Month: October 2020

Question: Charles M. Rice won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine this month for work he conducted while on the School of Medicine faculty. What was the medical advancement that warranted the Nobel?

People with Down syndrome nearly always develop signs of Alzheimer’s as they age. School of Medicine researchers are taking part in a multisite study to understand how Alzheimer’s develops in this population, with a long-term goal of finding ways to prevent or treat the disease.

At a time when Americans are increasingly polarized and partisans share a mutual disdain for one another, students in Betsy Sinclair’s “Public Opinion and American Democracy” course at Washington University in St. Louis are learning how to bridge the divide.

The Office of Sustainability is holding electronics recycling drives and lightbulb swaps. They will take place Oct. 29 on the Medical Campus and Nov. 5 on the Danforth Campus. 

Li Yang, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, conducted research with black phosphorus — a material with a thickness of just a few atomic layers — in a study that is hailed as a milestone of the past 50 years by the Physical Review B, an academic journal of the American Physical Society.

An international team of researchers led by scientists at the School of Medicine has identified two regions in our DNA — one newly identified and a second that replicates a past finding — that appear to contribute to one’s risk of becoming dependent on marijuana.

Rohit Pappu, a professor in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, is part of a multi-institutional team awarded a $7.5 million MURI grant to study and engineer membraneless organelles.

Daniel Kerschensteiner, MD, professor of ophthalmology at the School of Medicine, has received the Cogan Award from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. The annual award recognizes a researcher age 45 or younger who has made important research contributions in ophthalmology and visual science.

Former Congressman Richard Gephardt does not know who will win the 2020 presidential election. Nor does he know when the race will be called. But Gephardt does believe the election will be safe, secure and fair. Gephardt will join former U.S. representatives from both parties Tuesday, Oct. 27, for a panel discussion, “Counting Every Vote: Election Integrity in 2020.”

Academics who assembled at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis offered such relevant presentations, research and ideas — a full nine months before a pandemic derailed, if not stymied, global operations — that it produced a special edition in scholarship: how to pay for production and distribution today and manage global risks in a highly uncertain environment. Supply Chain Finance and Fin Tech Innovations was published Oct. 1 as the 14th volume of Foundations and Trends in Technology, Information and Operations Management.