The Cortex Innovation Community and Washington University have agreed to a unique partnership that will give startup companies access to core research facilities. Such equipment and expertise are critical to bioscience companies’ growth and success.

You may think Mike Dyer, the university’s greenhouse supervisor, spends his days puttering around watering plants. Hardly. Instead, his job requires engineering skills, to suppress the greenhouse’s appetite for energy; an extensive knowledge of insects; and the ability to grow any plant he is handed under specified conditions. It’s not exactly relaxing, but he enjoys it that way.

Methadone — long used to treat pain and addiction — can be lethal if it lingers too long in the body. New research led by the School of Medicine’s Evan D. Kharasch, MD, PhD, has identified genetic subtypes in people that govern methadone clearance. The findings could help prevent some of the 5,000 methadone-related deaths that occur each year in the United States.