Eberlein named president-elect of American College of Surgeons

Timothy J. Eberlein, MD, director of Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, has been elected president-elect of the American College of Surgeons (ACS). The three-year commitment includes one-year terms each as president-elect, president and immediate past-president.

Eberlein began his term as president-elect after ACS’s annual meeting this month in Chicago. The organization’s mission is to improve surgical care and safeguard standards of care in an optimal and ethical practice environment.

“It is an honor to be elected to the leadership of the ACS by my national peers,” said Eberlein, who also is the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and senior associate dean for cancer programs at WashU Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. “In this position, I will continue to work tirelessly to help the College and its Fellows in our shared mission to care for patients and advance surgical care.”

Eberlein has been active within the ACS for many years, including as an ACS Fellow since 1988 and a member of the Board of Regents from 2015-2024. He served as chair of the board from 2022-2023. Since 1995, Eberlein has been a member of the Commission on Cancer, an ACS-founded consortium of professional organizations dedicated to improving survival and quality of life for patients with cancer. He also served as editor-in-chief for the Journal of the American College of Surgeons from 2004-2024.

For his numerous achievements, Eberlein received the Rodney E. and Thomas G. Sheen Award from the New Jersey Chapter of the ACS and the ACS Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum Award.

Eberlein also has held leadership positions at the American Board of Surgery, Advisory Committee to the Board for Surgical Oncology, Board of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Society of Surgical Oncology, American Surgical Association and the National Cancer Institute.

He carries the Alzheimer’s gene but never got the disease — scientists want to know why

Breast cancer startup founded by WashU Medicine researchers acquired by Lunit

An innovative biotech startup founded by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has been acquired by Lunit, a leading company in developing AI-based technologies for cancer prevention and early detection. The WashU startup, Prognosia, was created to develop software that harnesses AI to analyze mammograms and more accurately predict a woman’s five-year risk of developing breast cancer.

The startup’s first software package, Prognosia Breast, received Breakthrough Device Designation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this year, putting it on a fast track to full market approval. Lunit’s acquisition of Prognosia can help accelerate the final steps of the process to bring the technology into the clinic.

Prognosia was co-founded by Graham A. Colditz, MD, DrPH, the Niess-Gain Professor of Surgery at WashU Medicine and associate director of prevention and control at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine; and Shu (Joy) Jiang, PhD, an associate professor of surgery in the Division of Public Health Sciences in the Department of Surgery at WashU Medicine.

“We are excited to work with Lunit to bring this technology to the clinic,” Jiang said. “Lunit already has the infrastructure in place to streamline production and clinical implementation of our software that would be extraordinarily difficult for a new startup to build from scratch. Integrating our software into their existing systems could help this new technology get into the hands of physicians and patients very quickly.”

The system produces a five-year breast cancer risk score that makes it possible to compare a woman’s personalized risk to an average risk based on national breast cancer incidence rates. This provides a meaningful estimate that is aligned with the U.S. national risk reduction guidelines, so that clinicians will know what options to discuss if a patient’s breast cancer risk is elevated.

“Improved risk prediction can help early detection, which has the potential to increase the likelihood of successful treatment that is less disruptive to people’s lives,” said Colditz, an internationally renowned cancer prevention researcher who has led the field for decades. “We recognized that there is a tremendous wealth of information about breast cancer development already stored and continuing to be newly collected in the form of regular mammograms. Until recently, there was no way to use this information to inform risk prediction or to develop new and better prevention strategies.”

Improving accuracy

Past research led by Colditz and Jiang has shown their system is more than twice as accurate as the standard method of identifying individuals at high risk of developing breast cancer over the next five years. The standard method is based on questionnaires that include factors such as age, race and family history of breast cancer. Research also has shown that the technology maintains its high performance across multiple demographic groups, including among people of diverse races, ages and differing breast densities.

These results led to the technology’s recent FDA Breakthrough Device designation, which provides an accelerated review process for full market approval with the goal of giving patients and clinicians access to promising new medical devices sooner. The designation recognizes that the software already has undergone rigorous testing and has shown excellent promise in its potential to improve clinical care.

The developers said the technology could be easily integrated into existing clinical workflows and is compatible with both types of mammogram imaging available: the four 2D views of the breast produced by full-field digital mammography and the synthetic 3D view of the breast produced by digital breast tomosynthesis.

A roadmap for growth

Colditz and Jiang worked with WashU’s Office of Technology Management (OTM) to found their AI-based biotech startup.

“Prognosia is a superb example of harnessing all the resources available to WashU faculty to accelerate the launch of a company,” said Nichole R. Mercier, PhD, assistant vice chancellor and managing director of OTM. “Dr. Colditz and Dr. Jiang were proactive in adapting and learning through the resources and guidance of WashU’s OTM and the entrepreneurship ecosystem of St. Louis. Through Lunit’s acquisition of Prognosia, we’re excited to see this powerful startup venture become even better positioned to make transformative improvements in breast cancer risk estimation, prevention and early detection.”

Colditz and Jiang said Prognosia would not have been possible without OTM’s GAP funding program, which allowed them to do the work required for the FDA’s Breakthrough Device designation, as well as support from BioGenerator Ventures, which provided both financial support and expertise in business strategy from Entrepreneur-in-Residence David Smoller, PhD.

“With the guidance of OTM and David Smoller, we broadened our perspective beyond the technical aspects of the software to focus on the needs of the health-care providers who will use it to care for patients,” Colditz said. “That shift in mindset has been crucial to developing a technology that’s truly useful in the clinical setting.”

Colditz and Jiang will hold advisory roles at Lunit during the pre-market review process that precedes full FDA approval of the technology and for ongoing development projects. The regulatory plan includes an initial submission for the static model of risk prediction based on mammograms taken at a single timepoint, with a roadmap to expand functionality of the software by analyzing mammograms from the same person taken at multiple timepoints to improve the accuracy of the prediction.

Dehdashti honored by radiological society for outstanding research

Farrokh Dehdashti, MD, the Drs. Barry A. and Marilyn J. Siegel Professor of Radiology and senior vice chair and director of the Division of Nuclear Medicine at WashU Medicine Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, has been recognized by the Radiological Society of North America with the 2025 Outstanding Researcher Award. The award recognizes her accomplishments in advancing the radiologic sciences throughout her career.

Dehdashti is credited with expanding the role of positron emission tomography (PET) imaging in the field of oncology. She conducted some of the first human studies of novel PET diagnostic compounds (also called radiotracers) in the imaging of several types of cancer, including cervical, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancers. She is co-leader of the Oncologic Imaging Program at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, and medical director of PET imaging at the Center for Clinical Imaging at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. Her research interests include imaging estrogen receptors and progesterone receptors in breast cancer; imaging chemokine receptors in pancreatic and head and neck cancers, such as CCR2 imaging; poly ADP-ribose polymerase imaging of solid tumors; and imaging tumor proliferation.

Dehdashti earned her medical degree from Pahlavi University School of Medicine in Iran in 1977 and completed her radiology residency there in 1980. She completed a nuclear medicine residency at Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. She served as chief resident in nuclear medicine at WashU Medicine in 1989, followed by a research fellowship in PET imaging in the Division of Nuclear Medicine at WashU Medicine before she joined the faculty in 1990.

Dehdashti will receive the award at the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting, Nov. 30-Dec. 4 in Chicago.

Doctors and other clinical staff posing for photo in hospital hallway

WashU Medicine, St. Louis Children’s Hospital team performs first pediatric “domino” partial heart transplant in Midwest

This summer, a team at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and WashU Medicine Heart Center successfully performed the first living pediatric “domino” partial heart transplant in the Midwest. The groundbreaking procedure has been performed at only seven other hospitals in the U.S.

The highly complex surgery required the skill of more than 20 specialists working in two operating rooms — including WashU Medicine pediatric heart transplant surgeons, cardiologists, cardiac intensivists, and anesthesiologists — along with inpatient and operating room nurses, perfusionists, transplant coordinators, Child Life Specialists, and other practitioners at St. Louis Children’s.

A domino transplant occurs when one donor’s organ is transplanted into a patient, who then becomes a donor for another patient. In this case, the first pediatric patient needed a new heart. Despite damage to the patient’s heart, the heart valves were healthy, which offered an opportunity for another child to benefit. When a donor heart became available, the first patient received a total heart transplant. Surgeons then removed that patient’s fully functioning aortic heart valve and transplanted it into another young patient whose aortic valve was failing. Through this domino procedure, two children received lifesaving treatment.

“One donor gave the gift of life that ultimately helped two children,” said Jacob Miller, MD, a WashU Medicine pediatric heart surgeon at St. Louis Children’s Hospital who specializes in the diagnosis and surgical treatment of congenital heart defects. “This was a remarkable team effort, and it was incredible to witness how everyone came together to perform such an innovative procedure. The expertise and collaboration that made this possible is extraordinary, and we’re so gratified that both patients are doing well.”

Typically, when children need a new heart valve, the standard options are a prosthetic valve, or a cryopreserved valve taken from a deceased donor and preserved by freezing at very low temperatures to maintain its viability. Although lifesaving, prosthetic and cryopreserved valves will need to be replaced as the child grows. A partial heart transplant — also known as a heart valve transplant — offers a promising alternative, with the expectation that the transplanted valve will grow along with the child, eliminating the need for multiple surgeries.

The St. Louis Children’s Hospital and WashU Medicine Heart Center operates one of the largest and most successful pediatric heart transplant programs in the country. It serves more children with heart disease than any other center in the region and draws patients from across the Midwest and beyond, including referrals from other transplant programs.

Planning to perform a domino partial heart transplant began several years ago. The Heart Center’s preparations were led by Lakshmi Gokanapudy Hahn, MD, a WashU Medicine pediatric heart transplant cardiologist, and championed by Pirooz Eghtesady, MD, PhD, chief of Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery at WashU Medicine and co-director of the Heart Center. Since then, the team has honed the logistics necessary to successfully perform the procedure for the first time and established a foundation for future patients. As part of their preparations, St. Louis Children’s Hospital also became a registered tissue processing center, allowing valves to be prepared for transplant within the hospital.

“Everything must line up perfectly for a domino transplant,” said Janet Scheel, MD, a WashU Medicine pediatric cardiologist and medical director of the pediatric heart transplant program at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “The timing is incredibly precise, and the expertise of the entire team was essential to making it possible. It truly takes everyone working in perfect coordination.”

St. Louis Children’s Hospital and WashU Medicine have been at the forefront of pediatric organ transplantation for decades, thanks in part to the Heart Center’s close association with the adult transplant center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, also located on the Washington University Medical Campus. In addition to the heart transplant program, St. Louis Children’s Hospital and WashU Medicine have pediatric transplantation programs for lung, kidney, liver and bone marrow, and is one of the only pediatric programs in the country to perform heart-lung transplants.

“This is a milestone for our team and for patients and families hoping for long-term solutions,” said Eli Fredman, MD, a WashU Medicine pediatric cardiologist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “None of this would be possible without the trust our patients’ families place in us and the extraordinary generosity of donor families, whose decisions give hope to others.”

A recent study published in JAMA analyzed data from 19 patients who underwent valve transplantation to replace failing heart valves. The research indicates that the transplanted valves functioned reliably and continued to grow in young children. The patients were followed for an average of six months, and researchers will continue to monitor their valve function over time.

Going forward, the Heart Center team will follow both patients to monitor their recoveries and long-term health, especially the growth of the donor valve. The team is now evaluating several other patients as candidates for living heart valve transplants.

In 2024, the St. Louis Children’s and WashU Medicine Heart Center became the first pediatric heart transplant program in the country to surpass 600 pediatric heart transplants.

Smyser named director of the Division of Pediatric & Developmental Neurology

Christopher D. Smyser, MD, a professor of neurology, of psychiatry, of neurosurgery, of pediatrics and of radiology, has been named director of the Division of Pediatric & Developmental Neurology in the Department of Neurology at WashU Medicine. A specialist in neonatal neurology, Smyser has served in leadership roles for multiple national and international clinical organizations and driven multidisciplinary research to provide a greater understanding of infant brain development and neurodevelopmental disabilities. Smyser’s appointment began Sept. 1.

“Dr. Christopher Smyser brings a rare combination of qualities that uniquely position him to excel as division director,” said Jin-Moo Lee, MD, PhD, the Andrew B. & Gretchen P. Jones Professor in Neurology and head of the Department of Neurology. “He is an internationally renowned physician-scientist, a highly sought-after mentor, an exceptional clinician and a dynamic leader with a clear strategic vision.”

Smyser’s research focuses on the application of cutting-edge neuroimaging techniques to study early brain development in premature and full-term infants. In the clinic, Smyser is part of the Neonatal Neurology Clinical Service, a multidisciplinary program at St. Louis Children’s Hospital that provides comprehensive neurological care for infants at risk for adverse outcomes beginning in their earliest days of life and continuing after their discharge from the hospital. The program includes collaborations from faculty across neurology, pediatrics, genetics, neurosurgery, cardiology and maternal-fetal medicine.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to lead one of the top divisions of pediatric neurology in the country,” Smyser said. “I look forward to working with our colleagues at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and WashU Medicine to expand the clinical services we provide to our patients and families through growth and collaboration with our multidisciplinary partners, while also continuing our excellence in groundbreaking research and training the next generation of leaders in the field of pediatric neurology.”

Smyser joined WashU Medicine as a pediatric neurology resident at St. Louis Children’s Hospital nearly 20 years ago, serving as chief resident in his final year of training. After he completed his residency in 2009, Smyser joined the faculty in the Department of Neurology, where he established and subsequently led the Neonatal Neurology Clinical Program and the Baker Family Fellowship in Neonatal Neurology. He previously led the Neonatal Neurology section in the Division of Pediatric & Developmental Neurology starting in 2018 and was named the associate director of the division in 2024. Smyser earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at the University of Iowa, where he also earned his medical degree.

The Best Inventions of 2025 – MDCF-2: A vital malnutrition supplement

Two male scientists in white coats in a lab speaking.

WashU Medicine’s fellow-to-faculty programs nurture growth of talented early-career scientists

Alex Francette, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cell Biology & Physiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, already had big plans when he arrived on campus in November 2024. The first fellow in an innovative new program in the department, he would have the opportunity to pursue an independent research program before transitioning into a tenure-track faculty position. Francette had impressed the hiring committee with his proposed project to decipher how cellular dysregulation in disease can be caused by variations in specific protein molecules.

It was an ambitious plan to investigate how the instructions in DNA are faithfully turned into RNA “messages” that guide the activity of cells. Mistakes in this process can lead to cancer or other diseases. “I quickly realized that with the mentorship and the sophisticated core facilities available to me in this incredible environment, I could shift gears upward to do even more than I’d originally hoped,” he said.

The department’s fellowship program, called RISE (Retention and Inclusion of Scholars for Excellence), is designed to match talented early-career scientists with WashU Medicine’s unparalleled research infrastructure, dedicated faculty mentors and culture of scientific audacity — where researchers are encouraged to take on the toughest problems and the most complex questions. Unlike traditional postdoctoral roles, where researchers work in a senior faculty member’s lab before eventually leaving to start their own lab elsewhere, RISE fellows start developing a fully independent research program from day one. If successful, they transition directly into tenure-track faculty positions at WashU Medicine in three years, with uninterrupted momentum.

The commitment to young researchers’ career paths is what sets WashU Medicine’s fellow-to-faculty initiatives apart, according to David Piston, PhD, the Edward J. Mallinckrodt, Jr. Professor and head of the Department of Cell Biology & Physiology, who notes that similar fellowship programs have been launched in the Department of Genetics and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics.

“We’re after people who are very desirable for top-tier research institutions, and they have a lot of choices,” said Piston. The opportunity for independence and career fast-tracking to a faculty position makes the program a powerful attraction for talented young scientists, he added. “We are asking these fellows to stake a key part of their career with us. By linking their fellowship success to a faculty position, we signal that we have skin in the game, too.”

Scientific resources to RISE to the occasion

Francette is a first-generation doctoral graduate who earned his PhD in molecular biology at the University of Pittsburgh in 2024. At WashU Medicine, his mentorship team spans departments and specialties, giving him access to expertise in messenger RNA (mRNA), imaging and mammalian tissue culture, all essential to his research. His new lab is a short walk from both the McDonnell Genome Institute, where he can call on specialized assistance to analyze his large data sets of transcription elongation molecules, and the world-class microscopy facilities of the Washington University Center for Cellular Imaging, where he can observe the effects of transcription variation in his cell cultures. All told, it is a veritable candy store for an early-career molecular biologist with Francette’s aspirations.

Even so, launching a lab nearly from scratch can be daunting. Not everyone is ready for it, said Piston, who felt that Francette stood out for his scientific maturity.

“He has no reluctance to tackle difficult questions and think carefully about what he needs to do to get answers to them,” said Piston of Francette. “Our goal in the department is to ensure he has what he needs to do that.” The program provides Francette with start-up funds that he has used to hire a lab technician and purchase the equipment and supplies he needs to fill out his lab space.

Piston noted that the program’s mentorship and resources, combined with Francette’s energy, are already bearing fruit: The fellow has two papers coming out this year and a third in the works.

Fellows united

Francette is navigating this path with the support of other fellows in similar programs at WashU Medicine. Shortly after moving to St. Louis, he connected with Jackie Pelham, PhD, the inaugural Gerty and Carl Cori Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. Their connection led to “Fellows United,” an informal support group that also includes Juan Macias-Velasco, PhD, the first fellow in the Department of Genetics’ new fellow-to-faculty program.

“We have a tight-knit community and support one another as we’re starting our careers,” said Pelham, who earned her PhD in biochemistry and biophysics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and moved to St. Louis shortly thereafter.

Woman in white coat examining powder in white tubes.

Matt Miller

Jackie Pelham, PhD (left), the inaugural Gerty and Carl Cori Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, examines an assay with assistant professor Alex Holehouse, PhD (right), a faculty mentor.

Pelham came to WashU Medicine to continue her work on intrinsically disordered proteins — protein regions that lack a stable 3D structure and that are key components of the body’s circadian clock. WashU Medicine’s strengths in both disordered proteins and how circadian rhythms impact human health made it an obvious destination to launch her independent career.

Alex Holehouse, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, said that Pelham is a recognized leader in her field and has built a research program in just three years that is on par with those of well-established faculty, accomplishments that were recognized with WashU Medicine’s Rosalind Kornfeld Postgraduate Research Trainee Leadership Award. Pelham’s presence is “a net win, unambiguously, in every dimension,” said Holehouse, adding that she is an active contributor to the department in training students in molecular biology and mass spectrometry and in establishing a group, open to all faculty and students, to provide networking and career advising for women in biochemistry and biophysics.

The model is spreading. The newly launched Department of Genetics fellow-to-faculty program aims to prepare fellows not just as scientists but as future leaders. The first recruit, Macias-Velasco, earned his PhD at WashU in computational and systems biology, a field that uses sophisticated statistical approaches to understand human genetics and the development of disease.

“In academia, we’re trained to be good scientists,” said Ting Wang, PhD, the Sanford and Karen Loewentheil Distinguished Professor of Medicine and head of the Department of Genetics. But researchers who lead their own labs also wear other hats, he noted, such as those of manager, motivator and accountant. Wang encourages researchers in his department to take courses and workshops on these topics. “We are in positions of leadership, and we are training the next generation of scientists,” he said. “We want to give fellows like Juan support and opportunities so they can grow into that leadership role even faster.”

Matt Miller

Juan Macias-Velasco, PhD (left), the inaugural Dean’s Fellow to Faculty participant in the WashU Medicine Department of Genetics, reviews data with Ting Wang, PhD (right), the Sanford and Karen Loewentheil Distinguished Professor of Medicine and head of the department.

To that end — and in addition to running his own projects — Macias-Velasco manages a team of graduate and undergraduate students working in his lab and helps oversee elements of the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium (HPRC), an NIH-funded multi-institute project centered at WashU Medicine for which Wang is the principal investigator. The initiative aims to improve on the Human Genome Project, which produced — with substantial contributions from WashU Medicine — the standard genome reference sequence for scientists studying gene function and variation. The reference genome was developed from the DNA of a relatively small number of people, with 70% of its information derived from a single individual. The consortium aims to broaden that base to better capture the normal variation of human genetics by including more DNA samples.

Macias-Velasco is passionate about the power of computational biology and its potential to find answers within the genome to important questions about human health. He said that a conversation he had with a personal hero of his — Maynard Olson, PhD, a former WashU Medicine geneticist who laid the foundations for the Human Genome Project — has shaped how he thinks of his fellowship.

“He told me that one of the strengths of WashU Genetics was that it was willing to put its faith in people and their research,” said Macias-Velasco. “These fellow-to-faculty programs are a way that we can reach for those high-risk, high-reward outcomes, while being integrated into the broader WashU Medicine research community. People are holding on to us, while we reach out just a little bit further.”

A growing magnet for talent

For department chairs like Ben Garcia, PhD, the Raymond H. Wittcoff Distinguished Professor and head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, who worked to establish the Cori Fellowship, the fellow-to-faculty pathway is proving to be more than an experiment. It’s a recruitment advantage, a retention strategy and a catalyst for scientific boldness.

“Programs like this are a magnet for the kinds of ambitious and talented young scientists that we want to have at WashU Medicine,” said Garcia. “Our strengths accelerate their science, but that momentum carries us all forward.”

WashU Medicine works to integrate AI into MD curriculum

As a medical student at WashU Medicine, Quinn Payton often questioned how her professional identity might evolve in an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI). She knew she wanted to care for patients — with that, she felt confident. Rather, she wondered what that would look like in five years, 10 and beyond.

Would patients trust her medical expertise or turn to AI? Would physicians continue to diagnose disease or increasingly rely on AI? Who would be responsible for AI-related medical errors?

“AI is expanding rapidly in health care,” said Payton, who is on track to graduate in May and plans to specialize in dermatology. “Even in the few years since I started medical school, the growth has been remarkable. It’s influencing nearly every aspect of medicine, reshaping how we learn, study disease, and deliver care. It’s hard predict how different medicine will look by the time we’re practicing.”

Such concerns are valid and one of the main reasons why WashU Medicine formed a workgroup of faculty, staff and students — including Payton — to integrate AI into the school’s Gateway Curriculum, with an emphasis on AI’s ethical implications as well as its potential as a tool for improving patient care.

Indeed, advancements in AI have skyrocketed, enabling sophisticated algorithms adept at interpreting patterns in complex medical data and images with high accuracy. With the technology, patients can benefit from improved diagnosis, prognosis, earlier interventions, precision treatments and personalized health-care plans. AI can also streamline administrative tasks, allowing for increased health-care efficiency and doctors to focus more on direct care and patient relationships.

Creating a comprehensive framework for teaching AI in medical education should not be implemented hastily, said Steven J. Lawrence, MD, a professor of medicine and an assistant dean for curriculum in the Office of Education who leads the AI workgroup. “This is not just about the latest technology,” he said. “Over the decades, WashU Medicine has adapted to fast-moving technologies, but AI is evolving significantly faster and with implications for almost every aspect of our field. Our approach has been deliberate, thoughtful and gradual to ensure AI is used ethically while effectively leveraging it to improve education, research and patient care.”

Already, students can elect to study AI — as Payton did — as part of the curriculum’s EXPLORE, an immersive, longitudinal program that helps the aspiring physicians find their niche in academic medicine. Through EXPLORE, Payton and several peers conducted an institutional needs assessment on integrating AI education into the medical school curriculum, and the findings have helped inform content development. This fall, the curriculum included a class for all students on the fundamental principles of AI technology, delving into the pros and cons.

To help navigate the complexities, WashU Medicine will host Cornelius A. James, MD, one of the leading experts in AI and medical education, to present a grand rounds discussion on the topic Oct. 13 from 4-5 p.m. at the Eric P. Newman Education Center. James is also an assistant professor in the departments of internal medicine, pediatrics and learning health sciences at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The university is among the nation’s first to develop its own generative AI tools for faculty, staff and students. James is involved in multiple initiatives involving AI and medical education.

The event is part of the Inaugural Goldstein Visiting Professorship in Medical Education sponsored by the Office of Education at WashU Medicine and aimed at informing faculty, trainees and students about emerging topics.

“AI has become one of the most pressing issues in medical education,” said Eva Aagaard, MD, vice chancellor for medical education, senior associate dean for education and the Carol B. and Jerome T. Loeb Professor of Medical Education. “Dr. James is truly a visionary leader in AI in medical education and in medicine in general. We are incredibly fortunate to have him visit WashU Medicine to help equip our faculty, staff and learners with the skills needed to navigate the rapidly evolving field.”

Among the ways WashU Medicine plans to teach AI is to thread it through all aspects of the curriculum. “We see AI as a valuable tool for physicians — not to replace clinicians,” Lawrence said. “This involves integrating AI tools into medical education, alongside traditional learning about anatomy or how the heart functions, to better diagnose diseases and improve health outcomes for patients.”

Other important considerations include bias and fairness. If AI systems are trained on unrepresentative or biased datasets, they can perpetuate — or even amplify — existing inequities in health care, leading to differences in treatment based on race, gender, socioeconomic status and other factors. Additionally, while AI has the potential to improve care, patients treated at hospitals or clinics without access to these technologies may not benefit equally, creating new gaps in health care.

The curriculum also aims to teach students how to become critical thinkers when using AI, said Philip R. O. Payne, PhD, a global leader in informatics and data science who is collaborating with the AI workgroup. He also co-leads the Center for Health AI, a partnership between WashU Medicine and BJC Health System to advance the design, adoption and use of artificial intelligence to enhance health care operations and the delivery of care. For example, the curriculum will teach students to appraise the credibility, impact and relevance of studies, protocols and other information that inform patient care by examining the datasets inputted into AI, the AI models used, and the questions researchers asked AI.

Similarly, students will learn how to achieve accurate results from AI by writing focused and narrowed prompts or queries. “Placing parameters around how AI, and in particular Generative AI, is used and how the results are conveyed will generate more trustworthy results,” said Payne, who is also the Janet and Bernard Becker Professor and director of the Institute for Informatics, Data Science and Biostatistics (I2DB).

Overall, Payne said, the curriculum seeks to reframe the conversation about AI from portraying it as a big, abstract technology to focusing on its practical applications in clinical care, such as assisting physicians in identifying cancerous tumors on radiology imaging that would otherwise be imperceptible the human eye, or predicting a hospitalized patient’s risk of sepsis or the likelihood of blood loss during surgery. “By telling stories of real clinical scenarios and research problems, we’re showing students how AI can help shape medical decision-making,” he said.

“AI alone should not diagnose patients and dictate treatments,” Payne added. “AI should be used as a tool to empower health-care providers and patients by improving documentation and data accuracy, and focusing their attention on crucial health signals, thus making care more affordable, safer, and of higher quality. However, the emphasis remains on the human connection between physicians and their patients.”

Anecdotally, ambient scribes — AI notetaking tools that transcribe conversations between physicians and patients with their consent — have helped strengthen such connections, said Albert M. Lai, PhD, chief research information officer and deputy director for I2DB. Used in a growing number of WashU Medicine clinics and in doctors’ offices nationwide, the “scribes” free doctors from the computer and allow them to engage more personally with patients.

The ambient scribes also allow doctors to read body language, which can often guide the questions they ask patients. “No longer is a patient talking while the doctor is focused on the computer,” said Lai, also an assistant dean for biomedical informatics and a professor of medicine and of computer science. “Our patients are pleased with the ambient AI scribes because they feel more connected with their doctors.”

For Payton, the AI workgroup has helped sharpen her understanding of how these technologies will influence her identity as a physician. “Collaborating with faculty and staff has given me a more holistic view of AI’s potential to improve diagnosis and treatment as well as engage with patients, while also being mindful of its limitations and ethical implications.”

An illustration of a calendar page with the number 330 on it

It’s never too late for those with cancer to quit smoking

Around 25% of people with cancer in the U.S. are active smokers when they are diagnosed, and studies have found that many of them continue to smoke during treatment. This may be due in part to a common misconception — even among some doctors — that quitting won’t help much if a person already has cancer, particularly if it’s at an advanced stage.

Now, a study led by Li-Shiun Chen, MD, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, shows that kicking the habit after starting cancer treatment is well worth it — and what’s more, smokers with the most advanced cancers glean the biggest benefit from quitting, more than doubling their survival time.

Patients in Chen’s study had help quitting through a smoking cessation program developed and administered at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine. The program offers a unique approach to cancer care by integrating smoking cessation interventions into patients’ cancer treatment plans. Delivering all treatment on-site eliminates hurdles involving time and transportation.

Chen’s findings were published Oct. 9 in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

“WashU Medicine and Siteman are the leading frontier to ensure every cancer patient is offered tobacco treatment as part of their cancer care, using a novel, informatics-enabled, point-of-care model,” said Chen, who also directs the Tobacco Treatment Program at Siteman. “By showing that it’s never too late, even for the sickest patients, we hope to inspire all cancer centers and patients to include smoking cessation support as part of routine cancer care to improve survival.”

In the study, Chen and her collaborators followed 13,282 adults who received outpatient oncology care during a six-month period at Siteman. The team recorded each participant’s smoking status at their initial visit, then tracked cessation rates over the next six months along with survival over the next two years. Of 1,725 patients who reported at their first visit that they smoked, about one-fifth of them quit within the following six months.

Across all cancer types and stages, the researchers found that the probability of survival two years after patients’ initial oncology visit was 74% among those who continued smoking, versus 85% among those who quit. This benefit was driven mainly by patients with late-stage cancers (stage 3 or 4), among whom quitting was associated with a bigger increase in survival rate over this time period compared to people with early-stage cancer (stage 1 or 2).

Examining the results another way, the researchers found that for patients with stage 3 or 4 cancer who kept smoking, 85% were alive at 210 days. In comparison, of those who quit, 85% were still alive at 540 days. That’s nearly a year of additional days of life.

“Advanced-stage cancer patients often feel hopeless,” said first author Steven Tohmasi, MD, a resident in the Department of Surgery at WashU Medicine. “If they feel they have limited time, some doctors might not actively encourage patients to quit smoking or may prioritize patient comfort over cessation efforts. But when we’ve shown patients our data, it gives them hope and motivates them to want to quit. An extra year of life is a long time for patients who may have been told they only had months to live.”

An illustration of a calendar page with the number 330 on it. Text above the calendar reads, "Quitting smoking today gives you more tomorrows." Text below the calendar reads, "Number of days gained among cancer patients who quit smoking."

Sara Moser/WashU Medicine

A smoking cessation program developed by WashU Medicine researchers and deployed at Siteman Cancer Center prolongs life for cancer patients, according to a new study. Regardless of their type of cancer or how advanced it was, cancer patients lived nearly a year longer when they quit smoking compared to patients who continued smoking.

The fourth pillar of treatment

Siteman’s team-based approach to tobacco care was developed as part of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Center Cessation Initiative, which is focused on helping NCI-designated cancer centers incorporate evidence-based tobacco treatments into clinical care. The goal, in essence, is making smoking cessation “the fourth pillar of cancer treatment, alongside surgery, radiation and chemotherapy,” Tohmasi explained.

Siteman’s smoking-cessation program uses electronic health records to identify patients who smoke and gauge their interest in quitting. A nurse or medical assistant then offers assistance with quitting during their visit, such as access to phone- or text-based counseling, an app designed to help them quit, referral to a smoking-cessation group, and medications to support quitting.

In earlier research, Chen showed that the program helped more cancer patients quit successfully than previous methods had. In a related study, Chen also found evidence that quitting smoking could improve treatment efficacy and boost survival rates. But Chen said she faced some professional pushback at the idea of following that research thread further.

“People told us that we were wasting time — that we should work on smoking cessation in patients who aren’t already so sick,” Chen said. “Smoking is also highly addictive and it’s hard for people to quit. So we needed to be sure the effort would be worthwhile for patients and for their care teams.”

In the new study, Chen and Tohmasi analyzed the outcomes of all Siteman patients seen over the designated six-month period. The group included patients with all kinds of cancers at all stages who came from across the St. Louis metro area and southern Illinois, representing an array of demographic backgrounds. This differentiated the study from some previous research on smoking cessation in cancer patients that focused only on certain cancer types and never examined the survival benefit of quitting in people with advanced cancers.

By linking cancer survival to tobacco use for all cancer patients across severity levels and including patients who were never, former or current smokers, Chen and Tohmasi were able to gain a broad perspective on smoking cessation and the important role of Siteman’s integrated treatment program.

The program has been scaled and adapted for several of Siteman’s partner health centers. Based on its success, the model was implemented in 14 clinics affiliated with Siteman Cancer Center across eastern Missouri and southern Illinois starting in July 2025. Nationally, the program has been disseminated through EpicShare, where it continues to prove both cost-effective and successful in supporting smoking cessation.

Starting in September 2025 with the support of a $1.6 million NCI grant, Chen and colleagues Alex Ramsey, PhD, an associate professor of psychiatry at WashU Medicine, and Ross Brownson, PhD, the Steven H. and Susan U. Lipstein Distinguished Professor in WashU School of Public Health, launched a pragmatic clinical trial on tobacco treatment, including smoking cessation. The trial aims to compare how different care models can scale and sustain tobacco use treatment among cancer survivors in different care settings serving cancer survivors across eight states. The trial will be conducted with research partners at four regional hubs: WashU Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the St. Louis VA Medical Center.

Michael Meers, PhD, Janet Sorrells, PhD, and Andrew Young, MD, PhD.

WashU researchers honored with NIH Director’s Awards

Three researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have received prestigious and highly competitive awards through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program. The awards support unconventional approaches to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research.

Michael P. Meers, PhD, has received the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. Janet Sorrells, PhD, and Andrew L. Young, MD, PhD, have received the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award. The New Innovator Award supports unusually innovative research from investigators who are within 10 years of their final degree or clinical residency and have not yet received a large independent NIH grant. The Early Independence Award supports the launch of research careers for exceptional junior scientists who recently received their doctoral degree or completed clinical training.

Boosting the efficiency of regenerating tissue

Meers, an assistant professor in the Department of Genetics at WashU Medicine, is focused on developing new tools and techniques to help guide stem cells to becoming specific mature cell types. Such tools could nurture the nascent field of regenerative medicine, in which stem cells or even specialized cell types, such as skin cells, could be reprogrammed to form new tissues and organs that could replace those damaged by disease or injury.

Most existing processes for directing cells to take on particular functions or identities are inefficient in producing the targeted cell type, making them unsuitable to treating human disease. Meers and his team are developing a novel time-lapse profiling method to monitor changes in how a cell’s genes are regulated as it goes through the reprogramming process. A better understanding of these changes could lead to the development of more precise and efficient cell conversion methods that are more suitable for human therapeutics.

“Some of the most groundbreaking, paradigm-shifting science has historically come from the sorts of research that took risks, and we’re pleased to have the opportunity to pursue that sort of research with this NIH support,” Meers said. “This award is a green light to focus solely and without distraction on exactly what we think will make the greatest positive impact on scientific knowledge and human health.”

Revealing the origins of inflammatory bowel disease

Sorrells, an assistant professor in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering, is focused on developing a new imaging tool to study inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a chronic gastrointestinal disorder that increases the risk of colorectal cancer. Significant gaps exist in the knowledge of how host cells and intestinal microbes interact in real time within the intestinal microenvironment.

Sorrells is developing an integrated optical imaging platform that can observe the intestinal microenvironment in mice with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Most laboratory methods rely on bulk analysis of extracted tissue, which eliminates spatial context, or use imaging techniques that cannot achieve both the resolution and the speed needed to capture microbial behavior and host metabolism in vivo.

“We lose the ability to look at complicated dynamics that happen on the seconds scale within biological systems, and we also lose the ability to get higher throughput of larger areas,” she said. “One of the goals of this grant is to develop a new method for label-free super-resolution, with nonlinear optical microscopy.”

Sorrells’ approach ensures that the measurements reflect native physiology rather than an experimental artifact.

“The application is to look at a living gut microbiome,” she said. “Seeing how both bacteria and host cells are interacting over time and looking at how that changes spatially will help us better understand the many factors at play in the gut microbiome. Looking at live bacteria-host interactions will allow us to understand healthy and diseased states.”

The new imaging tool also could be used to study other complex tissue microenvironments, including those relevant to cancer, infection and autoimmune disorders.

Understanding aging’s effect on cancer risk

Young, an assistant professor in the Division of Hematology at WashU Medicine, studies how genetic mutations in blood and bone marrow cells acquired with age contribute to cancer risk. Most previous work in this area has looked at mutations in individuals who have already developed cancer, to see which mutations might have been responsible. Young’s research will focus on studying such mutations in cancer-free adults at advanced ages to better understand who goes on to develop cancer and why.

Because most of these cancer-related mutations can exist in the body for long periods of time but never lead to cancer, studying such genetic changes in healthy adults could provide new clues to preventing cancer.

“We have a relatively good understanding of how germline genetic risk, such as inherited BCRA1 mutations, and environmental exposures such as smoking lead to disease,” said Young, who treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine. “But we know less about how the genomic changes associated with ‘normal’ aging drive the development of disease and could be used to predict or prevent those diseases. This support will allow us to conduct the foundational experiments necessary to understanding how aging affects our bodies at the genomic level and how those genomic changes influence human disease.”

A promise to future patients

Amid smiles, cheers and bursts of applause, friends and families gathered at the Eric P. Newman Education Center on the Medical Campus Friday, Oct. 3, to watch first-year medical students at WashU Medicine put on their white coats for the first time. The crisp new coats signify the beginning of the students’ journey into the medical profession and the profound responsibility they have as future physicians.

“Today’s ceremony is not just about donning a symbolic garment,” said Tammy L. Sonn, MD, associate dean for student affairs and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, in her welcoming remarks. “It’s about acknowledging the transformative journey you are about to embark upon.”

Watch a video from the event (Credit: Katie Gertler/WashU Medicine).

The 123 students in this year’s entering class earned undergraduate degrees from 71 different colleges and universities and hail from 30 states and eight countries. Their white coats also reflect the trust patients and society place in physicians — a trust they will learn to honor through compassion, integrity and skill. At WashU Medicine, students train alongside many of the nation’s leading physicians and physician-scientists, supported by faculty educators dedicated to preparing them to become the next generation of leaders in medicine.

Infographic about entering class of 2025

Sara Moser

Click the image to view Class of 2025 student statistics in full size.

While the ceremony marks a beginning for so many, this year’s event was also especially significant for 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 White Coat Ceremony is among his favorite medical student milestones, and this one will be his last as dean before concluding his deanship in June 2026.

“Each of you will do something different with the white coats you receive today, and each of you will have your own unique story of which this ceremony here, and your time with us in medical school, is only the very first chapter,” Perlmutter said. “But what you share — and what you will share forever — is what brought you here to this place and to this moment, and it is that uniquely human impulse to care.

“All the incredible innovation we’ve witnessed and benefited from in medicine and medical science over the last 10, 20, 100 years was made possible because there were people who cared enough to make the art and science of healing others their life’s work. We must never forget that attention to detail, curiosity and empathy are first and foremost powerful human capabilities and that life experiences and what we learn from them are essential to our expertise.”

That focus on care was woven into every word of the student oath.

Dozens of first-year students collaborated to create a personalized oath, which the class recited together during the ceremony. They promised to earn and honor their patients’ trust, act as agents of change, use the knowledge and power entrusted to them to advocate for vulnerable individuals, and — recognizing their own limitations — act within their capabilities.

First-year medical students reading from card

Matt Miller

First-year students in their new white coats read the personalized oath together.

During his keynote address, Amjad Musleh, MD, a WashU Medicine associate professor of anesthesiology and of emergency medicine and a leader of the Gateway Coaching program, reinforced the significance of the oath. “While the white coat you received today is yours to keep, the oath you take is for all of us in this room and everyone whose life you will touch. Success is not measured by the coat you wear or the accolades you receive, but by the lives you touch while wearing it.”

First-year students Kaie Hall and Sara Albert were reflective about the impact they can have as future physicians.

While an undergraduate, Hall spent two summers at WashU Medicine and worked with Juliane Bubeck-Wardenburg, MD, PhD, the Donald B Strominger Professor of Pediatrics. Not only did the experiences solidify his choice to learn and train at WashU Medicine, they also left a lasting impression on the kind of physician-scientist he wants to be.

“I learned firsthand from Dr. Bubeck-Wardenburg how it’s not just about treating patients,” Hall said. “It’s about treating the patient and the community around them as well.” He intends to carry that perspective into his MD/PhD studies and beyond.

After a moving experience with a patient during her time as a hospice volunteer, Albert hopes to blend her undergraduate study of neuroscience and linguistics with her lifelong love of singing as she cares for others. “This ceremony marks a new chapter in our lives,” she said. “As white coats are placed around our shoulders, we, too, embrace the compassion and our new responsibilities as physicians-in-training. I’m excited to see how each of us will use our white coats to effect positive change.”

Photos by Matt Miller. Click to enlarge.