Newsroom Stories

British historian Janet Browne, Ph.D., an expert in examining the life, times and work of Charles Darwin,will present the Thomas Hall Lecture “Charles Darwin and the Economy of Nature: Money, Metaphor and Adaptive Capital” at 4 p.m. Nov. 15 in the Laboratory Sciences Building auditorium.

Normal lung air passage (left) and asthmatic lung air passage after viral infectionBabies who get severe respiratory viral infections are much more likely to suffer from asthma as they get older. Now researchers at the School of Medicine have pinpointed a key step in the development of asthma in mice after a severe respiratory infection. They suggest that medications designed to interfere with this mechanism could potentially prevent many cases of childhood asthma.

ImaiThe body’s fat cells help the pancreas do its job of secreting insulin, according to research at the School of Medicine led by senior author Shin-Ichiro Imai. This previously unrecognized process ultimately could lead to new methods to improve glucose metabolism in type 2 diabetic or insulin-resistant people.

The Veterans Services Summit features new information about mental health services for veterans. In addition, the summit will feature a demonstration of Virtual Iraq technolgy, a virtual reality system that aids in the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder with returning veterans.

A team of seismologists from Washington University in St. Louis, like members of the starship Enterprise, will “boldly go where no man has gone before” after Thanksgiving this year. The team, led by Douglas A. Wiens, Ph.D., Washington University professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, will go to remote regions of Antarctica to place seismographs in both east and west Antarctica to learn about the earth beneath the ice, and glean information about glaciers, mountains and ice streams.

British historian of science Janet Browne continues to explore Darwin’s evolutionary idea.

Scientists at the School of Medicine, working as part of an international team of researchers, have completed a massive effort to map the genetic changes underlying the most commonly diagnosed form of lung cancer. Their results are published in the Nov. 4 advance online issue of the journal Nature.

Lynn Hershman LeesonPioneering performance artist Lynn Hershman Leeson and feminist scholar Maria Elena Buszek will join Catharina Manchanda, Ph.D., curator for the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, for a panel discussion at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 16. The event is held in conjunction with Beauty and the Blonde: An Exploration of American Art and Popular Culture, the first museum exhibition to investigate the strategic use of the blonde in contemporary art.

Gail PetersGail A. Peters has been appointed executive director of compliance and audit at Washington University in St. Louis, announced Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. Peters, formerly the director of internal audit and university compliance officer at the university, will report to the chancellor and will oversee the Internal Audit Department and University Compliance Office.

School of Medicine researchers have found that a protein that they believe may provide a novel approach for obesity treatment in the future.