News & Events

The Department of Genetics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has been ranked No. 5 in the nation for NIH funding in 2025, according to the latest report from the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research. The achievement places WashU Medicine’s genetics department among the nation’s most well-funded hubs of genetic discovery, ahead of many prestigious research institutions.

The Department of Genetics Seminar Series continued on Thursday, February 26, with the Dutcher Tenure Recognition Seminar, featuring an in-person presentation by Guoyan Zhao, PhD, Associate Professor with Tenure in the Department of Genetics at WashU Medicine. Held in Moore Auditorium, the event brought together faculty, trainees, and staff to celebrate Dr. Zhao’s promotion and scientific accomplishments. The Dutcher Tenure Recognition Seminar is a long-held tradition in the Department of Genetics, honoring faculty members upon their promotion to tenure. The seminar recognizes not only their research excellence, but also their contributions to mentorship, scholarship, and the academic community.

What if a simple metabolic byproduct could sharpen memory? Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have discovered that acetate, a ubiquitous metabolite, can significantly enhance long-term memory in female mice by reshaping the epigenetic and transcriptional landscape of key learning centers. The findings, published in Science Signaling, reveal that memory enhancement can arise from subtle metabolic byproducts that interact with chromatin in sex- and context-specific ways.

Despite decades of study, the genetic, molecular and environmental influences that drive extended health span and delayed onset of age-related disease are not fully understood. A multidisciplinary team of researchers plans to address this gap by creating interpretable graph neural network models capable of integrating large, multi-omic datasets collected from centenarians and other long-lived individuals with a three-year, $1.53 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop transparent artificial intelligence (AI) models that may reveal the biological underpinnings of exceptional human longevity.

A collaborative research effort between laboratories at Washington University School of Medicine has identified molecular and cellular mechanisms by which a ketogenic diet (KD) alters synaptic communication in the brain — revealing how metabolic state can reshape neuronal networks at the transcriptional, epigenetic, and physiological levels. Spearheaded by first authors Marion Stunault, PhD, Pan-Yue Deng, PhD and Anjali Yadav, PhD, the study, “Ketogenic diet dampens excitatory neurotransmission by shrinking synaptic vesicle pools,” was recently published in Cell Reports and provides foundational insight into how diet-induced metabolic changes influence excitatory circuits in the hippocampus.