Newsroom Stories

Six Washington University faculty members have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Courtesy PhotoThe BJC Institute of Health at Washington University is on schedule to open in December 2009.

Douglas L. Mann, M.D., has been named the Tobias and Hortense Lewin Professor and director of the Cardiovascular Division in the Department of Medicine.

Raymond D. Miller, Ph.D., research assistant professor in genetics, died Dec. 13, 2008. He was 64. Miller was employed at the medical school from 1982 until his retirement in April 2008. In 2005, he was a member of the International HapMap Consortium, which published a high-density haplotype map of the human genome, a sequel to […]

Gerald EarlyThose looking to learn more about president Barack Obama and gain an introduction to African-American writing in the process are advised to check out two new books — “Best African American Fiction: 2009” and “Best African American Essays: 2009.” Edited by Gerald L. Early, Ph.D., the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters and director of the Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences, the two volumes are the first in the “Best of…” series to exclusively showcase African-American writing. They include writing by and about Obama.

First Stage Competition entry, 1947The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial — popularly known as the St. Louis Gateway Arch — is the tallest monument in the United States and an icon of modern architecture, its great steel arc embodying strength, elegance and simplicity. Yet creation of the Arch was anything but simple. This spring the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will explore that complex history with the exhibition and symposium On the Riverfront: St. Louis and The Gateway Arch. Held in conjunction with Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, On the Riverfront will focus on the people, events and conditions that culminated in the 1947-48 competition from which Eero Saarinen’s design was chosen, as well as the monument’s subsequent construction and its place in American architecture.

Schedule of events and participant biographies.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoWUSTL biomedical engineers Younan Xia (left) and Lihong Wang examine the photoacoustic tomography machine (PAT) in Wang’s Whitaker Building laboratory.Information obtained from a new application of photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is worth its weight in gold to breast cancer patients. For the first time, Lihong Wang, Ph.D., Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, with a joint appointment in Radiology, and Younan Xia, Ph.D., James M. McKelvey Professor in Biomedical Engineering, with a joint appointment in chemistry in Arts & Sciences, both at Washington University in St. Louis, have used gold nanocages to map sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) in a rat noninvasively using PAT.

Locking up toxic assets in a “bad bank” may sound childish, but banking expert Stuart Greenbaum says, “by isolating impaired assets and preventing them from contaminating other bank assets, banks can concentrate on the business of making new loans.”

Marcia Munk, Universidade Federal de São PauloWhat if free exercise classes were offered in public spaces such as parks, beaches and recreation centers? When a city government in Brazil tried such a program, it greatly increased physical activity among community members. A group of health researchers who studied the program believes it could also work in U.S. cities with warm climates.