Newsroom Stories

Courtesy PhotoThe $235 million BJC Institute of Health at Washington University, the hub for WUSTL’s BioMed 21 initiative, will open in December after two years of construction.

A study of mental decline in the years prior to diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease suggests that changing the focus of testing may help physicians detect signs of the disease much earlier. School of Medicine researchers have found that visuospatial skills, evaluated with tasks such as connecting the dots or using a guide to build a structure with blocks, begin to deteriorate up to three years prior to a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.

Washington University will host The Center for Academic Integrity’s 18th Annual International Conference Oct. 16-18, 2009. Several hundred students, faculty and staff from around the world will discuss the practice and philosophy of academic integrity, focusing on issues germane to both college and high school education. The conference theme is “Creating a Culture of Integrity: Research and Best Practices.”

Cells in the retina quickly adjust to darkness by way of an intricate process.Ever wonder how your eyes adjust during a blackout? When we go from light to near total darkness, cells in the retina must quickly adjust. Vision scientists at the School of Medicine have identified an intricate process that allows the human eye to quickly adapt to darkness. The same process also allows the eye to function in bright light.

The 2009 seasonal flu vaccination program for School of Medicine employees has been a tremendous success. Given the high and early participation rate by WUSM faculty and staff, the originally published flu vaccination schedule has been shortened. If you have already received your free flu shot, thank you! If not, please protect yourself, your family, co-workers and patients by taking advantage of remaining vaccination offerings.

Scholars from across the country and Canada will gather at Washington University in St. Louis Nov. 6 and 7 for the inaugural International Creole Corridor Symposium. The public is invited to attend the symposium, sponsored by the University and Les Amis (The Friends), the region’s Creole cultural heritage preservationist organization located in St. Louis.

A new mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) closely resembles the paralyzing disorder in humans, researchers at the School of Medicine report online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

School of Medicine employees will have a chance to test their fitness and learn about smoking cessation at the Health Happening wellness fair Oct. 28 from 7:30 a.m.-2 p.m.The fall Health Happening event, “Form, Fitness and Function,” is sponsored by the University’s Wellness Council.

The School of Medicine’s Infectious Diseases Clinic offers free, confidential HIV testing Monday through Friday. No appointment is necessary. Individuals will receive a rapid HIV test using a finger-prick blood sample, with results available 20 minutes after testing. Testing is offered Monday – Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 – 3 p.m., and on Friday from 9 – 11 a.m. The clinic is located at 4570 Children’s Place, on the medical school campus.

An historian of politics and American institutions at Washington University in St. Louis says that there is a “profound” difference between the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama and ones to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. And it has nothing to do with the fact that President Obama is only eight months into his first term as president and Presidents Roosevelt and Wilson were both near the end of their second terms when they received theirs, says Peter J. Kastor, Ph.D., an associate professor of history and of American culture studies in Arts & Sciences.