Newsroom Stories

Photo by David KilperDuring National Fire Prevention Week, the Environmental Health and Safety Department is focusing on educating the University community. Mark Bagby, University disaster coordinator, discusses the success of Monday’s fire drill at the North Campus with Mary Dillender, real estate coordinator and chair of North Campus’ Safety Committee.

Elizabeth Borgwardt, J.D., Ph.D., Daniel Bornstein, Ph.D., Gerrit De Geest, J.D., Ph.D., Michael Lewis, Ph.D., And more…

This year’s Mathematics Department’s William H. Roever Lectures will be a two- day event, October 19-20 in 201 Lopata Hall on the Danforth Campus. There will be four lectures on the recent solution of the very famous Poincare’ Conjecture. John Morgan, Ph.D., professor of mathematics at Columbia University, and Gang Tian, Ph.D., professor of mathematics at Princeton University will give these lectures. Their book, “Ricci Flow and the Poincare Conjecture, “has just appeared. It gives a detailed exposition of the solution posted as manuscripts on the Web server arXiv in 2002 and 2003 by the Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman.

An extra degree of precision will be added to radiation treatments for prostate cancer at the School of Medicine following the installation of two new technologies.

Parents Weekend 2007 will be held Oct. 12-14. Activities include parents joining their sons and daughters for classes, art exhibits, open houses, tours, musical productions and a tailgate party before the football game.

Thomas Ferkol, M.D., director of the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Pulmonary Medicine, is one of a handful of pediatric pulmonologists in the country who study primary ciliary dyskinesia.

To explore the state of spiritual life at Washington University, two campus ministers, Rabbi Avi Orlow of Hillel and the Rev. Gary Braun of the Catholic Student Center, will share their beliefs and guide an open discussion for the Assembly Series. The event, free and open to the public, will be held at 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 15, in Graham Chapel. Amy Heath-Carpentier, a career development specialist in the Career Center, will moderate.

Although the causes of Alzheimer’s disease are not completely understood, amyloid-beta (A-beta) is widely considered a likely culprit. But now School of Medicine researchers have uncovered evidence strengthening the case for another potential cause of Alzheimer’s. The finding also represents the first time scientists have found a connection between early- and late-onset Alzheimer’s.

Is that clover necklace you make for your child poison? It could be. Kenneth Olsen, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, is looking at the genetics of a wide variety of white clover plants to determine why some plants do and some plants don’t make cyanide. Ecology and geography play important roles.

The School of Medicine is collaborating with other area institutions in what will be the largest study of child and human health ever conducted in the United States.