Newsroom Stories

Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Claire Porter will present an informal dance concert titled Namely, Muscles at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 20, in the Annelise Mertz Dance Studio. The hour-long, one-woman show features Porter as Dr. Nickie Nom, a “forensic orthopedic autopsy muscular anatomical specialist” whose poetry enacts all the major muscles of the body — and then some.

An enzyme researchers have studied for years because of its potential connections to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and stroke appears to have yet another major role to play: helping create and maintain the brain. When scientists at the School of Medicine selectively disabled the enzyme AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in mouse embryos, overall brain size was reduced by 50 percent, the cerebrum and cerebellum were shrunken, and the mice died within three weeks of birth.

Pianist and harpsichordist Charles Metz, Ph.D., will perform an intimate program for the Washington University Department of Music in Arts & Sciences at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 22, as part of its spring 2009 concert series. The concert — which will take place at the 560 Music Center in University City — will feature 16th-century English and 17th-century Italian music performed on the virginal, a smaller, rectangular version of the harpsichord.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have linked a potential indicator of Alzheimer’s disease to brain damage in humans with no signs of mental impairment. Although their cognitive and neurological assessments were normal, study participants with lower levels of a substance known as amyloid beta 42 (A-beta 42) in their cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) had reduced whole brain volumes, suggesting that Alzheimer’s changes might already be damaging their brains.

Last year, Chuck Rickert, a fifth-year student in the M.D./Ph.D. program at the School of Medicine, heard a show about kidney donation on National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation.” One of the callers, a man in his 50s on dialysis, said his blood type did not match any friends or family, and his only option for a new kidney was to wait for something bad to happen to a younger person. The distressed man’s call stuck with Rickert, who eventually decided to anonymously donate one of his own kidneys.

SandellLinda J. Sandell, Ph.D., has been named the Mildred B. Simon Research Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the School of Medicine. “Linda Sandell is a very talented scientist who has contributed a great deal to Washington University and to our understanding of the basic cellular mechanisms behind diseases of the connective tissues,” said Washington University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.

Photo by David KilperBill Witbrodt, director of Student Financial Services, helps make it financially possible for bright, deserving students to get a WUSTL education.

Residents with appropriate training can safely make the decision to administer stroke treatment in emergency cases, a new study shows.

Washington University has awarded five Bear Cub Fund grants totaling $150,000 to support innovative research that shows commercial potential. The grants were awarded to: Zhou-Feng Chen, Ph.D., associate professor of anesthesiology, of psychiatry and of developmental biology; Dan Moran, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering, of physical therapy and of neurobiology; Brian Dieckgrafe, M.D., Ph.D., […]

Photo by Robert BostonStephen Rogers, Ph.D., explains his poster to Solange Landreville, Ph.D., at the Fifth Annual Postdoc Scientific Symposium Feb. 24 in the Eric P. Newman Education Center.