Author: Neil Schoenherr

From drug delivery and energy sources to agriculture and water treatment, some of the world’s largest, and the most complex problems can be solved today with the smallest, simplest structures using principles of aerosol science and technology. Because so many of these problems, while grand in scale, originate at the cellular or molecular level, there is a need to begin by thinking small when engineering a solution. Nanoparticles, which are microscopic in size, have become increasingly important in the scientific community because they have the potential to address a wide variety of issues across fields.

This is what has happened following the revelation that a data breach at Equifax exposed the personal information of more than half of the nation’s adult population. The company’s best offer is free credit monitoring for a year, but only after victims provide more personal information. Equifax has no public plan to compensate impacted individuals and communities. And it need not have a plan, because our laws do not require it to pay the actual cost of this kind of harm.

The United States earns failing grades when it comes to the number of people walking to work and school and the number of walkable communities, finds a new national report. Amy Eyler, associate professor at the Brown School, serves on the advisory panel for the National Walking and Walkable Communities Report Card, released Sept. 14.

Observers long wondered what would become of Barack Obama after he left office. Young and healthy, still pondering social problems, he always seemed an unlikely candidate for the list of distant former presidents. He may well be transforming the post-presidency in ways no less profound than Trump’s efforts to change the presidency.

Private equity firms are more financially stable and pose less systemic risk to the global economy than the large investment banks that went defunct during the financial crisis of 2007-2009, finds a new analysis by a financial regulation expert at the School of Law.

A chief aim of “For the Sake of All” was always to describe disparities in health as more than just a matter of health care. In the hundreds of presentations I have given on our report since its release, I emphasize that health is about much more than doctors’ offices, hospitals, health insurance, and prescription drugs. Those resources are vital to treating illness, but health is also strongly determined by the quality of education, the availability of affordable housing, and the possibility of making a living wage.

Privately insured children and those with Medicaid at the time of a cancer diagnosis experience largely similar survival trends, with slight evidence for an increased risk of cancer death in children who were uninsured at diagnosis, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

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.