Year: 2017

Tiffany M. Osborn, MD, professor of surgery and of emergency medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is a leading expert in sepsis. She co-authored a study published May 21 in The New England Journal of Medicine that stresses the need for an aggressive response to the condition.

Using genomics, a chemistry lab has worked out the biosynthetic machinery that makes a new class of antibiotic compounds called the beta-lactones. Like the beta-lactams, such as penicillin, they have an unstable four-member ring. The key to their antibiotic activity, it is also difficult to synthesize.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton presented Phyllis Jackson, associate director of Campus Life – event management, with the Gloria W. White Distinguished Service Award at the annual Staff Day celebration May 22 in Edison Theatre.

The discovery of anomalously high levels of mercury in rocks from the Ordivician geological period has led to a new interpretation of the ensuing mass extinction. A sequence of disturbances may have led to catastrophic cooling by reflective sulfate aerosols injected into the atmosphere by massive volcanism. The finding is important since aerosol cooling is under consideration as a way to temper global warming.

Stroke patients who learned to use their minds to open and close a device fitted over their paralyzed hands gained some control over their hands, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

The U.S. Supreme Court this week struck down North Carolina’s federal House district boundaries as unconstitutional, finding the lines were drawn based on race. However, Democrats and liberals who welcomed the decision may not be cheering for long, said a constitutional law and Supreme Court expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Campus Kitchen at Washington University seeks volunteers during the summer to help prepare meals for the hungry. Cooking shifts are 6-8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays from June 6 through Aug. 10 at the First Congregational Church on Wydown Boulevard.

For the first time, a group of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis used a big-data approach to determine the effects of minimum-wage changes on business. The Olin Business School faculty processed wage data on more than 2 million hourly workers from across the country over a six-year period. The results? There are winners and losers.

The May 22 issue marks the last daily Record of the 2016-17 academic year. The next issue will be published Wednesday, May 31, and then twice weekly through the summer. Visit The Source for the latest news between issues.

Images from in and around the Washington University campuses.