Faculty Profile: Saumel Ahmadi

headshot of Dr. Saumel Ahmadi

Saumel Ahmadi, MD, PhD, has been appointed instructor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Ahmadi earned an MD from Saurashtra University in India and a PhD in Genetics and Physiology from The Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto before joining WashU Medicine for his pediatric neurology residency […]

Hassenstab installed as Norman J. Stupp Professor of Neurology

John Morris, Jason Hassenstab and Jin-Moo Lee

Jason Hassenstab, PhD, was installed as the Norman J. Stupp Professor of Neurology on Thursday, March 27, 2025. The ceremony was followed by remarks from John Morris, MS, and Jin-Moo Lee, MD, PhD, and an address from Hassenstab titled, “Boundaries and Crossing Borders in Alzheimer’s Disease Research.” Hassenstab is a professor of Neurology and professor […]

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 […]

MS Society Fellows Gear Up to Take On MS (Links to an external site)

Farris Taha

Farris Taha, who received a Sylvia Lawry Physician fellowship, enjoys a challenge, and for him, there’s no bigger code to crack than MS. “I was immediately drawn to MS mainly because of the complexity of the disease and the incredible advancements of the past decade,” says the 30-year-old neurology fellow at Washington University in St. […]

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 […]