Newsroom Stories

Ramesh Agarwal, Ph.D., the William Palm Professor of Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, has received a three-year, $219,232 grant from the National Science Foundation for research titled “Projects in Complex Fluids and Their Applications.” Agarwal also received the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ 2006 Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award, which honors outstanding achievement in mechanical engineering by someone 20 years following graduation. In addition, Agarwal has been named a fellow of the World Innovation Foundation. … David A. Peters, Ph.D., chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the McDonnell Douglas Professor of Engineering, and graduate students Antonio Hsieh (SEAS) and Almudena Torrero (Saint Louis University) received the Best Paper on Aerodynamics Award at the 62nd Annual Forum of the American Helicopter Society International, held last May in Phoenix. … Karen O’Malley, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology, received the Service Award from the Washington University Academic Women’s Network (AWN). Jack Ladenson, Ph.D., the Oree M. Carroll and Lillian B. Ladenson Professor of Clinical Chemistry in Pathology and Immunology and professor of clinical chemistry in medicine, received the AWN Mentor Award. Angela Reiersen, a post-doctoral research scholar in the Department of Psychiatry, and Jennifer Boland, who graduated from the School of Medicine in May, were each awarded the AWN Student Leadership Award. The awards recognize the individual’s support and leadership in service to or advancement of women in the community. … Eric T. Choi, M.D., assistant professor of surgery and of radiology, was named the 2006 Wylie Scholar in Academic Vascular Surgery by the Pacific Vascular Research Foundation. He receives a $150,000, three-year grant to continue his independent scientific investigations into arteriovenous access complications in patients undergoing hemodialysis due to kidney failure.

Jan. 1-17 Jan. 3 4:32 p.m. — The WUSTL accounting department reports that six fraudulent Washington University checks were cashed at various Wal-Mart stores during the Christmas break. User information recorded on the checks was falsified. Jan. 5 2:06 p.m. — The victim, a visiting actor from New York, had approximately $50 taken from his jacket, which had been hanging in the men’s dressing room in the performing arts area. The dressing room is not secured, but is only accessible by the spiral staircase into the backstage area of the theater Jan. 16 12:13 p.m. — A student lost a package in Wohl Student Center between 5 p.m. Jan. 11 and 10 a.m. Jan 12. 3:45 p.m. — A stolen student ID card was used to purchase food items between between 3-10 p.m. Jan. 14. Total loss is estimated at $50. University Police also responded to one report each of parking violation, auto accident, judicial violation, false fire alarm, leaving the scene of an accident and larceny.

The pink color in the image on the right highlights cells producing excess mucus, a symptom of COPD. The image on the left shows normal lung tissue. Physicians say that smoking is by far the biggest cause of emphysema, but why doesn’t every smoker get the disease? If you asked WUSM physician Michael Holtzman that question, he might answer that for most cases of emphysema you need a mix of genes, viruses and cigarettes. Emphysema and the associated condition of chronic bronchitis are both disorders that contribute to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.

The AIDS Clinical Trials Unit (ACTU) at theSchool of Medicine has received a $10 million grant to find new treatments for AIDS and HIV-related complications, such as dementia, neuropathy and cardiovascular disease. The seven-year grant is from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

An immune system gene that flunked its first tryout as an antiviral factor has triumphed in its second, proving that it can help fight the flu, herpes and the Sindbis virus. Picking the right opponents for interferon stimulated gene 15 (ISG15) to square off against proved to be key to uncovering its potential.

Ralph Stewart*The Dead Father*Choreographer Paul D. Mosley — artistic director for the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY — will return to St. Louis for the first time in a decade to perform an evening of new and old dance works.

The growth factor G-CSF caused bone tumors to increase in size in lab mice. The mouse on the left did not receive G-CSF. The mouse on the right did.In laboratory tests on mice, researchers found that a medication often used to reduce toxic side effects of chemotherapy induced bone loss and helped tumors grow in bone. So the researchers are recommending increased awareness of bone health during cancer treatments. The medication studied is a growth factor commonly used to help cancer patients recover healthy blood counts after chemotherapy, which can destroy white blood cells.

Feinknopf PhotographyLam Partners Inc.Lighting designer Paul A. Zaferiou will launch the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Architecture Lecture Series Jan. 22. Zaferiou, a 1975 alumnus of Washington University, is president and principal of Lam Partners Inc., a lighting consulting firm whose credits include the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and The Getty Villa in Malibu, CA, among many others. The lecture series will continue Jan. 29 with Winy Maas, a principal of MVRDV, the Office of Architecture and Urbanism, in Rotterdam.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesKaylin Boosalis as Alma and Lee Osorio as OskarIn 1973, while a doctoral student at Indiana University, Henry I. Schvey befriended the eminent Austrian expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980). Now chair of Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, Schvey has written Kokoschka: A Love Story, an original drama about the artist’s torrid affair with Alma Mahler (1879-1964), the beautiful widow of composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911).

By all expectations, it shouldn’t have worked as well as it did. A combination of bone marrow transplantation and gene therapy greatly lengthened the lives of laboratory mice doomed by a rapidly progressing, fatal neurodegenerative disorder also found in people. The School of Medicine researchers who made the discovery set out with low hopes for the combination therapy because on its own, each treatment was only modestly effective for the sick mice.