Andrew K. Groves, PhD, a renowned developmental biologist known for his research into inner ear development and hearing loss with a focus on the potential for hearing restoration, has been named the inaugural Stuart A. Kornfeld Distinguished Professor of Medical Sciences at WashU Medicine.

Groves 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 distinguished professorship is named in honor of the late Stuart A. Kornfeld, MD, a highly regarded physician-scientist at WashU Medicine who pioneered the study of glycoproteins — molecules present in living organisms and consisting of sugars attached to proteins — which play fundamental roles in the functions of cells, whether those cells are healthy or diseased. His foundational work led to a better understanding of a group of rare, inherited conditions called lysosomal storage diseases and helped pave the way for new therapies.

“Stuart Kornfeld was an extraordinary scientist whose discoveries continue to shape the way we think about human biology and disease,” said Chancellor Andrew D. Martin. “This professorship recognizes not only his extraordinary legacy but also the next generation of scientists like Dr. Groves, whose work in developmental biology continues the tradition of discovery-driven research that lays the groundwork for future therapies.”

Groves joined WashU Medicine in May 2025 as head of the Edward Mallinckrodt Department of Developmental Biology. He is an international leader in the study of how the inner ear develops and why, unlike other vertebrates, mammals are unable to naturally regenerate the delicate sensory hair cells of the inner ear that govern hearing and balance. The goal of his work is to guide the development of new therapies that could one day restore lost hearing and balance.

“Stuart Kornfeld was one of the giants in the history of the cell biology field,” Perlmutter said. “His work laid the foundation for the molecular basis of protein trafficking to the lysosome. He was also a role model for physician-scientists at WashU Medicine and for many others nationally and globally. I am so glad this professorship could provide recognition for Dr. Groves, whose work has transformed the understanding of inner-ear development and the mechanisms of hearing loss and its potential restoration. We are looking to Dr. Groves to lead our Department of Developmental Biology in this next era with the rare blend of innovation and humility that characterized the career of Stuart Kornfeld.”

Building on that legacy, Groves’ laboratory has focused on how the inner ear forms during early embryonic development. His team studies the signals and genetic programs that shape the ear’s complex three-dimensional structure and give rise to the inner ear’s sensory “hair cells.” These specialized cells convert sound waves and head movements into electrical signals that the brain can interpret as hearing and balance. Groves also investigates why hair cells can regenerate in birds, fish, amphibians and other vertebrates, but not in mammals. Understanding this difference is critical for developing strategies to repair damage to hair cells caused by loud noise, aging, infections and certain medications.

Groves earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. and his doctoral degree at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at University College London, where he studied the early development of cells in the brain and spinal cord. He later pursued postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology, where he researched the development of the neural crest, an important population of cells in vertebrate embryos that give rise to a variety of cell types, including bone cells, pigment cells and neurons. He then shifted his research focus to the inner ear, beginning what would become a decades-long investigation into its form and function.

In 1999, Groves became section chief at the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles, a leading center for hearing research, with an academic appointment in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Southern California. In 2008, he was recruited to the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. During his time there, Groves became the Vivian L. Smith Endowed Professor and director of the Graduate Program in Development, Disease Models & Therapeutics.

Groves is a founding member of the Hearing Restoration Project consortium established by the Hearing Health Foundation, a collaborative effort to develop treatments to restore lost hearing. He joined the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) in 2013 and chaired the board from 2015–2018. Since 2020, he has served on the NIH’s NIDCD Advisory Council.

About Stuart A. Kornfeld

Kornfeld’s body of work is a testament to the importance of basic biomedical research — many of his key discoveries have become central to translational medicine and drug discovery.

A St. Louis native, Kornfeld earned his bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College in 1958 and his medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine in 1962. He completed his residency training in internal medicine at what was then Barnes Hospital and pursued more research training at the National Institutes of Health. He returned to St. Louis in 1966 to join the School of Medicine faculty.

Over his long career, Kornfeld held key leadership roles, including co-director of the Division of Hematology-Oncology from 1976–1992 and co-director of the Division of Hematology from 1993–2009.

He directed Washington University’s Medical Scientist Training Program, which grants combined MD-PhD degrees, from 1991–1997. He also founded the Physician-Scientist Training Program in the Department of Medicine in 2000 and co-directed this innovative program until 2019. Kornfeld died in August 2025 at age 88.

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This year’s recipients include Carol Loeb for leadership and service; Ramaswamy Govindan, MD, for clinical excellence; Dominique Cosco, MD, for education; Jeffrey I. Gordon, MD, for research; and Randall Bateman, MD, and David Holtzman, MD, for innovation and commercialization.

Loeb received the Dean’s Medal for Leadership and Service for her visionary support of education at WashU Medicine.

Govindan, the Anheuser-Busch Endowed Chair of Medical Oncology, received the Dean’s Medal for Clinical Excellence. He has dedicated his career to improving outcomes for patients with lung cancer and cares for patients at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine.

Cosco, a professor in the John T. Milliken Department of Medicine and associate dean for Graduate Medical Education, has received the Dean’s Medal for Education.

Gordon, the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor and founding director of WashU Medicine’s Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology, received the Dean’s Medal for Research for his groundbreaking discoveries of how the human gut microbiome contributes to many fundamental elements of health, as well as to diseases such as childhood malnutrition that represent global health challenges.

Bateman, the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Distinguished Professor of Neurology, and Holtzman, the Barbara Burton and Reuben M. Morriss III Distinguished Professor, both in WashU Medicine’s Department of Neurology, have jointly received the Dean’s Medal for Innovation and Commercialization. Together, they co-founded C2N Diagnostics, a WashU startup advancing blood-based tests for accurate and earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, revolutionizing how clinicians can identify Alzheimer’s and associated neurological conditions. The blood tests originated from research that Bateman and Holtzman conducted at WashU Medicine over many years.

Read more on the WashU Medicine news website.

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The team, led by Quing Zhu, the Edwin H. Murty Professor of Engineering at the WashU McKelvey School of Engineering, conducted an initial investigation using optical coherence tomography (OCT), which detects differences in how tissue reflects light and acquires high-resolution 3D images with a depth of up to 1 to 2 millimeters. With a custom catheter probe developed in Zhu’s lab, the team took images of the entire endometrial cavity in less than 3 minutes, creating an optical biopsy. It is the first catheter-based, 3D OCT imaging study that integrated optical functional, structural and radiomic features for endometrial assessment. Results of the research were published in npj Imaging June 3.

To obtain images from patient tissues, the team collaborated with WashU Medicine physicians led by Lindsay Kuroki, MD, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and Ian Hagemann, MD, PhD, a professor of pathology and immunology and of obstetrics and gynecology. They, along with Zhu, are research members at Siteman Cancer Center, where Kuroki also treats patients. The team acquired OCT images from 57 post-hysterectomy uteri in 2025. Of these, 34 contained high-risk precancerous lesions or early-stage cancers.

The 3D OCT images provided a close view of tissue microstructure and optical properties, revealing clear differences among normal endometrium, benign endometrium, high-risk precancerous lesions and endometrial cancer at different stages.

First authors Sanskar Thakur, a doctoral student in Zhu’s lab, and Yixiao Lin, who earned a doctorate in biomedical engineering from WashU in 2025, developed an imaging feature extraction pipeline and a machine learning model to categorize the results into two groups of normal and benign, and pre-cancer and cancer using 26 extracted imaging features. Their model achieved an exploratory sensitivity of 94% and specificity of 87%.

“Current endometrial biopsy practice has an estimated false-negative rate of about 10% (approximately 90% sensitivity), largely due to sampling limitations and interpretive variability,” Zhu said. “With our three-dimensional OCT imaging system combined with machine learning, we can image the entire endometrial cavity in 2 to 3 seconds and may have a potential to achieve higher sensitivity than random biopsy sampling.”

“There is currently no reliable screening for endometrial cancer,” said co-author David Mutch, the Ira C. and Judith Gall Professor and vice chair of obstetrics and gynecology at WashU Medicine, a Siteman research member and principal investigator of the National Cancer Institute-funded Route 66 Endometrial Cancer Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant.

“This technology, developed by Dr. Zhu and her colleagues, should allow us to better screen for this cancer and at a minimum catch it much earlier in its development,” Mutch added. “This is really novel, cutting-edge technology.”

Going forward, Zhu said the team plans to evaluate the catheter in live patients to demonstrate the translational potential of the artificial intelligence-assisted OCT technology.

Thakur S, Lin Y, Xu J, Nie H, Badwan S, Wang L, Sanders BE, Thaker PH, Hagemann AR, McCourt CK, Khabele DM, Powell MA, Mutch DG, Kuroki LM, Hagemann IS, Zhu Q. Optical coherence tomography enables optical biopsy of endometrial tissue for early cancer detection. npj Imaging, June 3, 2026, https://doi.org/10.1038/s44303-026-00160-z.

This work was funded by the Developmental Research Program (DRP) of the NCI Route 66 Endometrial Cancer SPORE (5P50CA265793-03). Partial support for this work was provided by the NCI (R01CA237664) and the NIBIB (R01EB034398).

Originally published on the McKelvey Engineering website

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Matthew R. Rosengart, MD, whose work on sepsis and the role of circadian rhythms in immune responses has improved the care of critically ill patients, has been installed as the inaugural Theodore and Bertha Bryan Professor of Environmental Medicine in the WashU Medicine Mary Culver Department of Surgery.

Rosengart, who specializes in acute and critical care surgery, was installed by 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 established by WashU Medicine alumnus Theodore L. Bryan, MD, and his wife, Bertha Bryan, with the goal of advancing WashU Medicine’s research into environmentally related conditions and better preparing future physicians to care for patients suffering from these illnesses.  

“The Bryans were generous supporters of WashU for more than three decades, with a strong belief in the value of research and education to improve care,” said Chancellor Andrew D. Martin. “This professorship reflects their dedication to advancing research that can lead to better outcomes for some of our most vulnerable patients. Dr. Rosengart’s work embodies that mission through discoveries that are helping improve understanding and treatment of critical illness.”

Rosengart’s research focuses on the body’s response to injury and infection, in particular how sepsis — an immune overreaction to infection — can disrupt the function of mitochondria, structures in cells that generate most of the body’s energy. That disruption has been linked to long-term immune and cognitive dysfunction in people who survive sepsis. In addition, Rosengart seeks to understand how the circadian system interacts with the body’s immune responses, which could inform new treatment approaches to improve long-term outcomes for sepsis patients.

“Dr. Rosengart is a world-class investigator who recognizes that sepsis is more than an acute condition — it is a trigger for long-term consequences in the brain and immune system,” Perlmutter said. “His research is providing a foundation for developing new strategies to better treat sepsis and to improve patients’ survival and long-term recovery. This work also is helping to reshape how the field thinks about recovery from critical illness more broadly.”  

Rosengart has mentored and served as thesis adviser to 40 trainees, including medical students, residents, fellows and early-career investigators. His commitment to supporting early-career investigators led to the creation of MITSEIN (Mentoring, Investigation, and Training in Science, Epidemiology and Innovation), an educational and training resource for early-career WashU Medicine faculty in the Department of Surgery who want to pursue clinical, translational and outcomes research. 

Since joining WashU Medicine in 2023, Rosengart has been recognized with the Critical Care Medicine Educator of the Year Award and the Tim and Kim Eberlein Humanity in Surgery Award, the latter of which honors commitment to scientific excellence and compassionate, patient-centered care. He was similarly recognized for his teaching and mentorship at the University of Pittsburgh.

“Dr. Rosengart’s expertise in important areas in critical care surgery has brought a great deal to our department and to the field, and his installation as the Theodore and Bertha Bryan Professor is well deserved,” said John A. Olson Jr., MD, PhD, the William K. Bixby Professor of Surgery and head of the WashU Medicine Department of Surgery. “His commitment to teaching and mentorship along with imaginative and rigorous research is well aligned with the Bryans’ vision of improving care for our most vulnerable patients.”

Rosengart earned his bachelor’s degree in biology with honors from Johns Hopkins University and his MD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he began his residency in general surgery. He then completed a fellowship in molecular biology, a residency in general surgery and a fellowship in trauma and critical care at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he also earned a Master of Public Health degree. He joined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 2004 and came to WashU Medicine in 2023.

About Theodore and Bertha Bryan

Theodore L. Bryan, MD, and his wife, Bertha Benadine (Cashen) Bryan, established the first Theodore and Bertha Bryan Professorship in Environmental Medicine in 1999.

Theodore Bryan was a native of St. Louis who graduated from WashU Medicine in 1947. He met Bertha, a registered nurse, during his internship and residency at St. Louis City Hospital. Theodore Bryan served as a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the Korean War, then returned to the St. Louis area to practice internal medicine at the Medical Surgical Clinic in East St. Louis, Ill., and Belleville, Ill. He also served as medical director of Rosewood Care Center in Swansea, Ill. He retired in 1998. 

Bertha Bryan was born in Belleville, Ill., and raised in Granite City, Ill. She enrolled in the U.S. Training Program for Registered Nurses at St. Louis City Hospital, completing her training in 1947 and later working as a psychiatric nurse. An active volunteer, she dedicated time to the Red Cross and the Girl Scouts and served as president of the Women’s Auxiliary of the St. Clair County Medical Society. 

Theodore Bryan died in 2014, and Bertha Bryan died in 2019. Since their deaths, their initial gift has grown to support five endowed professorships in environmental medicine at WashU Medicine.

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A new study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis provides evidence that younger generations are indeed aging faster biologically than their older counterparts. The causes remain under investigation around the world, including global efforts led by research members of Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, and Cancer Grand Challenges, a global initiative co-founded by the National Cancer Institute and Cancer Research U.K.; but importantly, the new research links this accelerated aging to an increased risk of early-onset cancers in younger generations. In general, early-onset cancers are those diagnosed at age 55 or younger.

The larger the gap between biological age — that is, how old our bodies appear to be — and chronological age — which is how many years we have actually lived — the higher the cancer risk, according to the researchers. They found that people in more recent birth cohorts had larger age gaps than those in older birth cohorts, which may help explain the rise in early-onset cancer in recent generations.

Their study also identified links between faster aging in particular organ systems and increased risks for certain cancers. For instance, an immune system that appears older than its actual age was associated with early-onset lung cancer. Similarly, fat tissue that appears older than its chronological age was associated with early-onset colorectal cancer.

The study, published June 22 in the journal Nature Medicine, suggests that measures of accelerated aging could help identify individuals at higher risk of early-onset cancer and guide new strategies for cancer prevention and early detection.

“Our ultimate goal is to decode how modern environments become biologically embedded to drive cancer risk, transforming prevention from broad recommendations to personalized interventions,” said Yin Cao, a molecular epidemiologist and an associate professor of surgery and of medicine at WashU Medicine. “This brings us closer to identifying risk earlier and developing prevention strategies that are tailored to an individual’s biology.”

Exploring biological aging

Cao’s team has been at the forefront of identifying individual factors that influence cancer risk across the life course, such as obesity, metabolic dysregulation, alcohol consumption, sedentary behavior, poor diet quality and cesarean delivery. Although these discoveries have revealed important clues to the origins of cancer at younger ages, the contribution of any single factor is modest.

With that in mind, Cao, also a research member of Siteman, and her colleagues have sought ways to capture the influence of multiple risk factors operating together to spur cancer development. With support from Cancer Grand Challenges, Cao, as co-lead of Team PROSPECT, has been able to go after this problem.

For the current study, Cao’s team analyzed data from more than 154,000 young adults in the UK Biobank, a large biomedical dataset containing biological, health and lifestyle data, and from more than 10,000 individuals in the U.S. participating in the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) All of Us Research Program, an effort to build a comprehensive health dataset on more than 1 million people living in the U.S.

To estimate the level of biological aging — or age gap — the researchers, including first author Ruiyi Tian, a doctoral student in the Cao lab, examined aging at two levels: across the body as a whole, known as systemic aging, and within individual organs, known as organ-specific aging. For systemic aging, the researchers used established measures, including clinical biomarker-based measures such as PhenoAge and the Klemera-Doubal Method, as well as a metabolomic age score, which provides a measure of individual metabolism.

PhenoAge, for example, measures nine blood biochemistry markers such as albumin, made by the liver, and creatinine, a waste product removed by the kidneys. For organ-specific aging, the researchers used blood proteomic data, which measure levels of multiple proteins linked to specific organ systems, to estimate biological aging in individual organs.

The researchers calculated the average age gap for each birth cohort and used standard deviation to describe how much each group differed from the study average. Standard deviation is a measure of how spread out data points are around the average.

The researchers found that individuals in the UK born between 1965 and 1974 had systemic aging that was 23% of one standard deviation higher compared with those born between 1950 and 1954, after accounting for chronological age. In other words, people in the younger birth cohort showed a modest shift toward older biological profiles than people in the older birth cohort when at the same chronological age.

The researchers observed a similar pattern in the U.S cohort. Participants born between 1990 and 1999 had systemic aging that was 92% of one standard deviation higher compared with those born between 1965 and 1969.

This increased systemic aging in the younger group was associated with an 8% increased risk of early-onset solid cancers, especially lung, gastrointestinal and uterine cancers. When participants were divided into three groups based on their level of systemic aging, those with the most advanced systemic aging had a 15% increased risk of early-onset solid cancer compared with those with the least advanced systemic aging. According to the analysis, the increased risk persisted even after controlling for inherited genetic risks of cancer and genetic susceptibility to accelerated aging.

By zooming into organ-specific aging, the researchers found that advanced immune system aging was associated with increased risk of early-onset lung cancer, and advanced adipose (fat) tissue aging was associated with increased risk of early-onset colorectal cancer.

“If we can identify younger people with the highest cancer risk when they are still healthy, we can focus on prevention and early-detection strategies for the individuals who will benefit most from early interventions,” Cao said.

This research is part of Team PROSPECT, a Cancer Grand Challenges team co-led by Cao. Cancer Grand Challenges is a global research funding initiative co-founded by Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that brings together world-leading researchers to take on cancer’s toughest challenges.

“Right now, we don’t have a definitive answer to what’s driving the rise of early-onset cancers around the world, but studies like this are helping us piece together the bigger picture, showing that cancer may be influenced not just by changes inside individual cells, but by wider changes happening across the body as a whole,” said David Scott, PhD, director of Cancer Grand Challenges.  “Research on this scale is possible through Cancer Grand Challenges, which brings together scientists from different fields around the world to tackle these complex questions together.”

Cao and her colleagues are leading efforts to transform the understanding of why cancers are increasingly striking younger generations. Their next frontier is to decipher how environmental, lifestyle and societal changes leave lasting biological imprints, including accelerated aging and other markers of heightened susceptibility. By illuminating the pathways through which risk accumulates across the life course, they seek to uncover the origins of early-onset cancers and redefine opportunities for prevention. In parallel, their work will enable more precise approaches to identify those at greatest risk and intervene earlier, shifting the paradigm from reacting to disease to preventing it before it begins.

Tian R, Zong Y, Ren D, Tica S, Hong D, Odulyale O, Buenrostro J, Govindan R, Cao Y. Biological aging and generational shifts in early-onset cancer risk. Nature Medicine. June 22, 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41591-026-04448-w.

This work was part of the PROSPECT team supported by the Cancer Grand Challenges initiative funded by Cancer Research UK, grant numbers CGCATF-2023/100043 and CGCATF-2023/100037; the National Cancer Institute of the NIH, grant numbers OT2CA297577 and OT2CA297576; the French National Cancer Institute; and the Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK. The project was also supported by grants from NIH/National Cancer Institute, grant number R37CA246175; the NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, grant number P30DK052574; the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center through the Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Further support was provided by a pre-doctoral fellowship in the Cancer Biology pathway supported by NIH Molecular Oncology Training Grant T32CA113275 to Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis; the Pediatric Gastroenterology Research Training Program grant T32DK077653 to Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis; the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences, grant number UL1TR002345; and the Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

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

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The Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship was established in 2010 to recognize faculty members who have translated their research into significant commercial applications, such as new technologies, therapeutics or diagnostic tools. Colditz and Jiang received the award May 7 at the WashU Office of Technology Management’s (OTM) annual Celebration of Inventors, which recognizes innovation and commercialization successes of WashU faculty during the preceding calendar year.  

The event celebrated the 70 U.S. patents granted for WashU discoveries and technologies in 2025 as well as six faculty members elected as fellows or senior members of the National Academy of Inventors. 

Colditz, who serves as associate director of prevention and control at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, is an epidemiologist who specializes in preventable causes of chronic disease, particularly among women. Jiang is a biostatistician and data scientist who focuses on developing statistical methods to identify and predict cancer risks, especially for breast cancer.  

In 2024, the collaborators co-founded Prognosia, a WashU startup based on their AI mammography analysis tool, with support from OTM. The tool, Prognosia Breast, received FDA Breakthrough Device designation in June 2025. The company was bought by Lunit, a company that specializes in AI applications, a few months later.  

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Physician-scientists who split their time between patient care and research are key to advancing diagnosis and developing new treatments. To support faculty members in balancing these pursuits and to help address a nationwide shortage of physician-scientists, 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, initiated the Dean’s Scholars Program in 2020. 

The program supports early-career physicians without PhDs as they conduct biomedical research and provides up to two years of funding, dedicated mentorship and protected time in the lab. 

The WashU Medicine Division of Physician-Scientists recently announced its newest class of scholars. They are Kaye Brathwaite, MD; Grace Niziolek, MD;  Ruth Tevlin, MD; and Joy Um, MD. 

The program is funded by the dean’s office and departments. 

WashU Medicine’s investment in the scholars has had a strong return: According to the Division of Physician-Scientists, every dollar the division contributes has been followed by more than six additional dollars in further grant funding. The program also has helped scholars move quickly into the next stage of their careers:  Within one year of completing the program, 56% have secured major career development awards such as NIH K08 grants, and that figure rises to 82% within two years. 

Read more on the WashU Medicine website. 

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New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis points to a shared biological feature of these gut pathogens that could lead to a vaccine that protects against both.

Researchers at WashU Medicine, along with collaborators at the University of Missouri and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh, found that enterotoxigenic E. coli (the leading cause of travelers’ diarrhea), Shigella and other diarrhea-causing pathogens rely on three closely related enzymes to get through the gut’s protective mucus layer and cause infection. Based on samples from infected patients and volunteers exposed to the bugs, the team showed that antibodies targeting one shared region of these enzymes can neutralize all three biomolecules and block the bacteria from penetrating the mucus barrier of the intestines.

The results, which appear June 15 in PNAS, point to the potential for a single combination vaccine against these major causes of severe diarrhea.

“For something so common and so deadly to young children, it’s striking that we still don’t have a vaccine for either of these pathogens,” said James M. Fleckenstein, MD, a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at WashU Medicine and co-senior author on the study. “What’s exciting here is that we’ve found a kind of Achilles’ heel or weak point they share that we might be able to target to protect against both.”

A shared vulnerability

To cause illness, gut pathogens must first break through a thick layer of mucus that coats the intestine and holds even the body’s healthy resident bacteria at bay. Getting past that barrier is a critical early step in infection — and a point where, Fleckenstein said, harmful bacteria might be stopped without disrupting beneficial microorganisms. Enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) — so named because it causes gastrointestinal disease, unlike other strains of E. coli that are harmless — and Shigella manage the task using closely related enzymes that cut through the main protein in gut mucus. Once they breach the barrier, the bacteria can deliver the toxins that cause diarrhea.

Fleckenstein’s lab first identified one such enzyme in diarrhea-causing E. coli, called EatA, which fittingly eats away at the primary structural component of mucus. The team has now shown that two related enzymes — SepA and Pic, produced by Shigella and some other diarrhea-causing bacteria — perform the same mucus-busting function.

Working with coauthor Ali Ellebedy, PhD, the Leo Loeb Professor in the WashU Medicine Department of Pathology & Immunology, Fleckenstein and collaborators isolated antibodies from patients in Bangladesh naturally infected with ETEC and from volunteers intentionally infected with the bacteria in controlled studies. They found that antibodies blocking EatA also neutralized SepA and Pic. Antibodies are proteins the immune system produces to recognize a specific target and lock onto it so that it can be destroyed.

Structural biologists at the University of Missouri, including first author David P. Buckley, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate, then used cryo-electron microscopy — a technique that flash-freezes molecules to image them in fine detail — to pinpoint exactly where the most effective antibodies latched onto the enzymes. The spot turned out to be a region shared across all three, which explains how a single antibody can disable the mucus-degrading machinery of multiple pathogens. It also gives vaccine designers a precise target for generating a vaccine that would prompt the immune system to produce such antibodies and have them ready in case of infection.

“This study establishes EatA as a viable vaccine candidate capable of providing protection across multiple pathogens,” said Zachary Berndsen, PhD, an assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Missouri and co-senior author on the study. “By identifying the key regions of EatA that are targeted by neutralizing antibodies capable of inhibiting its enzymatic function, we’ve established a foundation for rational vaccine design — a major advance toward development of effective therapeutics that have the potential to save many lives.”

The project builds on earlier studies of children in Dhaka, Bangladesh, showing that those who naturally develop antibodies against EatA tend to be protected from illness, while children without them are more likely to get sick.

The need for vaccines to protect against these infections isn’t confined to the developing world. Enterotoxigenic E. coli has caused large foodborne outbreaks in the United States, and because it is hard to distinguish from harmless E. coli in most clinical labs, cases often go unrecognized. The reliance on antibiotics to treat these infections also fuels antibiotic resistance, which does not respect borders, Fleckenstein noted.

The team is now working to move toward vaccine development.

“These bacteria have evolved right alongside us, and they’ve gotten very good at breaching our defenses,” Fleckenstein said. “If we can block that first step, we have a chance to stop these infections before they ever take hold.”

Buckley DP, Akhtar M, Thapa M, Schmitz A, Turner J, Vickers TJ, Khatoon N, Kaisar MH, Coggin JA, Ganguli D, Sheikh A, Laird RM, Poly F, Porter CK, Ruiz-Perez F, Miller MJ, Chowdhury F, Bhuiyan TR, Qadri F, Trillo-Muyo S, Dolan B, van der Post S, Ellebedy A, Berndsen ZT, Fleckenstein JM. Human enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) infections elicit antibodies that broadly neutralize mucinases of pathogenic Escherichia coli and Shigella. PNAS. June 15, 2026. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2614012123

This work is supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant numbers R01 AI089894 and R01 AI126887, and by the Department of Veterans Affairs, grant number 5I01BX001469-05. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH or the Department of Veterans Affairs.

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

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Weihl, who is chief of the neurology department’s Section of Neuromuscular Medicine, 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 Gabe and his parents, Josephine and Richard Weil.

“Gabe Weil believed deeply in the promise of research to change the future for patients living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy,” Martin said. “This professorship is a reflection of that belief. We’re thankful to Gabe, Josephine and Richard for their commitment to advancing discoveries that will improve the lives of patients. Dr. Weihl’s work exemplifies the power of compassionate, patient-centered science to deepen our understanding of neuromuscular disorders and move the field toward more effective treatments.”

Weihl studies the genetics of protein aggregate myopathies — a group of rare neuromuscular disorders in which misfolded proteins accumulate in muscle tissue and lead to muscle deterioration — as well as related muscle atrophy disorders such as inclusion body myositis and limb-girdle muscular dystrophies. His research has highlighted the similarities between some of these rare disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. He also has identified the molecular mechanisms and genetic underpinnings of specific variants of these devastating neuromuscular disorders. Such discoveries are critical to developing targeted treatments.

“Gabe’s goal was to advance the search for a cure for muscular dystrophy, and this professorship will do just that by supporting groundbreaking research beginning with Dr. Weihl,” Perlmutter said. “It is certainly fitting that Gabe has left such a significant and enduring legacy. Dr. Weihl is one of the leading neuromuscular investigators in the country. His work has revealed fundamental mechanisms that drive muscle degeneration and has advanced the field toward precision approaches for diagnosing and treating rare neuromuscular disorders. Through his research, clinical care and mentorship, he has had a profound influence on patients, trainees and the future direction of neuromuscular medicine.”

Weihl’s expertise has led to a role as chair of the therapeutic advisory committee for TREAT-NMD, a global network of neuromuscular experts with collaborators that include patient groups and pharmaceutical companies, all focused on accelerating the development of new treatments for neuromuscular disorders. He is also the current editor-in-chief of the journal Neuromuscular Disorders and a member of the neuromuscular working group for the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded ClinGen project, a resource that defines clinically relevant genes for precision medicine and research, as well as chair of ClinGen’s limb-girdle muscular dystrophy expert panel.

A committed mentor and educator, Weihl has received funding from the NIH to train residents, fellows and early-career scientists in patient-oriented research. Clinically, Weihl serves as the director of the Washington University Muscular Dystrophy Association Adult Care Clinic and cares for patients with all forms of neuromuscular disorders.

“Dr. Chris Weihl’s installation as the Gabe Weil Professor is a recognition of his exceptional scientific contributions and clinical leadership,” said Jin-Moo Lee, MD, PhD, the Andrew B. and Gretchen P. Jones Professor of Neurology and head of the Department of Neurology. “It also is an acknowledgement of his unwavering commitment to advancing our understanding of neuromuscular disease and improving the lives of patients.”

Weihl’s work has been recognized with the American Neurological Association’s Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award. He was also the inaugural recipient of Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Daniel and Jephta Drachman Family Award, which honors innovative researchers in neuroimmunology, neuromuscular neurology and genetics.

Weihl earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and both his MD and his PhD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He completed a neurology residency and a neuromuscular fellowship at WashU Medicine before joining the faculty in 2005.

About Gabe Weil

Gabriel Isaac Weil was born in 1987 in Honduras and adopted by his parents, Josephine and Richard Weil, that same year. He was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy before he turned two and began using a wheelchair at the age of eight. He never let his diagnosis or physical limitations define the quality of his life. Gabe was a gifted student, graduating from Clayton High School and cum laude from WashU. A gourmet and food critic, he was planning to start a business creating and selling fruit and vegetable juices at the time of his death.

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Nicholas O. Davidson, MD, DSc, the John E. and Adaline Simon Professor of Medicine and chief of the Division of Gastroenterology at WashU Medicine, is the recipient of the 2026 Distinguished Mentor Award from the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA).   

A nationally recognized physician-scientist who treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, Davidson is a leading expert on hereditary and familial gastrointestinal cancers. His research focuses on the molecular genetics of how fatty compounds called lipids move through the body and get broken down and absorbed by the intestine. He studies how certain genetic mutations can lead to steatotic liver disease (also known as fatty liver disease) and promote both liver and colorectal cancer. His published research has offered groundbreaking insights into the genetic epidemiology and risk factors of liver-related diseases and colorectal cancer. 

The AGA Distinguished Mentor Award recognizes individuals who have dedicated their careers to mentoring the next generation of leaders in gastroenterology. Over almost three decades, Davidson has mentored more than 200 fellows, residents and medical undergraduates in the Division of Gastroenterology — many of whom have gone on to become prominent clinicians and physician-scientists themselves. Several have served as division chiefs, program directors or department chairs. 

Read more on the Siteman Cancer Center website.

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