Month: August 2019

Research from Washington University in St. Louis finds that mutations of a gene implicated in long QT syndrome in humans may trigger seizures because of their direct effects on certain classes of neurons in the brain — independent from what the genetic mutations do to heart function. The new work from Arts & Sciences was conducted with fruit flies and is published August 8 in PLOS Genetics.

Rhaisa Williams, assistant professor of performing arts in Arts & Sciences, remembers Toni Morrison’s “magnificent wield of imagination.”

Toni Morrison, who died Aug. 5 at the age of 88, was among the most powerful, popular and influential writers of her generation. Introducing her to a packed Graham Chapel in 1991, William Gass, professor, declared that “Beloved,” which had won the Pulitzer Prize three years earlier, “has the old roar of the great work, back in the days when great works roared.”

Eileen G’Sell, senior lecturer in writing and in the Prison Education Project, both in Arts & Sciences, was a finalist in the 2019 Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation grant program for visual art journalists.

Michael Nowak, research professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, received a $44,887 grant from the Smithsonian Institution to support a project titled “Radial density profile and onset of clumping in the stellar wind of a O61a star.”

Rajan Chakrabarty, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering, received a $410,856 grant from the National Science Foundation for, as he describes it, “three weeks of intense wildfire-smoke science.” Chakrabarty and his research group are participating in Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ), a large-scale investigation into […]

Washington University in St. Louis alum Ben James recently founded sustainable food company Stone’s Throw Hash in Baltimore.

Anne H. Cross, MD, the Manny and Rosalyn Rosenthal and Dr. John L. Trotter MS Center Chair in Neuroimmunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received the John Dystel Prize for Multiple Sclerosis Research from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the American Academy of Neurology. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to research in the understanding, treatment or prevention of multiple sclerosis.

Images from in and around the Washington University campuses.

Richard A. Loomis, professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, received a $140,000 grant from the National Science Foundation in support of a project titled “Measuring the dynamics of excitons in 1D semiconductor quantum wires with quantum state resolution.”