Author: Neil Schoenherr

St. Louis is becoming widely recognized as a successful hub for startup businesses, with a wide range of groups and services that provide a support network for budding entrepreneurs. WUSTL students are getting a firsthand look at one of those resources this semester as they help formulate pricing strategies, marketing plans and competitive analysis for businesses working at T-REX in downtown St. Louis.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, antimicrobial resistance is one our most serious health threats, with infections from resistant bacteria becoming far too common. Part of the problem is over-prescription of antibiotics. Nanopore Diagnostics, winner of this year’s Olin Cup, hopes to change that.

Commercials for the commercials? Arnold Schwarzenegger in tennis gear? A “Full House” reunion? Must be Super Bowl time. “It’s interesting to see the experience of the Super Bowl ads lasting eight to 13 weeks on average today compared to one day of viewing the ads years ago,” says Carol Johanek, adjunct professor of marketing at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School.

President Barack Obama signed a memorandum Jan. 15 directing agencies to allow federal workers to take six weeks of paid sick leave to help with a new child or a sick relative. The president also asked Congress to pass the Healthy Families Act, which would grant Americans seven days a year of paid sick time. Augmenting the Family and Medical Leave Act is one place Congress might start if it wants to combat sex-role stereotypes and advance women’s equal employment opportunity, as well as supporting families in times of illness, say experts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Falling oil and gasoline prices have prompted some in Congress to debate about increasing the federal fuel tax, which helps fund highway and bridge construction, among other projects. Increasing the tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1993 and isn’t tied to inflation, to help offset revenue lost through lower prices at the pump may seem like a good idea in theory, but it’s much more difficult in practice, says tax law expert Adam Rosenzweig, JD, of Washington University in St. Louis.

Renewable energy subsidies have been a politically popular program during the past decade. These subsidies have led to explosive growth in wind power installations across the United States, especially in the Midwest and Texas. But do these subsidies work? Not as well as one might think, finds a new study from Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School.

Steven C. George, MD, PhD, has been named chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, effective July 1, 2014. George is professor of biomedical engineering and of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of California, Irvine. In addition, he is the Edwards Lifesciences Professor and director of the Edwards Lifesciences Center for Advanced Cardiovascular Technology.

For Amazon’s recently announced drone delivery system to get off the ground, the company will have to solve numerous difficult technological challenges. Chief among them will be increasing battery life, getting the drones to work without a central command and to “think” on their own, and determining what kind of navigation sensors they will use. As complicated as those tasks may be, says a WUSTL robotics expert, they will be much more easily solved than the seemingly more simple issues of regulation and insurance.

Clifford Holekamp oversees the entrepreneurship platform at Olin Business School but is also highly involved in the St. Louis startup scene.

“Christmas Creep,” the “technical” term for the pre-holiday appearance of retail decorations and promotions, crept into stores and marketing in October this year. Major department stores are even pre-empting Black Friday by opening on Thanksgiving Day. Is starting the holiday shopping season earlier and earlier a good marketing move or could it backfire? Four marketing professors at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School discuss this phenomenon.