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Scientists have linked a protein to the body’s use of glucose and shown its potential as a target for new drugs to treat diabetes and obesity.

Photo by Robert BostonWenFourth-year student Leana Wen was selected to travel with New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristoff to Africa to observe and write about Africa’s problems as a step toward effecting change. Wen was one of 2,000 who applied and will be joined by a teacher from Chicago. She was selected based on her essay below. Read her winning essay.

Photo by Robert BostonThe School of Medicine awarded medical degrees to 126 students in May. The new graduates will take their extraordinary knowledge, energy and enthusiasm with them as they embark on careers in surgery, pediatrics, internal medicine, public health and many other medical disciplines.

Using an innovative statistical approach, a research team from the School of Medicine and the University of California, Los Angeles, has identified two regions of DNA linked to autism. They found the suspicious DNA with a much smaller sample of people than has been used traditionally in searches for autism genes.

The School of Law will host a two-day national conference titled “Jurisgenesis 2007: New Voices on the Law” for a select group of new legal scholars and their faculty mentors June 18-19.

The annual “MFA Thesis Exhibition” in the Kemper Art Museum May 11-July 16 includes approximately 60 artworks in a variety of media by 14 second-year master’s candidates in the Graduate School of Art.

Photo by Joe AngelesChancellor Mark S. Wrighton (left) and a panel of international university presidents discuss ways to move forward at the symposium’s concluding session May 7.On the final day of the International Symposium on Energy and Environment, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton spoke on behalf of the participants and issued a call to action, calling on universities worldwide to marshal their resources for a global effort to secure a brighter, sustainable future. The symposium, sponsored by the McDonnell International Scholars Academy, brought prominent international university presidents and leaders to St. Louis May 4-7.

Arts & Sciences will recognize the achievements of five alumni and a special friend at 4 p.m. May 18 in the Arts & Sciences Laboratory Science Building. Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., executive vice chancellor, dean of Arts & Sciences and the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, will present Distinguished Alumni Awards to Mel F. Brown, J.D., (A.B. ’57, J.D. ’61); Alvin Rabushka, Ph.D., (A.B. ’62, M.A. ’66, Ph.D. ’68); Ronald M. Rettner (A.B. ’72); Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D., (A.B. ’67, M.A. ’69); and William Jay Smith (A.B. ’39, M.A. ’41). Macias will also present the Dean’s Medal to Harriet K. Switzer, Ph.D., secretary to the Board of Trustees, for her support and dedication to Arts & Sciences. More…

Six prominent people, including a legendary radio broadcaster and the first woman president of the country’s fourth-oldest university, will receive honorary degrees during the University’s 146th Commencement ceremony May 18. The University also will bestow academic degrees on more than 2,300 students during the ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. in Brookings Quadrangle.

Scientists at the Genome Sequencing Center were among those to decode the rhesus macaque monkey genome, which shares about 93 percent of DNA with humans.