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 […]

Congratulations to Neurology’s February 2025 SAFE accolade recipients

SAFE accolades - Neurology

Congratulations to the members of the Department of Neurology who received accolades through the Supporting a Fair Environment (SAFE) program! SAFE aims to improve the learning environment by promoting positive behaviors and managing concerns about learner mistreatment and unprofessional behaviors. SAFE accolades include treating others with dignity and respect, creating an environment that values diversity, […]

$4.5 million supports pathbreaking neuroimmunology research (Links to an external site)

A $4.5 million grant from the Carol and Gene Ludwig Family Foundation will support innovative projects led by WashU Medicine’s neuroimmunology experts, including (from left to right) David M. Holtzman, MD; Jonathan Kipnis, PhD; and Marco Colonna, MD, in addition to other faculty members through a seed grant program.

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received a three-year, $4.5 million grant from the Carol and Gene Ludwig Family Foundation, aimed at advancing research on neuroimmunology and neurodegeneration with the ultimate goal of developing new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. Administered by WashU Medicine’s Brain Immunology & Glia (BIG) Center, the Carol and […]

Dai joins Adult Neurology Residency Program leadership

Cathy Dai

Xing “Cathy” Dai, MD, is the newest member of the Adult Neurology Residency Program leadership team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She will join Salim Chahin, MD, MSCE, Renee Van Stavern, MD, and Gregory Wu, MD, PhD, as an associate program director, starting July 1, 2025. She began transitioning into the […]

Electrochemical field key to how dementia precursors ‘break bad’ (Links to an external site)

Amyloid beta peptides start out as helpful scaffolding, but they can turn toxic with the production of reactive oxygen molecules. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found a new way to interrupt the toxic spread of these peptides. (Image: Michael W. Chen and Wenjing Li)

Protein accumulations do important work in the human body, but something can go wrong and proliferate in those aggregates, resulting in neurodegeneration and diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. One such assembly, amyloid beta peptide, is synonymous with dementia, but researchers were not certain how these peptide assemblies “break bad” and what really causes them […]