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Scientists have linked a protein to the body’s use of glucose and shown its potential as a target for new drugs to treat diabetes and obesity.

Photo by Robert BostonThe School of Medicine awarded medical degrees to 126 students in May. The new graduates will take their extraordinary knowledge, energy and enthusiasm with them as they embark on careers in surgery, pediatrics, internal medicine, public health and many other medical disciplines.

Photo by Robert BostonWenFourth-year student Leana Wen was selected to travel with New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristoff to Africa to observe and write about Africa’s problems as a step toward effecting change. Wen was one of 2,000 who applied and will be joined by a teacher from Chicago. She was selected based on her essay below. Read her winning essay.

When repairing severed or damaged motor nerves with a donor nerve graft, surgeons have traditionally used a sensory nerve from another area of the patient’s body. However, these patients often do not fully regain function in the injured area. But now a team of surgeons at the School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital has found that repairing a motor nerve in rats with an intact motor nerve yields better results than using a sensory nerve. The research appeared in the March issue of the journal Microsurgery.

Using an innovative statistical approach, a research team from the School of Medicine and the University of California, Los Angeles, has identified two regions of DNA linked to autism. They found the suspicious DNA with a much smaller sample of people than has been used traditionally in searches for autism genes.

The School of Law will host a two-day national conference titled “Jurisgenesis 2007: New Voices on the Law” for a select group of new legal scholars and their faculty mentors June 18-19.

The annual “MFA Thesis Exhibition” in the Kemper Art Museum May 11-July 16 includes approximately 60 artworks in a variety of media by 14 second-year master’s candidates in the Graduate School of Art.

The Kemper Art Museum presents “Andrea Fraser, ‘What do I, as an artist, provide?'” — the artist’s first Midwest solo exhibition — opening May 11.

Photo by Joe AngelesChancellor Mark S. Wrighton (left) and a panel of international university presidents discuss ways to move forward at the symposium’s concluding session May 7.On the final day of the International Symposium on Energy and Environment, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton spoke on behalf of the participants and issued a call to action, calling on universities worldwide to marshal their resources for a global effort to secure a brighter, sustainable future. The symposium, sponsored by the McDonnell International Scholars Academy, brought prominent international university presidents and leaders to St. Louis May 4-7.