Science & Technology

More than 1,000 science researchers from around the world descended upon St. Louis during the second week of August for what Provost Holden Thorp, PhD, wittingly referred to as “Photo-palooza” for the gathering’s focus on photosynthesis research. Washington University’s International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES) served as host to the 11th Workshop on Cyanobacteria and the Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC) hosted the Light Harvesting Satellite Meeting 2013.

Philip Bayly, PhD, the Lilyan and E. Lisle Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and chair the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, has received a three-year, $429,222 grant from the National Science Foundation to study mehanical properties in the brain.

Some wild clones of social amoebas farm the bacteria they eat, but this is a losing strategy if nonfarming amoebas can steal the farmers’ crops. To make the strategy work, the farmers also carry bacteria that secrete chemicals that poison free riders. The work suggest farming is complex evolutionary adaptation that requires additional strategies, such as recruiting third parties, to effectively defend and privatize the crops, the Washington University in St. Louis scientists say.

In a few days, a balloon-borne telescope sensitive to the polarization of high-energy “hard” X-rays will ascend to the edge of the atmosphere above Fort Sumner, N.M. Once aloft, the telescope will stare at black holes, neutron stars and other exotic astronomical objects that shine brightly in the X-ray part of the spectrum in order to learn about their nature and structure.  After years of preparation, the X-Calibur team is racing to get the experiment mission-ready in time for the stratospheric wind event they hope to ride.

New Washington University students interested in entrepreneurship can get their feet wet before classes even begin. The IDEA program, from the Skandarlis Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, introduces students to the university’s entreprenuerial ecosystem, allowing incoming students to connect with each other and with upperclassmen during a weeklong orientation program.

​Bilal Mark McDowell Bomani, senior research scientist at the NASA Glenn Research Center, will deliver the 17th annual Chancellor’s Fellowship Conference Lecture for Washington University’s Assembly Series. His talk, which will focus on the research he leads in developing the next generation of biofuels that are sustainable, renewable and safe, will be 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 20, in Whitaker Hall, Room 100, on the Danforth Campus.​

The Online College Database has named Washington University in St. Louis one of “50 Colleges Committed to Saving the Planet” in recognition of its new environmental policy major. The College Database called the major “a rigorous journey through the tangled web of politics, bureaucracies, public opinion, regulation, the global political economy, sustainability, global oil battles, climate change, genetically altered foods, air and water quality, and biochemistry.”

Deeply concerned about an “innovation deficit” that is threatening the nation’s economic growth, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Timothy M. Wolfe, president of the University of Missouri System, sent a joint letter last month to Missouri’s U.S. congressional delegation urging their support in helping close this innovation gap. Wrighton and Wolfe also  joined more than 160 university presidents and chancellors in signing an open letter July 31 to President Obama and the U.S. Congress asking them to restore federal investments in higher education and research.

Fuzhong Zhang, PhD, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering, has received a Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. He is the first faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis to receive the award, which recognizes an elite group of scientists early in their careers at research universities.

Fuzhong Zhang, PhD, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, works with Synechocystis 6803 — as well as other microbes and systems — in the areas of synthetic biology, protein engineering and metabolic engineering, with special focus on synthetic control systems to make the organism reach its untapped prowess. He says the biotech world has to overcome several challenges to put the engineered microbes in the applications stage.