Month: August 2017

Question: Washington University is affiliated with 24 Nobel laureates. From which academic discipline does our most recent Nobel Prize winner hail?

Faculty and staff are invited to take part in this year’s Common Reading Program. First-year students are reading “Frankenstein,” by Mary Shelley. Faculty and staff may register to download the book and take part in staff discussions, starting in mid-August.

The combination of a bacterium that normally lives in the gut and a protein-rich diet promotes a more tolerant, less inflammatory gut immune system, according to new research at the School of Medicine. The findings may potentially spell relief for people living with inflammatory bowel disease.

A new study from the School of Medicine shows that a particular gut microbe can prevent severe flu infections in mice, likely by breaking down naturally occurring compounds — called flavonoids — commonly found in foods such as black tea, red wine and blueberries.

The 21st Century Cures Act and key changes made during its drafting remain controversial and show the need for a more informed comment period for future health care legislation, says an expert on health law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Sophisticated techniques for testing hypotheses about the brain by activating and silencing genes are currently available for only a handful of model organisms. Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis are working on a simplified toolkit that will allow scientists who study animal behavior to manipulate the genomes of many other animals with the hope of accelerating progress in our understanding of the brain.

Timothy Moore, the John and Penelope Biggs Distinguished Professor of Classics and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Classics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, recently delivered a paper titled “Meter, Music and Memory in Roman Theater” at a workshop on “Music and Memory in the Ancient Mediterranean World,” sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University.

Brett Teng Gao, an incoming senior at Washington University in St. Louis, recently was part of a team that won the Google-sponsored Artificial Intelligence Genomics Hackathon.

Images from in and around the Washington University campuses.