Newsroom Stories

A new drug-free treatment for asthma has been shown to be effective in an international study of patients with severe, uncontrolled asthma.

Robert Boston/WUSTL PhotoMichael V. Drake, M.D., chancellor of the University of California, Irvine, speaks at the School of Medicine Commencement Recognition Ceremony May 15.

Robert F. Furchgott, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology at the School of Medicine from 1949-1956, died May 19. He was 92.

A five-year, $3 million grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), will allow investigators from more than 50 School of Medicine laboratories to join forces in the fight against musculoskeletal disorders. The grant funds a Core Center for Musculoskeletal Biology and Medicine. Its goal is to better understand causes and potential treatments for muscle and bone disorders.

Many cancerous tumors possess a genetic mutation that disables a tumor suppressor called PTEN. Now researchers at the School of Medicine have shown why inactivation of PTEN allows tumors to resist radiation therapy. The PTEN gene produces a protein found in almost all tissues in the body. This protein acts as a tumor suppressor by preventing cells from growing and dividing too rapidly.

If you’re clueless about petrology, paleobiology and plate tectonics, the National Science Foundation and the Earth Science Literacy Initiative (ESLI) have just released a free pamphlet offering a concise primer on what all Americans should know about the Earth sciences. “The Earth Science Literacy framework document of ‘Big Ideas’ and supporting concepts was a community effort representing the current state-of-the-art research in Earth sciences,” said Michael E. Wysession, Ph.D., chair of ESLI and associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

HeuckerothRobert Heuckeroth has won a Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Heuckeroth, a Washington University pediatric gastroenterologist who treats children with Hirschsprung disease and other gastrointestinal disorders at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, was one of only four physician-scientists nationwide to receive the prestigious award.

The Gateway Festival Orchestra will begin its 46th season of free Sunday-evening performances July 12 with a concert celebrating American music. The program will include orchestral excerpts from Wicked and other popular musicals as well as the Armed Forces Salute, a medley of official songs representing each branch of the armed forces, and The Stars and Stripes Forever. Subsequent concerts, on July 19 and 26, will highlight Vienna’s classical era with music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven; and works by “Old World” and “New World” composers, including Bach, Beethoven, Adler and Dvořák.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have created a line of fruit flies that may someday help shed light on the mechanisms that cause insomnia in humans. The flies, which only get a small fraction of the sleep of normal flies, resemble insomniac humans in several ways.

Joe Angeles/WUSTL Photo The Living Learning Center An opening ceremony for what could be one of North America’s greenest buildings — a flagship building on the cutting edge of sustainable design and energy efficiency — was held May 29 at Washington University in St. Louis’ new Living Learning Center at the university’s Tyson Research Center. The Living Learning Center is a 2,900-square-foot facility built to meet the Living Building Challenge — designed to be the most stringent green building rating system in the world — of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council (CRGBC). No building has met its standard yet, but the Living Learning Center is in the running to be the first in North America.