Lecture, symposium honors Sam Weissman’s 100th birthday

To recognize the 100th birthday of Sam Weissman, Manhattan Project scientist and beloved teacher who helped convert WUSTL’s Department of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences into a modern research department, the department is hosting a poster session, lecture and symposium Thursday and Friday, May 10 and 11.The festivities will include the second annual Weissman lecture, on the topic of the history of nuclear magnetic resonance, which will be delivered Thursday evening by Charles Slichter, PhD, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Illinois.

Spector Prize goes to Fahey

The 2012 Spector Prize, which recognizes outstanding undergraduate acheivement in research, has been awarded to Paul Fahey, who graduated in December 2011 summa cum laude with a degree in biology. Fahey worked in the lab of Karen O’Malley, PhD, professor of neurobiology in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the School of Medicine. His thesis focused on Fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited mental retardation.

Math students score in Putnam, win and show in Missouri math competition

The Department of Mathematics has announced that a WUSTL team, consisting of senior Alex Anderson and juniors Tom Morrell and Ari Tenzer, placed 28th out of 460 teams in the demanding William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition. Two WUSTL teams also took first and third place in the 17th annual Missouri Collegiate Mathematics Competition. The winning team consisted of freshman Alan Talmage, and juniors Tom Moreel and Ari Tenzer.

Prestigious national scholarships awarded to five WUSTL juniors

Five Arts & Sciences juniors have been awarded prestigious national scholarships. Winners of the Goldwater Scholarship are Rachel Greenstein, a biology major, Jennifer Head, who is majoring in chemical engineering, and Jenny Liu, who is majoring in electrical and biomedical engineering. Madeleine Daepp, majoring in economics and mathematics, and Jeremy Pivor, majoring in environmental biology with a minor in public health, won the Udall Scholarship.

Engineers receive annual achievement awards

Seven distinguished alumni and a former dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science were honored at a dinner April 19 at the Coronado Ballroom. Six received Alumni Achievement Awards, one a Young Alumni Award, and the former dean received the Dean’s award. The honorees are: Larry Chiang, Richard Janis, Deepak Kantawala, Janice Karty, Milind Kulkarni, James McKelvey, Jr., Jennifer Dionne, and Sal Sutera.

Nobel Laureate Ciechanover to speak April 27

Aaron Ciechanover, MD, PhD, the Distinguished Research Professor at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, and co-recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his contributions to the discovery and description of a process cells use to discard unwanted proteins, will give a special seminar at Washington University in St. Louis Friday, April 27. His lecture, “The Ubiquitin Proteolytic System: From Basic Mechanisms Through Human Diseases and on to Drug Development,” will take place at 4 p.m. in the Laboratory Sciences Building, Room 300. The seminar is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.

Can behavior be controlled by genes? The case of honeybee work assignments

In an article published in the advance online edition of Genes, Brain and Behavior on April 6, 2012, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and his colleagues demonstrate that the division of labor among honeybees is correlated with the presence in their brains of tiny snippets of noncoding RNA, called micro-RNAs, or miRNAs, that suppress the expression of genes.

MacMahon to receive 2012 Stalker Award

Mara MacMahon has been selected as the recipient of the 2012 Harrison D. Stalker Award from the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. The award is given annually to a graduating biology major whose undergraduate career has been marked by outstanding scientific scholarship as well as contributions to the university in the areas of artistic expression or community service.
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