Author: Neil Schoenherr

Yesterday, it was announced that Allergan had transferred the ownership of the patents on its billion-dollar drug Restasis, used for the treatment of chronic dry eye, to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe. The Tribe then exclusively licensed the drug back to Allergan, in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in both licensing and royalty fees. Although it may not sound like it, this transfer is potentially huge news in the drug pricing world. It is also extremely complex, and its full implications have yet to be determined.

Sean Joe, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named to the national advisory committee of Forward Promise, a national grant-making program that supports the health of boys and young men of color.

The Trump administration on Sept. 4 announced plans to end DACA, which protects nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. The president’s decision is not only regrettable, it was entirely unnecessary, says Stephen Legomsky, the John S. Lehmann University Professor Emeritus and renowned expert on immigration law.

Fred Ssewamala, professor at the Brown School, has received a $3.4 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to study the effectiveness of interventions in Uganda aimed at protecting adolescent girls against known HIV risk factors.

At the most basic level, prestige combat films, or PCFs, tell stories of U.S. soldiers fighting abroad in actual historical conflicts. Nearly every PCF presents the battlefield from the point of view of the individual soldier, frequently from the lowest rank: the grunt. Central characters in these films seldom rise above lieutenant. The PCF is generally not about officers and never about famous figures of military history—as were many war films made during the 1960s.

What’s the secret to unlocking artificial intelligence (AI) and making it ubiquitous in our everyday lives? The answer may lie with the most abundant animals on earth — insects. The behavioral adaptations of insects could help commercial organizations overcome a significant hurdle for AI adoption today: cost.

For the Sake of All, a Washington University in St. Louis-based initiative working to improve health equity for African-Americans in the St. Louis region, has received a $1.1 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to work within St. Louis Public Schools and the Normandy Schools Collaborative.

The School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis hosts a panel discussion Friday, Sept. 1, to address the NAACP travel advisory in Missouri. Participants include Gerald Early in Arts & Sciences; former Missouri governor Jay Nixon; and the law school’s Peggie Smith and Elizabeth Sepper.

Grand Canyon for Sale, by journalist Stephen Nash, is a wake-up call for anyone who cares about public lands, especially the U.S. national parks. In carefully reported detail, Nash describes the numerous threats faced by federally managed lands from organizations with various economic interests. Others have posed similar warnings, but Nash provides urgency to the argument by documenting how such threats are enhanced by climate change and may be aggravated by the apparent intentions of the Trump Administration.

The Brown School has been awarded a $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to increase sustainability of evidence-based tobacco control programs and policies. Sarah Moreland-Russell, assistant professor of practice and senior scholar to the Clark-Fox Policy Institute, will serve as principal investigator.