David Holtzman

Herbert Rosenbaum, professor emeritus of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, died Dec. 10, 2014. He was 89.

A protein that stimulates the brain to awaken from sleep may be a target for preventing Alzheimer’s disease, a study by School of Medicine researchers suggests. David M. Holtzman, MD, head of the Department of Neurology, is the study’s senior author.

Four Washington University in St. Louis researchers are being honored as outstanding scientists by the Academy of Science of St. Louis.

Four WUSTL faculty members were recognized for their accomplishments during the Faculty Achievement Awards ceremony Dec. 7 in Simon Hall. (From left) David M. Holtzman, MD, and Randall J. Bateman, MD, received the Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award from Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. James V. Wertsch, PhD, and Richard H. Gelberman, MD, received the Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award and the Carl and Gerty Cori Faculty Achievement Award, respectively.

A new discovery may help explain the surprisingly strong connections between sleep problems and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. Loss of a gene that helps keep track of time makes brain cells more vulnerable to damage from dangerous compounds known as free radicals.

Scientists’ picture of how a gene strongly linked to Alzheimer’s disease harms the brain may have to be revised, researchers at the School of Medicine have found. Washington University’s David M. Holtzman, MD, says leading researchers recently agreed that targeting this gene is a promising approach for gaining a better understanding of and improving treatments for the disease.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that a protein may help prevent the kind of brain damage that occurs in babies with cerebral palsy.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a protein made by a key Alzheimer’s gene slows the brain’s ability to get rid of amyloid beta, the main ingredient of the amyloid plaques that characterize the devastating illness.

Higher levels of cellular chatter boosts levels of amyloid beta in the brain regions that Alzheimer’s hits first, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report. Amyloid beta is the main ingredient of the plaque lesions that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. The finding may help explain why areas that are most active when the brain rests are often among the first to develop these plaques, according to the researchers.