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Influential civil rights expert and Harvard law professor Lani Guinier will deliver the Chancellor’s Fellowship keynote address at 11 am. January 25 in Graham Chapel. Her talk, “Meritocracy INC: How Wealth Became Merit, Class Became Race, and College Education Became a Gift from the Poor to the Rich,” coincides with the commencement of the Assembly Series’ spring installment. A panel discussion will be held at 2 p.m. in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge. Most Assembly Series lectures are held in Graham Chapel at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays, and all lectures are free and open to the public. For a complete schedule and up-to-date information, check the Web site at http://assemblyseries.wustl.edu or call 314-935-5285.

In an effort to foster and encourage productive and proactive dialogue about race within the School of Social Work at Washington University and the St. Louis region, the Society of Black Student Social Workers (SBSSW) will host “Celebrate King Holiday 2006: When Does a Dream Become Reality?” Jan. 16 from 1-4 p.m. in room 100 of Brown Hall. This event is free and open to the public. The celebration will begin with a keynote address by Kristal Brent Zook, Ph.D., an award-winning investigative journalist and author. She will reflect on the past and current status of Black America to determine if there has been real progress in race relations.

John Landsverk, Ph.D., has been named senior scholar at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. Edward F. Lawlor, Ph.D., dean of the School of Social Work and the William E. Gordon Professor, recently announced Landsverk’s appointment, effective Jan. 1.

Structure of the fatty acid receptor CD36French researchers recently reported that mice have a receptor in their tongues that can sense fat, and the presence of that receptor seems to drive the mice to crave fat in their diets. The research was based on work from scientists at the School of Medicine, where investigators previously had identified a protein receptor for fat and documented its function in recognizing and using fatty food.

Repair proteins (bright green areas) are inhibited from gathering at sites of DNA damage.To remain healthy, all cells must quickly mend any breaks that arise in their DNA strands. But cancer cells are particularly dependent on a process called homologous recombination to repair DNA and stay alive. Now researchers at the School of Medicine have identified a protein with a role in homologous recombination, and the discovery could be exploited as part of a two-pronged treatment strategy to kill cancer cells by eliminating their ability to repair DNA.

The new book by the associate professor of education in Arts & Sciences is titled Social Emergence: Societies as Complex Systems.

ITeach is a collection of resources around the topic of teaching with technology; the symposium is Jan. 12 in Eads Hall, with a workshop and support day to follow.

Winners of the 2005 competition were Somark Innovations Inc., iMobile Access Technologies, HomeWUrk and Suzanne Shenkman Designs.

In “living out a childhood dream,” Jayanth Iyengar made it to the final round, placed third and received $25,000 in prize money.

Medical researchers have found that a protein known as MDC1 has a role in homologous recombination — a discovery that could be exploited. More medical news