St. Louis Children’s Hospital

The faculty mentors participating in the Ferring Scholars Program devote time and resources to create opportunities for student participation in their laboratories. Mentor support for the Ferring Scholars Program is a reflection commitment ensuring that participants have a greater opportunity for successful careers in the medical health profession. All faculty mentors participate in the program on a voluntary basis and provide resources to support each Ferring Scholar.

Carolyn Baum, PhD
Dr. Baum is a Professor of Occupational Therapy at Washington University School of Medicine.  Dr. Baum's research focuses on enabling older adults to live independently. Rather than focus on people's deficits, she seeks to understand what a person with chronic disease or disability can do. Her work has been recognized by funding from the National Institutes of Health, The James S. McDonnell Foundation, the Social Security Administration and OASIS (the Older Adults Service and Information System).

Anne M. Bowcock, PhD
Dr. Bowcock is a Professor of Genetics.  Her major interest is the genetic basis of human complex disease. One of the ongoing projects is the investigation of the genetic basis of autoimmune diseases with a major emphasis on the inflammatory disease of skin and joints, psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. Other diseases currently under investigation in her laboratory include the epilepsies, melanoma, asthma and obesity. They recently identified two regions on human chromosome 17q25 associated with psoriasis. The first region harbors two genes, NAT9 and SLC9A3R1. The gene in the second region is RAPTOR (regulatory protein of mTOR). This is involved in regulation of cell growth in response to a variety of signals including nutrient deprivation and immune stimulation.  The predisposing variants all lie within non-coding DNA and one variant within the first region abolishes a binding site for the transcription factor RUNX1/AML1. Alterations of RUNX1 binding have also been described in genes associated with lupus erythematosus and with rheumatoid arthritis. Hence, RUNX1 is likely to play an important role in tolerance. The lab is using genomic approaches to investigate the role of RUNX in normal and diseased states. Additional susceptibility loci are being identified with state-of-the art approaches to complex genetic disease including family collection, high throughput genotyping and statistical analyses. Once genetic variants are identified they use functional genomic approaches to determine the consequences of predisposing genetic alterations. These include inactivation of these genes in animal models such as the mouse.

Kathleen Keenan Bucholz, PhD
Dr. Bucholz is a Professor of Psychiatry.  The main research interest of Dr. Bucholz is the development of and course of alcohol and other drug use problems and disorders in adolescents and young adults. She is leading two studies to address this interest. The first is a family study of adolescents and their brothers and sisters (ages 13 and older)  in the state of Missouri.  Some of these children come from high risk families, where the father has a history of alcohol disorders or drunk driving arrests.  Over 450 mothers and fathers, and 800 of their children have been interviewed over the telephone about their use of alcohol, tobacco  and drugs, as well as other psychiatric problems.  Half of these families are African American, who have not been included in sufficient numbers in prior family studies.  Her second study focuses on children of twin fathers (“offspring of twins”), which is an unusual design that permits classification of children into groups that differ in their levels of genetic and of environmental risks for developing drug and alcohol use disorders.  They have interviewed by telephone 839 children of twin fathers with and without drug use disorders, and 1270 children of twin fathers with and without alcoholism.  Like the interview used in the Missouri family study, the interview in this study  covers a wide range of drug, tobacco and alcohol use and problems, along with other areas such as mood problems, anxiety, delinquency, etc.   In the Bucholz laboratory, there are several other investigators and post-doctoral and pre-doctoral fellows,  and other staff who meet regularly to discuss analyses of data. She also works with colleagues in California and at the University of Missouri – Columbia on the same data sets.  In addition to these projects, Dr Bucholz is Associate Editor of a journal devoted to alcohol and drug use disorders, manages the review process for papers on this topic, and also participates in other research groups and seminars that focus on alcohol and drug problems.

Carolyn L. Cannon, MD, PhD
Dr. Cannon is an Instructor in Pediatrics in the Division of Allergy and Pulmonary Medicine at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Associate Director of both the pediatric pulmonary fellowship training program and the Cystic Fibrosis Center. Children with cystic fibrosis (CF) have chronic lung infections with a variety of bacteria, but the problem organisms are multi-drug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa and members of the Burkholderia cepacia complex. Her laboratory focuses on understanding the pathogenesis of lung infections with these organisms and has developed unique animal models of infection with an epidemic strain of Burkholderia dolosa, a species in the B. cepacia complex. They have used this and other models including models of P. aeruginosa infection, to investigate the utility of a novel class of nebulized silver-based anti-microbial agents as treatment for both the chronic infections that CF patients face, as well as acute pneumonia. In addition to understanding the mechanisms responsible for chronic infection in CF patients and developing these new anti-microbial agents, Dr. Cannon is interested in understanding the molecular basis of bacterial silver resistance.  This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Mary O. Carayannopoulos, PhD
Dr. Carayannopoulos is an Instructor in Pediatrics.  It is well established that women with diabetes are at an increased risk for having children with birth defects.   Due to this observation, the long-range goal of her research is to understand how exposure to alterations in sugar metabolism during embryonic development can result in birth defects.  To study this question, they have established an animal model in which a sugar transporter, Glut1, has been abolished.  Decreasing the expression of this transporter results in the development of brain abnormalities.  The animal model they are studying is a small vertebrate fish, the zebrafish.  This is an excellent model to study early development because the embryos are transparent, they develop very quickly and they develop outside of the mother.   On-going projects include further characterization of the Glut1 deficient zebrafish to determine what other molecules may be involved in this process.  In addition, Dr. Carayannopoulos is also interested in identifying other sugar transporters in the zebrafish to understand how they may contribute to maintaining sugar homeostasis during development. 

Anne Connolly, MD
Dr. Connolly is an Associate Professor of Neurology in the Divison of Pediatric Neurology and Associate Professor of Pediatrics.  The long term goals of her basic and clinical research is better treatment and therefore to preserve strength in children with muscular dystrophy and other causes of weakness.  In her laboratory, they make use of mouse models of muscular dystrophy to study the effects of treatment and exercise in these models.  Dr. Connolly is also interested in clinical work looking at long term outcomes of children with abnormal muscle biopsies under the age of two years.

Linda Cottler, PhD, MPH
Dr. Cottler is Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, and Director of the Epidemiology and Prevention Research Group.  Her research has focused on methods for conducting research, specifically alcohol and drug abuse and dependence, its comorbidity with other disorders, and consequences, such as HIV and STDs. She is also involved in community based efforts in St. Louis, Miami, Sydney, India, and Taiwan.  Specifically, her contributions include the development of widely used interviews for substance use and other psychiatric disorders (the DIS and SAM), research on the consequences of substance use, nosological isues of substance abuse and dependence, and peer-delivered interventions to reduce high risk behaviors that lead to HIV and other STDs.  Recently, her work has focused on women.  Cottler has mentored 30 Post-doc or graduate students, is the Director of an NIMH Post-Doctoral and NIDA Pre and Post-Doctoral Training Program, a Fogarty International Training Program in India, and has won the Academic Women's Network Mentorship Award and the WU Post-Doc Society award for Outstanding Mentorship. She is currently President of the Academic Women’s Network at WU.  In the 18 years she has been a PI, she has published extensively, been on the Editorial Board of a number of journals, and consulted on numerous research studies. 

Carmen Dence, MS
Carmen Dence is a Research Associate Professor of Radiology. For the last 27 years she has been associated with WUSM as a basic/medical sciences investigator. All these years she has worked as a radiochemist in the development, improvement and use of cyclotron produced radiotracers as imaging agents in the field of Positron Emission Tomography (PET radiotracers). These radiotracers are of extreme importance to the physician as diagnostic tools for practically all major diseases, but especially in the fields of oncology, cardiology and neurology. Her work involves an intimate collaboration (among others) with cyclotron operators, analytical chemist, production chemist, computer programmers, statisticians, biomedical engineers, nurses, clinicians, nuclear medicine and animal technologist, to ultimately bring a final radioactive product ready to inject to a patient and to capture an imagine with special cameras called PET, of the “living tissue biochemistry” as opposed to just anatomy.  PET radiochemists are in high demand all over the world, and their contribution to the advances of nuclear medicine is recognized as essential to the field of “molecular imaging.”

Valerie Halpin, MD
Dr. Halpin is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine.  She specializes in advanced laparoscopic and bariatric surgery.  She completed medical school and a general surgery residency at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.  She did a research fellowship at the Washington University Institute for Minimally Invasive Surgery.  She is currently the coursemaster for the 3rd year Integrated Surgical Disciplines clerkship at the School of Medicine and active on the admissions committee. Her research interests include Surgical Education and Outcomes after Laparoscopic and Bariatric Surgery.

Allison King, MD
Dr. King is an Instructor in Pediatrics and attending physician in hematology/oncology and is board-certified in pediatrics and pediatric oncology. She completed additional training in neuro-oncology, and she is a member of the pediatric neuro-oncology team at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Dr. King is interested in educational outcomes and interventions as it relates to brain injury in the field of pediatric hematology and oncology. She is specifically interested in students with sickle cell disease, with and without cerebral infarcts, as well as students with brain tumors who will receive radiation therapy. She is a member of Dr. Michael DeBaun’s clinical research laboratory. Prior studies completed with Dr. DeBaun addressed the poor educational attainment in students with sickle cell disease, to probe the possible barriers to educational outcomes for these students, to intervene in the school setting with a rehabilitation program, and to educate these students’ teachers about the common issues these students face. She continues to expand on investigations and interventions for children with sickle cell disease and cognitive deficits. In addition to her research focus in cerebral infarcts in children with sickle cell disease, Dr. King has extended her research into other children with brain injuries, children with brain tumors. Specifically, she is interested in educational outcomes of these children. Using a similar approach that the DeBaun lab used for students with sickle cell disease, she has focused on initially evaluating the epidemiology of educational attainment of long-term survivors of brain tumors. She will continue to develop her investigations of epidemiology and interventions for survivors of pediatric brain tumors.

Linda Larson-Prior, PhD
Dr. Larson-Prior directs the Electrical Imaging laboratory, which is a part of the Neuroimaging Laboratory of the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology.  The laboratory focuses on the integration of electrophysiological and functional imaging data in human subjects.  Three major research thrusts characterize the laboratory focus.  A primary interest of the laboratory is the investigation of the bases of state changes and state transitions in the brain.  The change from waking to sleeping states represents one avenue of investigation of such changes, with an emphasis on the transition from waking to sleep as well as the transitional and state changes seen in different identifiable stages of non-REM sleep.  A second major research thrust is in auditory processing where the lab is interested in examining the neural mechanisms used in identifying sound and comprehending speech in both normal subjects and individual's with hearing loss.  Research focused on the response, both neural and behavioral, to sensory loss in the auditory system includes collaborations with other hearing scientists in the Washington University community.  The third fundamental interest of the laboratory is in the analysis of electrophysiological signals recorded from the human brain, including the development of new signal processing technologies for integration of these signals with those obtained by other imaging or recording modalities. 

Catherine Striley, PhD
Dr. Striley is a research instructor in the Department of Psychiatry, Associate Director of the Masters in Psychiatric Epidemiology Program, and Ombudsperson for two NIH-funded training grants. Dr. Striley is the evaluator/researcher for a federal grant to the International Institute of St. Louis to understand and increase community capacity to serve victims of human trafficking, and is a co-investigator on two grants to Dr. Linda Cottler: one to prevent HIV and future substance abuse in high-risk women in the criminal justice system through the St. Louis municipal court, and one to “deconstruct” the intervention used in a randomized control trial of HIV prevention. Dr Striley currently has a grant from the Office of Research Integrity to sponsor a conference entitled “Mentoring and Supervision for the Responsible Conduct of Research” and pursues a special interest in research ethics and responsible conduct through service on the University’s Institutional Review Board. Dr. Striley prioritizes community-based research among populations with reduced access to medical care and vulnerability due to poverty; drug use; or refugee, immigrant or minority status. By collaborating with community partner agencies, Dr. Striley expects to uncover and experiment with interventions for case-finding, referrals, and interventions to reduce barriers and increase access to care. Her dissertation on cultural factors in care seeking among American-Indian teens was funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (R-03).

Denise E. Wilfley, PhD
Dr. Wilfley is Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, Pediatrics, and Psychology and director of the Weight Management and Eating Disorders Program at Washington University School of Medicine.  Over the past decade, she has been funded by NIH in a programmatic line of research that focuses on the causes, characterization, prevention, and treatment of eating disorders and obesity in a wide range of patient populations. Dr. Wilfley is currently supported by an NIH-funded K24 Midcareer Investigator Award in Patient Oriented Research entitled “Clinical Research in Eating Disorders and Obesity”, which allows her dedicated time for patient-oriented research and the training and mentoring of  students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty. Her research objectives include investigating the role of familial and social factors in the etiology, prevention, and treatment of eating and weight disorders; utilizing principles of basic behavioral science to inform eating disorders and obesity research; and determining intervention and prevention strategies aimed at preventing comorbidity, relapse, and disability in eating disorders and obesity. Her current and recent projects include an international six-center study evaluating family-based and pharmacological treatments for anorexia nervosa; an investigation of family-based weight-loss treatments for obese children and adults; a national, multi-site program investigating the use and efficacy of an intensive lifestyle intervention in achieving glycemic control among children and adolescents with recent onset Type 2 diabetes; the examination of an Internet-based intervention for the prevention of eating disorders; and a national, multi-site evaluation of the effectiveness of psychological treatments for obesity and binge eating disorder (BED).