Newsroom Stories

There still is time to help the United Way of Greater St. Louis assist those that need it most. WUSTL continues to accept donations to the annual United Way of Greater St. Louis campaign, which began Sept. 4. The University’s goal for this year’s drive is $555,000, and those who have not yet donated are encouraged to do so as soon as possible.

Shortly after 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 12, a cooking accident damaged five large windows in the South 40’s Wohl Center, on the northwest corner of the second floor. The incident was caused by a portable tabletop stove that malfunctioned when a butane fuel canister sprang a leak.

All University faculty members are invited to submit proposals for academic research projects addressing aspects of entrepreneurship in their areas of discipline or cutting across disciplines. Each research project may receive up to $40,000 for each year of work for up to two years. The funding is provided by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Robert and Julie Skandalaris.

Six WUSTL undergraduate students spent this past summer in the village of Andhra Pradesh, India, teaching English to high school students and conducting research projects. The trip, led by Glenn Stone, Ph.D., professor of anthropology and of environmental studies, both in Arts & Sciences, was the first for a WUSTL group.

Studying efforts to combat obesity in children, a research team led by School of Medicine investigators has found that children who lose weight are able to keep it off more effectively if they participate in a maintenance-targeted treatment program, although the effectiveness of the maintenance program lessens over time.

WUSTL’s efforts to create a more sustainable campus were recognized earlier this month when the University was named one of 15 new “Blue Skyways Partners” by the Blue Skyways Collaborative, a collection of public and private entities working to reduce diesel and energy-related air emissions in the central United States.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Bright tumors, dim prospects (week of Oct. 3) • New drugs for Parkinson’s (week of Oct. 10) • Heart disease in the mentally ill (week of Oct. 17) • Preventing plaque buildup (week of Oct. 24) • Helping children lose weight (week of Oct. 31)

Children who are obese or who are at risk for obesity show early signs of heart disease similar to obese adults with heart disease, a study by researchers at the School of Medicine has found. “Based on this study, these subtle markers can help us predict who could be at risk for heart disease and heart attacks,” said Angela Sharkey, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and a pediatric cardiologist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

A psychiatrist at the School of Medicine writes in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that although mortality from cardiovascular disease has declined in the United States over the past several decades, patients with severe psychiatric illness are not enjoying the benefits of that progress.

WUSTL senior Ruth Poland and Jonathan Chase, Ph.D., associate professor of biology and director of WUSTL’s Tyson Research Center, check species out in one of Tyson’s ponds.An ecologist at Washington University in St. Louis has discovered that after ponds dry up through drought in a region, when they revive, the community of species in each pond tends to be very similar to one another in species composition.