Newsroom Stories

M. Kenton King, M.D., former dean of the School of Medicine, died Oct. 15, 2009, at his home in University City. He was 84.

A team of surgeons and oncologists at the Siteman Cancer Center at the School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital is aggressively tackling pancreatic cancer — one of the deadliest forms of cancer — and conducting clinical trials of innovative treatment regimens.

“A lot of people were horrified that it was the first time a political scientist got the prize,” says Douglass C. North in a video interview on the 2009 Nobel prize in economics. North North, a 1993 recipient of the prestigious award, defends this year’s winners, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, as pioneers in the New Institutional Economics that uses an interdisciplinary approach to research. Traditional economists who favor formal mathematical model-based theory are critical of the institutional approach and Nobel recognition of the social sciences versus pure economics. North talks about this year’s winners, their work and New Institutional Economics in accompanying video.

CarneyDepression is common in patients with heart disease but antidepressants often aren’t effective in these patients. In a new approach, scientists at the School of Medicine gave patients antidepressants plus omega-3 fatty acids, which are known both for their heart benefits and for alleviating depression in some people. However, the combination therapy was no better than antidepressants alone, they report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will launch a new Master of Landscape Architecture program in Fall 2010, announced Bruce Lindsey, dean of the College of Architecture and the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design. The program, which will offer both two- and three-year options leading to a professional MLA degree, will be led by Dorothée Imbert, a noted scholar as well as a practicing landscape architect, who is currently associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design Her appointment in the Sam Fox School will be effective Jan. 1, 2010.

Join Milton Ochieng, a medical resident at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and the School of Medicine, and his brother Fred, a medical student at Vanderbilt, at the Missouri Botanical Garden on Tues., Nov. 3, for the St. Louis premier of Sons of Lwala. The documentary film details how the Ochieng brothers built a legacy to their father—the first medical clinic in Lwala, Kenya.

KingM. Kenton King dean of the Washington University School of Medicine for nearly 25 years, died Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009, at his home in University City. He was 84.

M. Kenton King, M.D., dean of the Washington University School of Medicine for nearly 25 years, died Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009, at his home in University City. He was 84.

With health care legislation now up for debate in both the House and the Senate, comprehensive health care reform is closer than ever, says Timothy McBride, Ph.D., health economist and associate dean of public health at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. McBride says that there is still much work to be done with health care reform and contentious issues remain. Among those are the public option, how the legislation will be financed, the generosity of the coverage, Medicare Advantage reforms and whether there will be mandates for employers to offer coverage. (Video available)

Solnica-KrezelLilianna Solnica-Krezel has been named head of the Department of Developmental Biology at the School of Medicine. Larry J. Shapiro, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, announced the appointment, effective Jan.1.