Author: Ken Duenke

A memorial service for Elizabeth K. Barry, a first-year student in Arts & Sciences who died Dec. 8, 2008, will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 25, in Graham Chapel. The service will be open to the University community.

Lodge Jennifer Lodge has been named associate dean for research at the School of Medicine. The appointment is effective Feb. 1, 2009. In the newly created position, Lodge will coordinate efforts to advance research at the school, focusing particularly on projects that involve multiple departments, multiple disciplines and core facilities that can serve a wide variety of researchers.

Gross (left) and Xianlin Han analyze samplesResearchers at the School of Medicine, led by heart specialist Richard Gross, are studying how altered fat metabolism causes heart failure in diabetic patients. They have received a five-year, $11 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue their investigations.

Many older adults worry — a lot. Almost one in 10 Americans over age 60 suffer from an anxiety disorder that causes them to worry excessively about normal things — like health, finances, disability and family. Although antidepressant drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) can improve anxiety symptoms in younger adults, little has been known about their effects in older people. In the largest study of SSRIs in older people with anxiety disorders, a team of psychiatric researchers found the drug escitalopram (Lexapro®) improved anxiety symptoms and quality of life.

WilsonWilliam Julius Wilson, one of the nation’s leading scholars on race and urban poverty, will deliver this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebration lecture at 4 p.m. Jan. 19 in the Eric P. Newman Education Center, 320 S. Euclid, on the School of Medicine campus.

Photo by Jennifer SilverbergWilliam “Bill” Clay, Sr. Missouri’s first black congressman, discusses his new book, “The Jefferson Bank Confrontation: The Struggle for Civil Rights in St. Louis,” with area high school students in Edison Theatre Jan. 9 as part of the Big Read program.

Marcia Munk, Universidade Federal de São PauloWhat if free exercise classes were offered in public spaces such as parks, beaches and recreation centers? When a city government in Brazil tried such a program, it greatly increased physical activity among community members. A group of health researchers who studied the program believes it could also work in U.S. cities with warm climates.

The inauguration of the first African-American president on January 20, held in such close proximity to the annual commemoration of the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. on January 19, as well as the “Big Read” community book discussion on “To Kill a Mockingbird,” provided the impetus for the Assembly Series to take on a project featuring the Human Race Machine (HRM).

In small towns in the Midwestern United States, people who eat out often at buffets and cafeterias and who perceive their community to be unpleasant for physical activity are more likely to be obese. The findings are published in the December issue of Preventive Medicine.

Six faculty members from Washington University in St. Louis have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society. The highest honor awarded by AAAS, the rank of fellow is bestowed upon members by their peers in recognition of scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.