Staff Spotlight Deann Gavney

Deann Gavney

Deann Gavney joined WashU Medicine in 2017 as a clinic administrator in Orthopedic Surgery and transitioned to Neurology as the clinical operations director in 2020. She has a passion for operations management and enjoys the fast-paced and challenging working environment in Neurology. In her role, she has the opportunity to work with the incredible in-clinic […]

Ushe selected as Distinguished Alumni Scholarship Program faculty honoree

Mwiza Ushe

The WashU Alumni Association has chosen Mwiza Ushe, MD, MA, as one of this year’s Distinguished Alumni Scholarship Program (DASP) Faculty Honorees. The program recognizes four outstanding WashU Medicine alumni who are current or emeritus faculty members with a four-year, full-tuition scholarship given to a student in their name. “I couldn’t be prouder that Mwiza […]

Welcome to our 2025 residency matches!

Congratulations, Matches!

Congratulations and welcome to our 2025-2026 residency intern class! We are so excited to welcome this diverse and fantastic group of trainees who are among the best of the best. The Adult Neurology cohort will begin its PGY1 Preliminary Medicine year in July 2025 and its PGY2 Neurology training in July 2026. The Pediatric Neurology […]

Boosting brain’s waste removal system improves memory in old mice (Links to an external site)

Aging compromises the lymphatic vessels (green) in tissue called the meninges (blue) surrounding the brain, disabling waste drainage from the brain and impacting cognitive function. Researchers at WashU Medicine boosted lymphatic vessel integrity (bottom) in old mice and found improvements in their memory compared with old mice without rejuvenated lymphatic vessels (top).

As aging bodies decline, the brain loses the ability to cleanse itself of waste, a scenario that scientists think could be contributing to neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, among others. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report they have found a way around that problem by […]

Researchers find a hint at how to delay Alzheimer’s symptoms. Now they have to prove it (Links to an external site)

Jake Heinrichs hugs wife Rachel Chavkin

The research led by Washington University in St. Louis involves families that pass down rare gene mutations almost guaranteeing they’ll develop symptoms at the same age their affected relatives did – information that helps scientists tell if treatments are having any effect. The new findings center on a subset of 22 participants who received amyloid-removing […]

Anti-amyloid drug shows signs of preventing Alzheimer’s dementia (Links to an external site)

Randall J. Bateman, MD, the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Distinguished Professor of Neurology at WashU Medicine, is the study director of an international clinical trial that finds an anti-amyloid drug can delay the onset of cognitive decline if given many years before symptoms of Alzheimer's disease arise. The participants in the study had inherited genetic variants that lead to early-onset Alzheimer's disease, and among those who received the drug the longest – an average of eight years – the treatment lowered the risk of developing symptoms from essentially 100% to about 50%, according to a preliminary analysis of the data.

An experimental drug appears to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s-related dementia in people destined to develop the disease in their 30s, 40s or 50s, according to the results of a study led by the Knight Family Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network-Trials Unit (DIAN-TU), which is based at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The […]

Living Well: Red dye ban (Links to an external site)

Benjamin Kay

In January, the FDA banned the use of Red Dye No. 3 in foods and drugs because high concentrations of the dye were shown to cause cancer in rats. In this Living Well, First Alert 4’s Taylor Holt sits down with a local doctor to dig into the ban, find out what’s next and what […]

Bauer Huang appointed as new section head of Neonatal Neurology

Sarah Bauer Huang

Sarah Bauer Huang, MD, PhD, has been appointed head of the Section of Neonatal Neurology, effective July 1, 2025. Chris Smyser, MD, will step down from this position to focus on his role as associate director of the Division of Pediatric and Developmental Neurology.    Smyser joined the faculty at Washington University School of Medicine in […]

Promising risk assessment results for new pediatric stroke treatment option

patient with IV

A recent safety surveillance paper published in Neurology reported that of eleven pediatric patients who were treated with tenecteplase for suspected stroke, there were no instances of intracranial bleeding or other safety concerns. This study is an important first step toward further research to establish the safety and efficacy of tenecteplase for treating pediatric stroke. […]