed brain scans from nearly 12,000 children ages 9 to 10 to see how a child’s environment, health and regular activities are related to brain development. Of hundreds of factors examined, the team found that the socioeconomic status of a child’s family had the strongest relationship with that child’s brain structure and function. Further, the parts of the brain that reflect socioeconomic factors were the same areas most sensitive to sleep and stress, suggesting that socioeconomic disadvantage affects the brain indirectly through disrupted sleep and chronic stress.

“The brain of a child from a low socioeconomic background looks like that of a child from a high socioeconomic environment that has been sleep-deprived and stressed,” said Dosenbach. “It’s not a less-smart brain. It appears to be a tired and stressed brain. The good thing is that sleep and stress are both modifiable. If we can find a way to improve sleep and reduce stress for children from households with more limited socioeconomic opportunities, we may be able to reduce brain differences linked to socioeconomics.”

Mapping the factors associated with brain structure and function

For years, researchers have tried to figure out the link between physiological brain features and people’s IQ, mental health or specific behaviors using “brain-wide association studies.” Such studies use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to map a person’s brain structure and function to specific cognitive, behavioral or other traits. But the studies have largely ignored the potential impact of children’s environments and experiences on brain development.

In light of research showing childhood poverty, chronic stress and other adverse experiences affect brain development and mental and physical health, Dosenbach and colleagues aimed to expand brain-wide association studies. They broadened their map to include 649 variables divided into 12 categories:

• socioeconomics
• screen time
• cognitive abilities, such as test scores and memory
• demographics, including race and sex
• culture and environment, such as religion, language and exposure to noise or pollution
• physical health
• mental health
• social adjustment, such as friendships and bullying
• substance use, including use of or exposure to people using illicit drugs and alcohol
• parenting
• personality, including factors such as extraversion and self-control
• medical history

Then, they set out to answer two questions: How are those variables reflected in the way the brain functions or is structured? And further, are relationships between IQ scores and brain physiology genuine or entangled with other variables?

To tackle these questions, the team analyzed data from 11,878 children who are participating in the NIH-funded Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, a long-term, nationwide study of brain development and child health, including a site based at WashU Medicine. Using MRI scans of the children, they performed sophisticated analyses to assess the links between each variable and both brain structure — as measured by the thickness of the cortex, the crumpled outer layer of the brain — and function, as indicated by the strength of connections between key functional networks in the brain.

Of the top 40 variables linked to brain function, 37 were socioeconomic, and of the top 40 tied to structure, 35 were socioeconomic. These included the social and economic resources in the child’s neighborhood, akin to the overall wealth of an area. Strong influences included family income, homeownership and poverty rates, and access to transportation. The remaining top variables were related to sleep, screen time and stress.

“I started calling it the ‘elephant in the brain,’” said first author Scott A. Marek, PhD, an assistant professor at WashU Medicine Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. “I thought socioeconomic opportunity would matter, but I didn’t think it would matter this much. It just dwarfed everything else.”

Socioeconomic variables were strongly associated with functional features in the motor and sensory areas of the brain, which are highly sensitive to day-to-day variation in sleep and stress. Brain regions associated with cognition and problem-solving were less tied to socioeconomic factors, indicating that socioeconomic conditions seem to shape children’s brains mainly by altering systems tied to bodily sensations and movement rather than directly changing “thinking” regions. As a result, what might look like a brain difference in cognitive ability is more likely a reflection of differences in everyday burdens such as fatigue and chronic stress than a difference in intellectual capacity.

The relationships between socioeconomic variables and the brain were not linked to demographic factors such as sex and race.

Brain imaging reveals no signature of IQ scores

For decades, scientists have searched for hallmarks of intelligence in the brain’s contours and composition and have come up with mixed results. Dosenbach and Marek might have uncovered why: earlier work that found associations between IQ and physical brain features such as cortical thickness could have been mistakenly picking up on socioeconomic factors instead. Research from the social sciences has shown that IQ scores rise with social privilege, for example.

To understand how socioeconomic factors affect the relationship between IQ and the brain, the researchers performed a statistical analysis that accounted for socioeconomic influence as an aggregate and then looked at the association between IQ and various brain areas and networks. Adjusting for socioeconomic status greatly diminished the associations between brain measures and IQ scores to the point where roughly 70% of these associations were no longer statistically significant.

In another analysis, Marek and Dosenbach took socioeconomic factors out of the equation by analyzing only children from high socioeconomic backgrounds. In this group, IQ had no correlation with brain structure or function.

“If we look at children’s brain scans, we can tell how well off their family is and how much sleep and screen time they get, but we can’t tell their IQ, at least not after adjusting for socioeconomic opportunity,” said Marek. “That tells me IQ is not rooted in neurobiology. The environment shapes children’s brains in ways that have been misinterpreted as being reflections of IQ, when really they’re just reflections of stress and sleep deprivation. Those are things we can do something about to improve kids’ brain health.”

Marek S, Donohue MR, Karcher NR, Hoyniak C, Chauvin RJ, Meyer AC, Miller J, Van AN, Wang A, Baden NJ, Suljic V, Scheidter KM, Monk J, Whiting FI, Ramirez-Perez NJ, Krimmel SR, Metoki A, Paul SE, Gorelik AJ, Hendrickson TJ, Malone SM, Schwarzlose RF, Cardenas-Iniguez C, Herting MM, Petersen SE, Luby J, Randolph AC, Shanahan MJ, Turkheimer E, Kay BP, Gordon EM, Laumann TO, Barch DM, Fair DA, Tervo-Clemmens B, Dosenbach NUF. Patterns of brain-wide associations reflect socioeconomics. Science. June 11, 2026. DOI: 10.1126/science.aee6213

This research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (R00MH121518, K23MH125023, R01MH139880, R00HD109454, P30ES007048, U24ES036819, R25DA059073, R25DA061824, R01ES032295, R01ES031074, K23NS123345, U01DA041120, K23DA057486, K23DA057486, U1DA041120), National Science Foundation (DGE-213989), Jacobs Foundation, and Kiwanis Foundation.

A.N.V., D.A.F. and N.U.F.D. have a financial interest in Turing Medical Inc. and may financially benefit if the company is successful in marketing FIRMM motion monitoring software products. D.A.F., A.N.V., N.U.F.D. may receive royalty income based on FIRMM technology developed at the University of Minnesota and Washington University and license. Turing Medical Inc. D.A.F. and N.U.F.D. are co-founders of Turing Medical Inc.

About WashU Medicine

WashU Medicine is a global leader in academic medicine, including biomedical research, patient care and educational programs with 3,100 faculty. Its National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding portfolio is the second largest among U.S. medical schools and has grown 78% since 2016. Together with institutional investment, WashU Medicine commits over $1.6 billion annually to basic and clinical research innovation and training. Its faculty practice is consistently among the top five in the country, with more than 2,550 faculty physicians practicing at 200 locations. WashU Medicine physicians exclusively staff Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals — the academic hospitals of BJC HealthCare — and Siteman Cancer Center, a partnership between BJC HealthCare and WashU Medicine and the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in Missouri and southern Illinois. WashU Medicine physicians also treat patients at BJC’s community hospitals in our region. With a storied history in MD/PhD training, WashU Medicine recently dedicated $100 million to scholarships and curriculum renewal for its medical students, and is home to top-notch training programs in every medical subspecialty as well as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and audiology and communications sciences.

Originally published on the WashU Medicine website

The post Socioeconomic factors linked to lasting imprint in kids’ brains appeared first on The Source.

Matthew A. Powell, MD, the Ira C. and Judith Gall Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at WashU Medicine and a gynecologic oncologist who treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, has been installed as president of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology after having served as president-elect for the past two years. 

A nationally recognized physician-scientist, Powell focuses his research program on improving care for uterine, ovarian and endometrial cancers. He leads clinical trials of new chemotherapy, targeted therapy and radiation approaches, and studies medications to treat disease so some patients can avoid surgery and preserve fertility.  

With more than 3,000 members, the Society of Gynecologic Oncology brings together gynecologic oncologists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, patient advocates and other experts dedicated to advancing innovative, high-quality, equitable and comprehensive gynecologic cancer care.  

Read more on the Siteman Cancer Center website. 

The post Powell installed as president of gynecologic oncology society  appeared first on The Source.

Celeste M. Karch, a national leader in the study of the genetic and cellular basis of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, has been installed as the inaugural Barbara Burton and Reuben M. Morriss III Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Karch’s research integrates human stem cell models and genomics to decode the biological underpinnings of Alzheimer’s disease.

“Celeste Karch is helping redefine how scientists understand Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative conditions,” said Chancellor Andrew D. Martin. “Her work is revealing new possibilities for earlier detection, prevention and treatment. We are deeply grateful to the Morriss family, whose generosity makes it possible to recognize not only scientific discovery but also the collaborative, forward-looking approach that drives progress in making transformative contributions to science that can benefit patients.”

David H. Perlmutter, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and the George and Carol Bauer Dean of WashU Medicine, installed Karch.

“Celeste Karch is reshaping how the field thinks about the genetic and cellular drivers of neurodegeneration,” Perlmutter said. “She is way ahead of the field in recognizing the importance of human cellular models of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. These models have accelerated scientists’ understanding of disease pathogenesis and the testing of new therapies. This professorship is a fitting recognition of her remarkable accomplishments and will help ensure her continued impact in the field.”

Karch’s lab takes an integrative approach to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, bringing together genetics and “disease-in-a-dish” stem cell models to identify the cellular mechanisms that drive neurodegeneration. Her team has developed methods to analyze a person’s genetic code and determine which variants are dangerous, which are harmless, and which may even be protective — work that has helped patients and families understand their disease risk and eligibility for clinical trials.

Among her major breakthroughs, Karch discovered that when the brain’s cellular recycling centers, called lysosomes, stop working correctly, the malfunction serves as an early warning sign of disease — a finding that points toward a preventive treatment strategy for a variety of neurodegenerative diseases. She also revealed how certain genes control the brain’s immune cells and can be harnessed to improve their ability to clear Alzheimer’s-related damage. And, using stem cells grown from patient skin samples, her team has demonstrated that specific genetic mutations cause immune cells to malfunction in ways that likely accelerate the progression of dementia.

Among Karch’s most significant contributions is creating one of the world’s largest collections of stem cells for dementia research. This “biorepository” contains more than 1,000 cell lines from diverse individuals, allowing scientists globally to study the human brain in ways that were previously impossible.

Karch’s scientific contributions have won her recognition as a leader in the field of neurodegeneration. Her research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Alzheimer’s Association and other major funders. She is scientific director of the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) and an active member of the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center (Knight ADRC) at WashU Medicine. Karch has also received numerous honors, including the Rainwater Charitable Foundation’s Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early Career Scientist, and she was named an investigator for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization founded in 2015 by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg to help cure, prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century.

To ensure that medical breakthroughs benefit everyone, Karch helped launch the African iPSC Initiative in 2025. This global program, established at the Biomedical Science Research Training Centre at Yobe State University in Nigeria — in partnership with Sussex Neuroscience in the U.K. and the Knight ADRC — studies how African ancestry influences dementia. Alongside her global impact, Karch remains a dedicated mentor, spending much of her time training the next generation of neuroscientists and advocating for diversity within the scientific community.

“Celeste Karch brings her extraordinary scientific vision and gift for multidisciplinary problem-solving to everything she does,” said Eric J. Lenze, MD, the Wallace and Lucille K. Renard Professor of Psychiatry and head of the WashU Medicine Department of Psychiatry. “Her lab has produced multiple major discoveries, each addressing a different piece of the Alzheimer’s disease puzzle, while simultaneously building resources and networks that elevate the entire field. We are tremendously proud to recognize her with this professorship and grateful to the Morriss family for making it possible.”

Karch completed her undergraduate education at Kalamazoo College in Michigan before earning her PhD from the University of Florida. She conducted postdoctoral research at WashU Medicine before joining the faculty in 2013.

About Barbara Burton and Reuben M. Morriss III

A graduate of Saint Louis Country Day School and Princeton University, Reuben Morriss III earned a law degree from WashU in 1964. He joined Boatmen’s Bank, beginning a long career as a leader of the St. Louis financial sector. He eventually became chairman and president of Boatmen’s Trust Co., a position he held until his retirement in 1995. He was a board chair of Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School in Ladue, Mo., and of William Woods University in Fulton, Mo. He also served on the boards of St. Luke’s Hospital in Chesterfield, Mo., and the St. Louis Bi-State American Red Cross.

Barbara Burton Morriss was a graduate of John Burroughs School in Ladue and Briarcliff College in Westchester County, N.Y. She was a board member of the Alzheimer’s Association and the Central Institute for the Deaf, and she donated time and resources to many other local charitable and cultural institutions.

The couple maintained strong ties to WashU. A member of the Alumni Board of Governors, Mr. Morriss was actively engaged with WashU Law as a member of the school’s national council, campaign cabinet and alumni association board. Throughout their lifetimes, the Morrisses generously supported the School of Law, the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center and the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center.

The couple was married for 48 years and had two children, Burton Douglass Morriss and Barbara Dulany Morriss, and five grandchildren. Reuben Morriss III died in 2006, and Barbara Burton Morriss died in 2018.

The post Karch named inaugural Barbara Burton and Reuben M. Morriss III Professor appeared first on The Source.

By their nature, cancer cells have different nutritional needs than healthy cells. 

“Cancer cells have a distinct metabolism,” said Patti, the Michael and Tana Powell Professor of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis and a professor of genetics and medicine at WashU Medicine. 

Understanding those differences could open new possibilities for tracking and ultimately defeating the disease. That’s why Patti and others at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, are turning their attention to a relatively new frontier of research: Cancer metabolomics, the comprehensive study of the small molecules that cancer cells either consume or produce as they attempt to grow and multiply. 

Earlier this year, Patti and co-author Joe Rowles, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences and molecular oncology trainee in Siteman Cancer Center’s Cancer Biology Pathway Program, explored the latest research and most pressing questions in cancer metabolism in Nature Reviews Cancer.

Patti is an internationally recognized leader in mass spectrometry, a technology that makes it possible to identify and quantify specific molecules in a sample. With more than 20 mass spectrometers in his ultra-clean lab, Patti has the power to track even the tiniest of changes in the levels of cancer metabolites — small molecules involved in cellular metabolism. The challenge is determining which of those molecules can be targeted in the fight against cancer.

“The fact that cancer cells run distinct metabolic programs gives us two big opportunities,” Patti said. Metabolites could be used as markers to identify tumors, he explained. More importantly, a deeper understanding of cancer metabolism might lead to new drugs or dietary strategies that slow tumor growth while sparing healthy cells.

Tracking the metabolic needs of cancer cells is no simple task. For one thing, cancerous cells can act very differently depending on the context. “A cancer cell in a lab dish might use completely different nutrients than the same cell that’s growing in a mouse or a human,” Patti said. “One of the defining attributes of cancer cells is that they are very flexible.”

The complexity of tumors also poses a challenge. “A lung tumor, for example, might have dozens of cell types, and they aren’t all malignant,” Patti said. “Some of them, like immune cells, can actually be helpful.” It’s hard to zero in on the metabolites associated with the cancer cells and not with the other parts of the tumor, he explained, and it’s challenging to find a healthy comparison sample for experiments. “There’s no such thing as a healthy tumor.” 

Patti, PhD, and his team are collaborating with WashU Medicine researchers  — including David Mutch, MD, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and Yin Cao, ScD, an associate professor of surgery and of medicine — to address these challenges. All three are research members at Siteman Cancer Center.

In ongoing experiments, they’re using isotopically labeled glucose to track the dynamics of tumor metabolism in patients. “WashU is a great place to do this kind of work, because the medical school has been a pioneer in developing innovative clinical tests using isotopes,” Patti said. 

In many cases, it’s a cancer cell’s appetite that really sets it apart from healthy cells. “They generally consume many of the same things that healthy cells consume,” Patti said. “They just do it much faster.”

Still, a closer look at metabolomics data could lead to new dietary strategies to prevent and control cancers. “I’m very enthusiastic about the idea that we can leverage diet to improve the lives of cancer patients,” Patti said. To reach that point, metabolomics studies will have to expand to thousands of people with different diets, genetic profiles and overall lifestyles. “We’ll need tons of data points to try to figure out how all of these different things are connected,” he said. 

In 2024, Patti and co-authors reported in Nature that fructose — a sugar found in high-fructose corn syrup — can indirectly fuel tumor growth in mouse models of melanoma, breast cancer and cervical cancer. Metabolomics studies found that the tumors were especially fond of a fructose product created in the liver.

The finding underscores the importance of close examination of the metabolic and nutritional pathways that allow cancer cells to flourish. “If you take cancer cells and put them in a dish and give them fructose, they won’t use it,” Patti said. “But if you have a tumor and you eat tons of fructose, it makes the tumor grow, in some cases, four or five times faster.”

Patti is especially alarmed by the growing rates of cancer among young people, a surge that has yet to be fully explained. “Cancers are still fairly rare in that age group, but they’re becoming increasingly common,” Patti said. “It’s happening so quickly that it can’t be caused by genetics alone. There must be a lifestyle factor, and it might come down to diet.”

Cancer metabolomics may seem like a niche area of research, but the insights could ultimately tip the fight against cancer to our advantage. “It is not a new idea to fight cancer with dietary modifications, but it’s too complicated to design interventions based on simple studies of cancer cells alone in isolation,” Patti said. “We are excited that metabolomics data from human patients can provide the knowledge needed to sort out the complexity.” 

Above all, Patti noted, cancer cells are greedy. And their greed could ultimately be their undoing. 

Rowles JL Patti GJ. Decoding cancer across scales with metabolomics. Nat Rev Cancer 26, 312–327 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-026-00908-0

This work was delivered as part of the PROSPECT team supported by the Cancer Grand Challenges partnership funded by Cancer Research UK (CGCATF-2023/100037 to G.J.P.), the National Cancer Institute (OT2CA297576 to G.J.P.), the French National Cancer Institute and the Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK.

Originally published on the Ampersand website

The post Targeting tumor metabolism to fight cancer appeared first on The Source.

Vij, a professor of medicine in the department’s Division of Oncology, was installed by Chancellor Andrew D. Martin and David H. Perlmutter, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and the George and Carol Bauer Dean of WashU Medicine. The professorship was funded by St. Louisans Jeffrey and Prue Gershman, who are dedicated philanthropists and volunteers supporting local education, health and arts organizations.

“Jeffrey and Prue are deeply committed to improving the lives of the people of St. Louis, and it is a true honor that they have chosen WashU to be partners in that goal,” Martin said. “Through this professorship, their generosity will accelerate progress against blood cancers by supporting Dr. Vij’s work to bring new, more effective treatments to patients. His leadership has helped grow WashU Medicine’s reputation as a national force in stem cell transplantation and immunotherapy, and with the Gershmans’ support, that momentum will continue.”

Vij treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine. As the principal investigator of the Multiple Myeloma Tissue Banking initiative at Siteman, Vij leads a collaborative research team studying the genetic underpinnings and cellular microenvironment of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow. He has led several clinical trials of investigative therapies for blood cancers, including immunotherapy agents and novel stem cell transplant strategies, that went on to become standard treatments. He has authored over 300 scientific publications in the arena of blood cancers.

“Dr. Vij has consistently pushed the field forward, pursuing multiple promising avenues to improve outcomes for patients with blood cancers, particularly multiple myeloma,” Perlmutter said. “His work spans discovery science, clinical trials and national collaboration — advancing new therapies while building the partnerships that move the field as a whole. His ability to translate scientific insight into real-world advances continues to shape the future of care in this field.”

Vij has served on the American Society of Clinical Oncology education and scientific committees and on the myeloma committees of the Clinical Trials Network and Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology. He currently serves as senior editor of the journal Clinical Lymphoma, Myeloma and Leukemia and is a past chair of the American Society of Hematology scientific committee on plasma cell dyscrasias, a type of cell disorder linked to blood cancers. Vij has received the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation Innovator Award, the Center of Excellence Award and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Visionary of the Year Award.

A respected and effective educator, Vij has mentored 25 early-career researchers over his career and in 2007 received the Teacher of the Year Award from the Hematology and Oncology Fellowship Program at WashU Medicine.

“Dr. Vij is an expert in myeloma whose warmth and support give his patients confidence that they are in the best possible hands and getting the best treatment,” said Victoria J. Fraser, MD, the Adolphus Busch Professor of Medicine and head of the Department of Medicine. “He is widely recognized as a leader in the field for his research, his thoughtfulness as a physician and his creativity as a clinical investigator and mentor. The tremendous energy he brings to resources such as the Multiple Myeloma Tissue Banking initiative will benefit the field for years and decades to come.”

Vij completed his medical education at Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi, India, followed by postgraduate training at Halifax General Hospital and Royal Infirmary in the U.K. He completed an internal medicine residency at Rush University in Chicago and fellowships in medical oncology and hematology and in bone marrow transplantation at WashU Medicine. He joined the WashU Medicine faculty in 2000.

Jeffrey S. and Prue H. Gershman

Jeffrey S. and Prue H. Gershman, of Clayton, Mo., have supported numerous programs and organizations in and beyond St. Louis through philanthropy and through volunteer service for the arts, education, healthcare and community organizations.

Jeffrey is an attorney who has practiced business, real estate and tax law in the St. Louis area since 1981. He is active in the St. Louis business community as a director on the boards of Central Bank of St. Louis and Gershman Investment Corp. Prue has worked for 40 years as an educator and social worker at several institutions, most recently as the director of counseling and wellness at John Burroughs School in Ladue.

The post Vij named inaugural Jeffrey S. and Prue H. Gershman Distinguished Professor appeared first on The Source.

Established in 1998, the universitywide award recognizes a staff member for exceptional contribution to the university and is the Office of Human Resources’ highest honor.  

“Julie exemplifies a unique leadership that combines scientific expertise with humanity. She is the steady force that keeps every aspect of the lab running smoothly … making her not only the backbone of the laboratory, but also an inspiring leader in the community,” her colleagues wrote in their nomination.  

Ritchey began her career in 1984 at Jewish Hospital of St. Louis. Following the merger and formation of Barnes-Jewish Hospital, she worked in the WashU Department of Surgery before joining the DiPersio lab in 1994. In 2013, she received the Dean’s Research Support Staff Award, the highest honor conferred to staff members by WashU Medicine. 

More than three decades after beginning her role in the lab, Ritchey remains dedicated to advancing research on stem cell therapies. Her work has made cutting-edge CAR T-cell immunotherapy treatment accessible to cancer patients. Ritchey also has mentored dozens of researchers, training and troubleshooting their experiments with her extensive laboratory knowledge. John DiPersio, MD, the Virginia E. and Sam J. Golman Professor of Medicine, said Ritchey is a known as a leader within the division. 

“As the bedrock of my research laboratory and a pillar of the Stem Cell Biology and Cellular Therapy sections in the Division of Oncology, Julie’s contributions go far beyond technical expertise; she has been essential in propelling WashU Medicine research to the forefront of oncology,” DiPersio wrote in his recommendation. “Nothing gets done without Julie.”  

In 2020, Ritchey helped facilitate the move of the cellular therapy laboratories in the expansion of the BJC Institute of Health building. Her colleagues unofficially dubbed a conference room on the ninth floor the “Julie Ritchey Huddle Room” in honor of her efforts.  

Ask Ritchey about the accolades from her colleagues, though, and she’ll give all the credit back to her team. 

“I work with the best people. The award reflects that we have a very collaborative group, even outside the DiPersio lab, with all the other labs we interact with here,” Ritchey said. “Everybody just has one goal: to move science forward.” 

Various other WashU staff members also were honored in May for their contributions to the university: 

• Matthew Cain, an assistant professor of medicine and director of the Advanced Biocontainment Laboratories: Laboratory Safety Award of Excellence 
• Meihsi Chiang, assistant director of evaluation and dissemination at the Brown School’s Evaluation Center: Community Impact Award 
• Jordan Cooper, inaugural director of cross-cultural connections in the Center for Diversity and Inclusion: Emerging Leader Award 
• Kacey Pennington, payroll services manager, Controller’s Office: University Operations Award
• Dennis Tapella, manager of Urbauer and Jubel halls’ machine shops and Machine Shop Practicum instructor: Safety Leadership Award
   

View a full listing of this year’s honorees, alongside school-level recognitions and a list of employees celebrating five to 55 years of service, on the Human Resources website. 

The post WashU Medicine’s Ritchey receives Gloria White Award appeared first on The Source.

Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle and Genentech, Inc., have developed an experimental artificial intelligence (AI) system that can speed the scan review process and help doctors spot subtle signs of eye disease sooner. The technology, called OCTCube-M, includes a family of three AI models that are designed to read and interpret 3D images of the eye’s retina as well as other types of eye scans.

In a new study, the researchers found that, compared with older models, the new AI system more accurately identified eight different retinal diseases, including age-related macular degeneration, a common disease that damages the retina and is the leading cause of blindness in people over 50. It also was more accurate in its predictions of how fast a severe form of this condition, called geographic atrophy, would progress.

The findings describing the technology in its research stage were published recently in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

“Today’s eye scans provide physicians an unprecedented, highly detailed view of the inside of the eye, revealing structures and subtle changes that would otherwise go undetected,” said the study’s co-corresponding author Aaron Lee, MD, the Arthur W. Stickle Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and head of the John F. Hardesty, MD Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences at WashU Medicine. “But we still lack the tools to help physicians process the volume of generated images. Our AI system has the potential to empower physicians to make faster diagnoses, tailor treatment more precisely and design clinical trials that bring new therapies to patients faster.”

Additionally, the study showed that the model could infer health risks beyond the eye, predicting outcomes such as heart attack, stroke and kidney failure based solely on retinal imaging. The tiny blood vessels in the retina are anatomically and developmentally the same as those in the kidney, and the processes that lead to plaque buildup inside the walls of blood vessels that feed the heart and brain also leave signatures in the eye.

“The model has the potential to turn a simple eye exam into a powerful tool for helping to detect illness beyond the eye,” said Lee. “It opens the door to earlier detection, more precise monitoring and potentially better outcomes for patients who might otherwise go undiagnosed until their disease is far more advanced.”

A diagnosis needle in a haystack of data

At least 2.2 billion people worldwide have vision impairment, according to the World Health Organization. The imaging method known as optical coherence tomography has transformed the diagnosis and care of conditions that cause vision loss by generating, via a single and swift scan, hundreds of cross-sectional images that together form a detailed, 3D picture of the retina and the optic nerve. It can reveal early signs of different eye diseases such as glaucoma, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy, among other conditions.

AI, meanwhile, has become a powerful tool for processing large medical datasets, and Lee and colleagues have made notable contributions to the field. Several years ago, they published, in Nature, results describing a model that is better at diagnosing eye disease in two-dimensional retinal images compared to older models.

Because the model was trained on 2D tomography images, the researchers sought to determine if adding 3D tomography images could further improve disease diagnosis and prognosis. Because disease often extends in all three dimensions around the fovea, a small pit in the center of the retina responsible for the sharp, detailed vision required to read text and recognize faces, they hypothesized that training models on 3D images would provide more complete and accurate views of the tissue. To that end, more than 26,000 3D optical coherence tomography images comprising 1.62 million individual retinal slices — cross-sectional images of the retina — were used to train OCTCube-M.

When compared to the model trained on 2D images, OCTCube-M more accurately identified six of the eight retinal diseases by about four to six percentage points. That translates to the tool finding 43 to 60 additional cases out of every 1,000 individuals with eye disease. This was true across scans taken from individuals at multiple clinical sites, imaging modalities and diverse patient populations.

The eight diseases identified by the model include serious conditions that primarily affect the back of the eye, including the retina and optic nerve. Together they are the leading causes of vision loss and are linked to other conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

The researchers, including Cecilia S. Lee, MD, the Jane Hardesty Poole Distinguished Professor in ophthalmology and visual sciences at WashU Medicine; Sheng Wang, PhD, an assistant professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington; and Miao Zhang, PhD, a senior AI scientist at San Francisco-based biotech company Genentech, then adapted the 3D model by adding data from two other eye imaging techniques — infrared retinal imaging and fundus autofluorescence imaging.

By combining optical coherence tomography with one or both of the other imaging types, the AI models can construct a more complete view of the eye and a deeper understanding of what’s happening inside, Aaron Lee explained. Indeed, the model trained on all three imaging types excelled at predicting the growth rate of the severe form of macular degeneration, geographic atrophy, significantly outperforming the current state-of-the art model that trains only on fundus autofluorescence images of the retina by an average of nearly 50%.

Geographic atrophy affects about 5 million people worldwide, and there are few effective treatment options. By providing information on the growth rate of the condition, Lee and colleagues’ tool could effectively detect and classify the stage of the illness, information that researchers could use to design better clinical trials of potential therapies for the disease.

“By better predicting how fast disease will worsen, we can run smaller, more efficient studies,” Lee said. “That could lower costs, shorten the time it takes to test new therapies, reduce the number of people exposed to treatments that don’t work and help effective drugs reach patients sooner.”

Next, the WashU Medicine researchers will train OCTCube-M with larger datasets encompassing more patients, more diseases and even more types of imaging data to continue improving upon it.

Zixuan Liu Z, Xu H, Woicik A, Shapiro LG, Blazes M, Wu Y, Steffen V, Cukras CA, Lee CS, Zhang M, Lee AY, Wang S. A 3D multi-modal foundation model for optical coherence tomography. Nature Biomedical Engineering. April 24, 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41551-026-01662-2.

This work received no specific funding. The authors disclose current grant funding not directly associated with this manuscript from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant numbers R01AG060942, OT2OD32644 and U19AG066567; from Gates Venture and Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation; from Carl Zeiss Meditec; and from Lowy Medical Research Institute. This content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official view of the NIH. 

Zhang M and Steffen V are employees of Genentech, Inc. and hold stock in F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. Cukras CA is an employee of F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. and holds stock in the company.

About WashU Medicine

WashU Medicine is a global leader in academic medicine, including biomedical research, patient care and educational programs with 3,100 faculty. Its National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding portfolio is the second largest among U.S. medical schools and has grown 78% since 2016. Together with institutional investment, WashU Medicine commits over $1.6 billion annually to basic and clinical research innovation and training. Its faculty practice is consistently among the top five in the country, with more than 2,550 faculty physicians practicing at 200 locations. WashU Medicine physicians exclusively staff Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals — the academic hospitals of BJC HealthCare — and Siteman Cancer Center, a partnership between BJC HealthCare and WashU Medicine and the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in Missouri and southern Illinois. WashU Medicine physicians also treat patients at BJC’s community hospitals in our region. With a storied history in MD/PhD training, WashU Medicine recently dedicated $100 million to scholarships and curriculum renewal for its medical students, and is home to top-notch training programs in every medical subspecialty as well as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and audiology and communications sciences.

Originally published on the WashU Medicine website

The post New AI tools could help eye doctors diagnose retinal disease faster appeared first on The Source.

Appointment with tenure

• William J. Chopik as associate professor of psychological and brain sciences in WashU Arts & Sciences
• Padma Gulur, MD, as professor of anesthesiology at WashU Medicine (tenure effective Aug. 1)

Granting of tenure

Nardhy Gomez-Lopez as professor of obstetrics and gynecology at WashU Medicine (effective May 1)

Promotion with tenure

Kelly Bolton, MD, PhD, to associate professor of medicine at WashU Medicine

The post Board grants faculty appointments, tenure appeared first on The Source.