The platelets in our blood are best known as clotting agents, but they are great healing agents, too. Platelets don’t just clot. They also help structures to regrow and remodel. Washington University orthopedics specialists at Barnes-Jewish Hospital make the most of platelets’ healing qualities through platelet-rich plasma therapy. The best candidates for this procedure are people who have arthritis, especially mild arthritis.

Living unhoused increases the risk for developing mental illness and infectious and non-infectious disease. Hospital to Housing employs a long-range, multi-pronged approach designed to help people with complex, interrelated needs find housing and achieve better health. From its pilot phase in 2019 to its current expansion phase, the program has helped more than 70 people.

Thirty-five years ago, specialists at Washington University School of Medicine and what was then Barnes Hospital played an integral role in advancing the new and developing field of lung transplantation. In January 2023, the Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Transplant Center performed its 2,000^th lung transplantation. Here’s how it happened.

Once considered a disease that primarily affected older adults, colorectal cancer no longer fits that description. Over the past two decades, the number of new cases of colorectal cancer in adults under the age of 50 in the United States and worldwide has increased dramatically. The National Cancer Institute now projects that by 2030 it will be the leading cause of cancer deaths in Americans between the ages of 20 and 49. Oncologists across the country are alarmed by this fairly recent trend—and they want you to take notice, too.

A growing pile of evidence indicates that the tens of trillions of microbes that normally live in our intestines—the so-called gut microbiome—have far-reaching effects on how our bodies function. Members of this microbial community produce vitamins, help us digest food, prevent the overgrowth of harmful bacteria and regulate the immune system, among other benefits. Now, a new study suggests that the gut microbiome also plays a key role in the health of our brains, according to researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.