Children treated for moderate acute malnutrition experience a high rate of relapse and even death in the year following treatment and recovery. A new study led by School of Medicine researchers has found that current target weights and measures used in assessing the children’s health are insufficient, and that raising these thresholds could significantly lower the rate of relapse.

Spinal cord injury damages the connections that carry messages from the brain to the body and back. Restoring function and movement depends on forming new connections between surviving nerve cells. Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert, PhD, of the School of Engineering & Applied Science, received a five-year, nearly $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to use novel methods to study these nerve cells’ growth.

About 120 Washington University students help mentor local high school students through the college application process in a national mentoring program called Strive for College. A group of Rodriguez Scholars started the program on the WashU campus in 2007. On Monday, Feb. 16, local high school participants will visit the university to shadow their mentors.

Legail P. Chandler, assistant dean and executive director of human resources at the School of Medicine, has been named vice chancellor for human resources at Washington University, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said. Chandler succeeds Lorraine Goffe-Rush, who was named vice president for human resources at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.